Lobbing Scorchers' Noah Riffe welcomes Seattle artist, photographer, and lifelong Sounders fan Sol (Solzilla) to the show for a conversation about the 2026 World Cup through a Haitian lens. Sol's mom was born and raised in Port-au-Prince, and Haiti is making one of its rare World Cup appearances at a moment when the country has been unable to even host its own home qualifiers.
Lobbing Scorchers digs into why Seattle is making the case for itself as the perfect American host city. Light rail ridership records were shattered the night of the USMNT match, Pioneer Square is buzzing again, the waterfront investment is finally paying off, and downtown has felt more alive than it has at any point since before COVID. So how does the city actually hold onto this energy after the tournament leaves town?
Noah and Sol round out the show with stories from Sol's career as a Seattle hip-hop artist, including the time he did Scarves Up at the Sounders match the week COVID shut everything down. Plus he talks about how seeing Wyclef Jean and the Fugees on screen shaped his identity as a Haitian American kid in Seattle, why his Brazil connection started with watching the jogo bonito of R9 and Ronaldinho at the World Cup, and the case for keeping community and culture at the heart of a fast growing city.
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