Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, October 19, 2009
POH-Hop Grand Finale Giveaway for E-40 Tickets
We are looking for the most creative post featuring E-40 lyrics, and you can win a pair of tickets to the POH-Hop 11 Grand Finale Showcase. We are giving away (4) pairs of tickets to the show which will take place on October 23rd at The Roseland Theater. The 4 most creative comments featuring E-40 lyrics will win a pair of tickets, and the most creative comment will get to meet E-40 at the show and get VIP passes to the event.....Let the fun begin...
Make sure that you leave your email address for contact.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
E-40 To Headline POH-Hop Grand Finale Showcase Oct. 23rd
Come out and support the final night of POH-Hop with Bay Area Legend E-40, as he closes out the Portland Oregon Hip-Hop Festival on October 23rd, 2009 at The Roseland Theater. Check out the new single "Get Money" featuring Young Jeezy and B-Legit...Check out the Bay Area legends new single.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Grayskul & Sleep Set To Rock POH-Hop 11 Tonight People
Get ready for an amazing show tonight with 2 NW standouts from the legendary Oldominion Crew. Grayskul and Sleep are set to rock the stage tonight people. You won't want to miss this show....
Grayskul-Scarecrow
Sleep-Hesitation Wounds Intro
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Mikey Vegaz Plays POH-Hop 11 Tonight at The Ash Street
Check out the young gun Mikey Vegaz tonight live at POH-Hop 11 on The Focused Noise Showcase. Tonight is the official start of the Portland Oregon Hip-Hop Festival. Check out the hot videos "Silver Rose" and "Wow(Flyest In The Town)"....It goes down tonight people...
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Mic Crenshaw Plays POH-Hop 11 Jumpoff Party 10/07/09
Mic Crenshaw
If you were asked to picture in your mind's eye the quintessential rapper, it's likely you would conjure something similar to the image on Mic Crenshaw's driver's license. Crenshaw cuts a John Henry-esque profile—massive, black, tattooed—and further comparison to that tall-tale hero is not entirely inappropriate. Mic Crenshaw is a pretty mythic character, and this month he releases a pretty mythic album,Thinking Out Loud.
To get an idea of the importance of Mic Crenshaw to the Portland rap scene over the last 15 years, picture the first caveman rubbing two sticks together to create a spark. The term "pillar of the community" is not one that should be thrown around lightly, and Crenshaw embodies it with numerous creative and scene-building efforts that span genres and musical styles. Crenshaw was making dope tracks long before other Portland rappers were born, much less forming complete sentences.
Crenshaw relocated to Portland from Minneapolis in 1992. At the time, he was moving away from a job as a high school teacher of, among other things, political consciousness in black music—a job he had begun immediately after his own high school graduation. But the transition out west was something of an exodus. In leaving Minneapolis, Crenshaw was vacating a dangerous scene he had inhabited for many years as an organizer in that city's violent, underground struggle against white supremacist gangs. Even though he was qualified to pass on knowledge in a formalized classroom setting, he had never escaped the realities of that turbulent life. Of his move to Portland, Crenshaw says, "I wanted something new. [At the time] my ties with the streets were still pretty strong, and my social life involved drinking and fighting. I was ready for a change."
Change came in the form of new surroundings and a new job in garden landscaping. In that creatively devoid business, Crenshaw had to find outside means to stimulate himself intellectually. It was then that he got involved in slam poetry, and later, rap. "I needed an outlet. I knew that I could write and perform." Crenshaw adds, "I had a lot of things to say."
That comment right there could go down in history as one of the greatest understatements ever spoken, right up with "George W. Bush was a shitty president" and "doughnuts are tasty." Crenshaw's creative output has been astonishingly prolific: Since 1992 he has been part of a half-dozen bands, and released more albums than can easily be counted. While it may seem like Crenshaw was spreading himself thin over too many "side projects," the truth is that he needed each of the groups just to keep up with his nonstop output. "I was putting out more than any one group could absorb," he says.
Throughout the years—fraught as they were with musical endeavors—Crenshaw never fully released a record with a traditional hiphop sound. "All the music I did was appealing to different audiences," he says. "It was a little eclectic. I got tired of putting on a CD of my stuff with friends and having them not feel it as much as I wanted them to." In an epiphany more than a decade in the making, Crenshaw realized that he had to make Thinking Out Loud—something that would provide listeners with a clear understanding of who he was as a person and artist, but also be palatable to a diverse audience.
