(music) ♪ Now, this is the story all about hip-hop in Oregon.

♪ Okay, that had a lot more swag in it in my head.

Portland Oregon's known for a lot of things.

A hip-hop scene though may not be one of them.

In fact, at one point, Portland was poised to become a great hip-hop city.

You heard me.

Historic Black neighborhoods in Northeast.

Jazz dripping out of clubs, funk bands, block parties, dances and a lot of youthful angst.

All the elements were there.

But what happened?

Hip-hop in Portland could have been a much bigger thing.

So we need to go beyond the beats to understand the full story.

Let's start with... ♪ Crack of dawn sunrise ♪ ♪ Motion for the day ♪ ♪ Take heed, listen up and hear what I say ♪ ♪ What, I'm in the cut a savage display ♪ ♪ Of game circulation make the calculation ♪ ♪ What I'm about, you know what I'm about ♪ ♪ The strip, the grinding, real talk in my mouth ♪ The interesting thing about that song, that would probably be the first song that actually I would say put me on the map, like on a rap map in terms of like being established as a real artist.

That song also, like when we talk about, like when I say the strip, the grind, real talk in my mouth, it was indicative of the lifestyle that we were living in Northeast Portland.

You know, we were out grinding the music.

We were out promoting and putting up posters and in the streets.

We didn't have an idea of what was gonna happen.

We were doing the music 'cause we loved doing the music.

- The City of Roses was mostly thorns for Black culture and performing arts.

Historic Black neighborhoods and jazz clubs in Northeast Portland were wiped off the map in the mid 20th century to make way for city projects.

Then the closures of popular music venues like Blue Monk, Berbati's, Satyricon and many more all made growing audiences for hip-hop here a challenge.

And we have gentrification to thank for that (beep).

I mean, what the... - [Presenter 1] Portland, City of Roses, - Portland is one of America's most livable cities.

- However, this did not stop the community from prospering.

Instead, it made them wanna ♪ Jump, jump ♪ At the chance to create.

Okay, enough of that, I'll just let you see it for yourself.

- In order to see hip-hop, to see MCs, DJs and the like B-boys.

There would be Park Jams at Peninsula Park, occasionally at Irving Park.

And most of this is born out of the funk movement, right?

So we had all these funk bands that would play at the Park Jams in the summer months, in the spring months.

The dancers wound up dancing there.

You could see the poppers or whatever.

And so, hip-hop sort of evolved into that.

A really famous, legendary party that happened in Portland a couple of years in a row was called Black Rock 88.

♪ Yeah, oh ♪ ♪ - And that actually happened at Knott St. Community Center or Matt Dishman.

Joe Bean Keller from here would put on break dance battles and those will be happening at the Starry Night, which is now called the Roseland Theater.

Seeing those guys just like spontaneously going at it in the parks, on the street corners, at the bus stops, that was everything.

- But the first example of like real hip-hop success and like, oh, it can be done was U-Krew, like by far.

♪ Rip City, rap city ♪ ♪ Portland, Oregon, USA ♪ ♪ Rip city, rap city ♪ - There was just all of these DJs, B-boys, MCs and graffiti artists, beat boxers.

We had just superstars here, but it was hard for us to get into clubs.

It was hard for hip-hop to get into clubs on any regular basis.

- You really think about hip-hop, hip-hop birthed and originated in the ghetto in urban communities, urban environments.

And it was the same thing in Portland.

When you get your first experiences, like I said, it would be at Irving Park in the heart of Northeast Portland, - I think had there been more racial diversity in Portland and just more understanding about hip-hop culture at the time that it was the foundation was being laid, we would've got to hear some of the greatest.

We would've had recordings from the greatest.

We would've seen their careers blossom.

Luckily, the Internet is a playground so people are still able to release music.

- Vurse was definitely onto something when he said the Internet is a playground.

Hip-hop artists today use the Internet as a launching pad into the scene to get their name circulating, to share their mixes and mashups and to lyrically send a message.

Back then though, Portland's playground for sharing and experimenting with hip-hop happened in school hallways, local parks, definitely in somebody's parents' garage or best of all, record stores.

- Hello, party people, music lovers worldwide, it's your boy, Reverend Shines, AKA Jimmy Slimwater.

Lifesava Movement.

(hip-hop upbeat music) - Hey.

- Hey, Ryan.

- How's it been?

- Good to see you.

Hey, how's it going?

- Good, yeah, I got some new arrivals there.

- Yeah, you know, I'ma look at the new arrivals first.

So many memories.

I mean, you can see, the proof of what I'm talking about.

Here, there's a young Rev Shines with Questlove.

