​When people talk about Seattle, they might mention areas like the South End or Central District, but too often they overlook Highway Tone’s neighborhood. Leanthony Palmer, best known as hip hop artist Highway Tone, lives in the Pacific Highway area.

“They sleep on the highway and we’re doing all the same things but we’re doing it better,” he says. “We’re getting money.

The highway, we’re known for getting money.

When you come down to the highway, to one of our parks or one of our bars, all you see is a bunch of people in the parking lot driving big body foreigns, everybody hopping out with chains and jewelry.

People be having on Gucci, Versace, Louis Vuitton but we’re all from the hood. We came from the struggle, passing around transfers to get on the bus, and we’ve come a long way.

”Highway Tone’s newest project is a reflection of that area and the people within it. Called Highway Signs and Yellow Lines, the fourth studio album by Highway Tone doesn’t yet have a release date.

But Palmer has released a single from the project, called “Yeah Yeah.”“It’s got a catchy hook to it,” he says. “The hook was my guy Mobby V and I did the verses on it and it’s just something you’ve got to hear because if you’re really from the streets and you got somebody locked up or you went to jail and came home and started having big amounts of money and success in life… It’s something you’ve got to see because it’s catchy but there’s a story behind it.

”The music is also a reflection of Highway Tone’s life growing up in an area with robberies, gang shootings and frequent deaths. He’s lost friends and family members to violence, including a cousin and nephew who were shot while sitting in a car at a red light. One of 23 siblings, Highway Tone has even lost a brother and sister to violence. But music was always something Highway Tone could turn to when times got rough. He started making beats in middle school and recording music with a $10 microphone with a sock pulled over it. He could often spotted freestyling while walking down the street.

“I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have the past,” Highway Tone says. “I come from my mom having to be a dope girl selling dope and taking care of us to my dad being a pimp and my mom being homeless. My dad went to the penitentiary, came home and had 20 something kids and at times I would go live with my dad and we’d be in a house with rats and roaches but no matter what my brothers and sisters, we all stayed close.”

“I’m giving people the real life reality of what goes on in the streets everyday,” he says. “That’s what I really like. I’m not going to stay I’m proud of my upbringing but I am proud of it because it made me the man I am today. Made me strong, made me have a backbone.”Now Highway Tone finds himself working on his fourth album after previously releasing Mob Affiliations in 2018, Street Politics in 2019 and Product of My Environment in 2020.

Highway Tone is one of the most known rappers in the northwest’s underground scene; now he wants to get his music in front of the masses. “Whatever it takes to get my family out of the trenches,” he says. “Trying to buy my mom a house one day off this music. I’m trying to give the kids something to look up to.”He’s doing it with a versatile sound – he’s equally comfortable on an R&B track or producing some hardcore gangster rap, and wants to connect with people not just lyrically but emotionally.

“I have my own style and my own voice,” he says. “People love that about my music. I don’t sound like nobody else.”

For more, follow Highway Tone on Facebook and Instagram (hwytone).

His music can be heard on Apple Music and Spotify.

The music video for “Yeah Yeah” is on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm7FxK3k-2s.