The record is an unqualified success. On it, Crenshaw makes a powerful case to be known as the best emcee to call Portland his home. He speaks with an earnest, poetic voice with smooth flow from start to finish. Starting out with a lyrically top-notch throwback party cut, "MC Duz It," the majority of Thinking Out Loud strides in deeper conceptual waters. Crenshaw has been characterized throughout his career as a "political" or "conscious" emcee—a mantle he is not entirely comfortable with—and this album does little to change that impression. However, the content comes from an honest and unpretentious place in Crenshaw's character. "I don't want people to think this is not who I am," he says. "I'm not making this up. When I put pen to paper it's what comes out."
Talking to Crenshaw about his philosophy and political beliefs, it's easy to see why his creative content is so charged. His current efforts for global change and advancement of people include helping to facilitate the growth and expansion of a nonprofit organization he co-founded in 2007, Global Family. Through it, computers are sent to youth organizations in Burundi and to Iraqi refugees in Amman, Jordan. It is a growing concern that has enlisted the help of fellow politically minded hiphop artists like Immortal Technique and Dead Prez.
As an artist, Crenshaw is still fighting an uphill battle for recognition. The pursuit of his musical passion is just one more chapter in a life in which Crenshaw has tried to follow his heart over security and safety, tried to do what he feels is right and fulfill his potential as a person. With his life story it's not hard to imagine that in 100 years people will be telling tall tales about him—indeed, even an honest account of the man makes a pretty great story already.
POH-Hop 11 Featured in Oregonian Newspaper
Hip-Hop festival growing beyond Portland
By Special to The Oregonian
October 05, 2009, 2:09PM
The theme of unity has long run through hip-hop culture. Whether it wasAfrika Bambaataa bringing South Bronx breakdancers, graffiti artists and musicians together to keep them off the streets, Queen Latifah bridging the gender gap by singing a song of the same name or Ice-T trying to break down barriers between street gangs in Los Angeles, a central tenet of the music is bringing people together.
When the Portland, Ore., Hip-Hop Festival, or POH-Hop as it's known to organizers and fans, kicks off its 11th year Wednesday night, bringing together more than 50 acts over four nights, it should be no surprise to find it uniting not just Portland artists, but MCs and DJs from up and down the West Coast. Of the four headlining acts, Zion I and E-40 hail from the San Francisco Bay Area, Grayskul calls Seattle home, and Focused Noise Productions -- featuring acts such as Animal Farm and Mic Crenshaw -- represent the hometown.
For many familiar with the festival, Portland rapper Cool Nutz is the hometown. As a performer and organizer of POH-Hop since its inception, he's helped to put Portland on the hip-hop map in terms of recognition while also acting as a pillar of the infrastructure. He often hosts or opens rap concerts around the city, and helps bind together the scene that stages them.
We sat down with Cool Nutz and fellow event organizer Anthony Sanchez to discuss what else keeps them coming back year after year, what's unique about the Portland scene and what it means to stage an event such as POH-Hop in a predominantly white city.
POH-Hop XI
When: Oct. 7, 8, 9 and 23Where: Various locations
Cost: $8-$25,TicketsWest
Web site:myspace.com/pohhop or @PoHHop on Twitter
Anthony Sanchez: There's something every night for every hip-hop lover. The first five acts each night get pretty much 15-minute sets, so you can get a little taste of everybody. And these are guys that do shows professionally, playing on weekends, touring, making money. So, for them to come out and do what they do -- three or four songs on a night like this -- is big. From act to act, you're going to get, across the board, every genre of hip-hop.
Q: I assume some of the artists will haveDAT (Digital Audio Tape) backing, while others will have DJs with turntables. Will there be acts with live instruments?
AS: Zion I will have a live band. There's another band, Quixotic, they're a live band -- DJ, drummer, guitar player. He does a lot of MPC (Media Player Classic, a device holding an arsenal of beats, vocal samples and tonal snippets).
Cool Nutz: Mic Crenshaw might. Last night he played with a two-piece.
AS: For the most part, it will be DJ backup. If they don't have their own DJ,DJ Fatboy will be DJing. He loves hip-hop so much and plays hip-hop across the board so much that he'll just get behind anybody and scratch.
