Portland, Oregon isn’t known as a hip-hop city — despite its long history of sonic experimentation and wealth of talent. KMHD Jazz Radio, OPB’s “Oregon Experience” and the Albina Music Trust teamed up to learn why, calling in Portland’s hip-hop pioneers to share their insights.
(North) West Coast Hip-Hop
Hip-hop is a cultural movement: A synthesis of cumulative Black artistic expression, urban hardship and resiliency born out of marginalization. Out of block parties in The Bronx, New York, in the early 1970s and then Compton in Los Angeles, a musical way of life swept the globe.
But all those starter elements were also getting mixed around in historic Black neighborhoods in Northeast Portland at roughly the same time.
The area already carried the legacy of being a renowned jazz entrepôt from the ‘40s to the ‘60s. Old hands who grew up in the Northeast remembered riding the early hip-hop wave as it began to swell.
“We had all these funk bands that would play at the Park Jams in the summer months,” said Marlon “Vursatyl” Irving, long-time Portland rapper and founding member of the Lifesavas hip-hop group.
“You could see the poppers. Seeing those guys just spontaneously going at it in the parks, on the street corners at the bus stops, that was everything.”
An end of summer funk jam at Peninsula Park in Northeast Portland, Oregon in 1982.
Courtesy of Joe Bean / Albina Music Trust
Young artists also found plenty of avenues to jump into the local hip-hop scene. “There would be stuff happening, like a DJ in the park playing hip hop at Irving Park or Alberta Park,” said pioneering MC Cool Nutz (born Terrance Scott).
“That arcade that had the space for break dancing—that’s on Williams and Killingsworth—in the heart of Northeast Portland."
“— Cool NutzGrowing up in Northeast Portland for me was magical, because we had real Black community.”
Rap battling, home recordings and record samplings proliferated in the ’80s to ’90s as hip-hop accelerated its popularity nationwide. Some Portland groups, like The U-Krew, managed to sign big record deals.
“There were just all of these DJs, b-boys, MCs and graffiti artists. We had just superstars here,” said Vursatyl.
The ceiling
However, Portland hip-hop’s initial flight met some turbulence. Local nightclubs and venues denied artists access to their performance spaces due to racial and musical discrimination.
“It was hard for us to get into clubs. It was hard for hip-hop to get into any clubs on any regular basis,” said Vursatyl.
“Had we had a more welcoming infrastructure to house the hip-hop jams, we would’ve seen crews come into prominence more and stay longer. But because there was no place to perform, most people just moved on with their lives and chose to do other things.”
Then the closures of popular music venues that were supportive of hip-hop — like Blue Monk, Berbati’s and Satyricon — all made growing audiences for hip-hop here a challenge.
“I think had there been more racial diversity in Portland and just more understanding about hip-hop culture at the time that the foundation was being laid, we would’ve seen their careers blossom.”
Decades on, the subculture of hip-hop remains a framework for the city’s cry for growth and change.
Watch “Beyond The Beats,” a short documentary on Portland hip-hop’s past, present and future in the video player above.
This story was written by J Jackson, edited by Arya Surowidjojo and Anthony Dean-Harris, digitally produced by Meagan Cuthill, with archival material provided by the Albina Music Trust. In partnership with KMHD Jazz Radio: Jazz Without Boundaries.