Schedule
Wednesday
Headliner: Focused Noise Productions, including Animal Farm, Serge Severe and Mic Crenshaw
Supporting acts: D. Black, Gray Matters, Soul P, Mikey Vegaz, The Garden, Bad Habitat, Mac Smiff, Rapper E, Zito, Young Dami, Mausey, and hosted by DJ Fatboy, Saphira
Details: 7:30 p.m., Ash Street Saloon, 225 S.W. Ash St.; $8 in advance, $10 at the door
Thursday
Headliner: Zion I, The Jacka
Supporting acts:Braille, Luck One, Dubble OO, Sapient, Eternal Family, Vet Pro, Adeaze, Freddi K, and hosted by DJ O.G. One and Stevie G
Details: 7 p.m., Backspace, 115 N.W. 5th Ave.; $13 in advance, $15 at the door
Friday
Headliner: Grayskul, Sleep
Supporting acts:Illmaculate, IAME, Living Proof, Alphabet Stew, Destro, Diezel P, Pain & Dave Notti, Quixotic, Theory Hazit, Level Headed
Details: 8 p.m., Slabtown, 1033 N.W. 16th Ave.; $8 in advance, $10 at the door
Saturday, Oct. 23(formerly Oct. 10)
Headliner: E-40, Sandpeople
Supporting acts:Maniac Lok, Twisted Insane, Majr D, Saphira, Yung Fadell, Roseville, Jae Lava, Jay Child, Liquid Antrax, 44 Cal, and hosted by DJ Fatboy
Details: 7 p.m., Roseland Theater, 8 N.W. 6th Ave.; $22 in advance, $25 day of show
CN: I think it's both. Portland's not like a New York or an L.A., so it's not industrialized. The people who are doing this, you kind of have to know them. So, even as the city grows, you still have to be aware of the overall community -- of who's doing what, who's running shows, who actually draws people. It's close-knit, but it's still growing. POH-Hop started with two nights. Now we're on to four nights. You'd need five or six night to get everybody in.
AS: I think we're in a really interesting time in terms of hip-hop in the Northwest in general. With the city getting a little bit bigger and Seattle getting a little bit bigger, the scene is blowing up a bit more. There's so many venues here in Portland. There's constantly places for people to play, but you have to make the most of it. Putting on POH-Hop is a fun thing to do because we get to bring so many different genres together, and that's what we're trying to do.
The scene's so spread out right now that we want to bring people together. Seattle's got a little bit tighter scene, and we want to do what all the bigger cities have. We want to organize it a little bit.
Q: The headliners pan from Seattle to the Bay Area. The event seems to spotlight not just local artists but the whole West Coast scene. Is that the case?
CN: The key is that when we started it, it started as being just about Portland. As it grows, it becomes more the Portland, Ore. Hip-Hop Festival. So, it encompasses a lot of the elements of what's happening in Portland, but also recognizes hip-hop overall, and not just on a regional basis. It has the possibility to grow to be something where artists in New York or Florida or wherever are like, “Yo, I want to play POH-Hop,” and we start getting calls and we're not having to reach out to people. That's the direction we're trying to go with it. When you think about it, you have the anchor groups each night, but all the support are Portland groups.
AS: Ideally, we'd like to make it Austin City Limits, North By Northwest (now Musicfest NW). Last year we had One Below out of Michigan.
CN: In POH-Hop's past, we've had Michael Franti and Spearhead, the Luniz, Mac Dre,Ras Kass, Andre Nickatina, Mistah Fab.
AS: A lot of the cats that we have locally are doing stuff across the states. We haveSleep as a support act to the Grayskul night. He's toured across the country. Sage Francis just signed him to his label. To get these cats on the bill that people pay $10 to go out and see -- they're going to get to see 10 acts on a night for $10.
Q: What does POH-Hop mean in a city like Portland, that's as white as it is?
CN: One of the beauties of that is that living here gives us the opportunity -- with the whole lack of what people might say is culture -- it gives us the opportunity to cross-connect with the rock scene. You have to work with Willamette Week, you have to work with the Mercury, you have to work with The Oregonian. You have to be able to build certain business aspects, certain qualities, to be successful out here on an independent level because it's not a hip-hop hot bed.
It forces you to get a better understanding of networking and being in the right places. I can't just go to hip-hop shows andMusicfest NW. I need to go check out these jazz shows or rock shows or whatever. You have to build a relationship with a Casey Jarman or a Luciana Lopez or a Marty Hughley. A lot of the times, somebody like Marty admitted that he wasn't a huge hip-hop head, but he made an attempt to reach out. At the same time, it put me in a position where I had to also relate to his position or his angle. I had to make it digestible to somebody like him.
That gives you the ability to go anywhere, to talk to The Source and then talk to Marty Hughley and then go talk to someone in Salem that might not have a clear understanding.
AS: Musically, the Northwest is known for music that came out 15 years ago. We're known as a grunge rock scene, and that's what we still get identified as. It's like, let's pick that up and make it a little bit fresher. Over the last five, 10 years, the indie rock scene with Kill Rock Stars and all these other labels coming up, it seems like the hip-hop keeps getting passed up, although we have huge quality, amazing hip-hop coming out of the Northwest.
You can go to the East Coast, and they know we have something different coming out of here. All these areas have their own style coming out. I think Portland's a lot harder to put your thumb on.
One of the things we're trying to teach a lot of the artists with POH-Hop is how to approach venues, how to get more shows, how to be more professional. You want to get on POH-Hop, then do the right things to get on POH-Hop. Then you're going to know the right things to do for your next show. You're going to know how to book shows. You're going to know how to book promoters. You're going to know how to go to Berbati's Pan and talk to Matt King, who's probably not the biggest hip-hop lover, but you have to go to rock venues to get shows. That's definitely one of the things we're trying to do with POH-Hop is teach young cats how to get it done.
Q: In a town like New York or L.A., the shadow of history looms over you. Do you feel that Portland is a bit more of a blank slate in terms of creating rap music?
CN: That's definitely a benefit. People always ask me, “Why don't you move?” Living here gives you the opportunity, for one, to hone your skills and, for two, to play a lot of live shows, to release projects and be around a lot of independent-minded people, not only in the hip-hop world, but in the indie rock world. When I go out of town, people are like, “Oh, Cool Nutz, or Lifesavas.” It gives us an opportunity to have our own calling card. When I lived in L.A., you're one of 2,000 MCs trying to make it. To come from here and have my resume built, I can go to New York or Miami and carry that Portland flag.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Fresh Selects Refuses To Support Portland Hip-Hop
This response from Kenny at www.FreshSelects.net really fucked me up regarding POH-Hop, as I reached out him about his support of POH-Hop. I have always worked to unite the music community as a whole and really not let my personal tastes affect what I would do to help those around me. This was really fucked up considering that even some of his people are on the line-up for POH-Hop. It really hurts my heart to know that there are people who don't look at the bigger picture and see what can be done if we learn how to come together. I can understand people's personal feelings, but I can't understand it affecting the greater good of something positive. It is what it is.
On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 1:00 PM, LL Cool Nutz <jusfamily@aol.com> wrote:
how are you doing Kenny?I reached out to you a while ago about possibly working with you in regards to the POH-Hop.I am yet to hear back from you regarding your possible support of the event.I was hoping that you would see the direction that we are going this year with the festival and be willing to support the event.hopefully you have simply been busy and haven't been able to get back to us.the POH-Hop is shaping up to be great this year, and it would be great to have the support of Fresh Selects on this years event.get back to me when you have a chance my friend.
Kenny(Fresh Selects Response)
wutup man,
my bad for the late response.
I've been thinking it over & while I always respect your work & appreciate the festival existing,
at the same time I also don't see much of the line-up reflecting my own personal taste & what i'd like to see for Portland
so i wouldn't feel comfortable with having my brand being associated too heavily with the event
so i wouldn't feel comfortable with having my brand being associated too heavily with the event
with that said, i still wish you the best w/ the project & hope its successful as possible
i appreciate you considering me for involvement though, that means a lot.
peace,
Kenny
The Jacka feat. Andre Nickatina "Glamorous Lifestyle"
The Jacka plays POH-Hop October 8th @ The Backspace with ZION I.....
Zion I "Juicy Juice" Video......HOT
ZION I Play POH-Hop Thursday October 8th @ The Backspace with The Jacka and More
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