I mean, I probably didn't even have the name Rev Shines yet back then.

- [Presenter 2] Living Colour, Ultra Black that is, starring Jumbo, the garbage man as Sleepy Floyd, Vursatyl as Bumpy Johnson, and DJ Shines as Jimmy Slimwater.

- What really stuck out to me about Lifesavas' sound was they were sampling those records.

- Record stores played a huge part in the early days of hip-hop production.

Artists found breaks or drum sections from older records and pieced them together into rhythmic beds for hip-hop tracks.

Copyright laws didn't protect music from being sampled.

So record stores were factories for reinterpreting the classics into fresh sounds.

Portland's music scene is eclectic and record store owners stocked their vinyl racks for hip-hop heads with cool jazz, psychedelic rock, you name it, like Jump Jump.

- Now, this has kind of grown into a bigger thing, but back then it was so niche, it was so niche.

And I think that's one of the things that gave Jump Jump an advantage is like we were just water in the desert.

And people would literally have to fly here from Japan, Europe, the East Coast, because you weren't, you didn't, not everybody had just a neighborhood spot that knew all of this stuff, that even knew to like stock certain kinds of records.

- In the world of Portland, when in sampling doubt, Rev really became that guy.

One time he took a visiting band to source some records and I'll just let him tell you the rest.

- By the end of the day, we're just friends with these guys and who are these guys I'm talking about?

The Roots, and Questlove, who just instantly took a liking to us and we became friends.

Questlove, he's just always been a unique individualness that he doesn't really have an autograph.

He signs like this and he likes to draw pictures of himself.

If you see there, I'm holding this record and it's called Aposento Alto, and it is a record that Dan discovered back in the late 90s.

I believe he bought the record at Everyday Music.

We discovered this really incredible drum break on the record.

And at that time, that's what people wanted.

They wanted open drum breaks to sample.

So here's the Aposento Alto record, and it just has the look.

We sold it to QuestLove that day.

He cites Portland as his favorite city in the world.

And just in case you think I'm lying by a little bit.

- Okay, for those of you that keep asking why is Portland my number one all time favorite city in the world?

This is why.

Let's go.

(upbeat music) (laughing) Aye yo, Ryan.

- And that all happened here in Portland, seed that was planted at Jump Jump Music.

Those were the days.

- That seed grew into a forest.

Record stores like Jump Jump, House of Sound, One Stop Records or even radio shows like KBOO.

All of these were just a few spots that supercharged the hip-hop scene here in Portland.

Despite the city's history of discrimination that made sustaining the subculture, so difficult.

It's safe to say that Portland's pioneers walked so that new wave could run.

This very history birth new DJs, MCs, dancers, spaces and groups for Portland hip-hop.

(gentle music) - The very first time I rapped in front of a crowd was entirely in front of my entire high school, yeah.

It started out like ♪ She said she wanted to raise the bar like a athlete ♪ ♪ So then I ran circles around the bed like a track meet ♪ (Fountaine laughing) The entire auditorium was like, "Ah, oh, oh, it's Mikey."

And that in my opinion was like the moment in time for me where I felt like that's where I belonged.

'Cause I went to high school with a lot of Portland hip-hop artists that either are, you know, world renowned famous or locally famous.

And so, like I was in a class where I was a class above Amine.

- Yeah, Amine.

- Who went to Benson High School.

We went to the same school but also a class below, like Mike Capes.

All these guys that, you know what I'm saying, took it to the next level.

And then was in the neighborhood and grew up around, Cool Nutz, Vursatyl.

I have an idea and an agenda and a symbol with my voice now.

And that made me have a voice to other things like politics, other things that were right or wrong.

You know what I'm saying?

They don't want them to hear that and get scared, but it's the truth.

- In the words of Biggie Smalls.

♪ You never thought hip-hop would take it this far ♪ But hip-hop here did.

New wave artists like Fountaine and so many more are keeping the torch lit.

- Portland is a great place for hip-hop.

There's a lot we have to offer and have offered and given to the genre of hip-hop.

- It's taken a lot to get here from weathering and grieving, closures of Black cultural hubs, to pushing out most of the Black population and the erasure of histories that made up those spaces and places.

Portland hip-hop was and remains a framework for the city's cry for growth and keeping it real about marginalized peoples, the effects of gentrification, institutionalized racism, and ultimately, hope for a better tomorrow.

- Hip-hop's so powerful and it does give this platform for people to really speak what they feel.

It's known to have all of these rebellious tenets to it.

And I think that's what keeps the city from sort of putting its arm around hip-hop in the way that hip-hop gets love in other regions.

(hip-hop upbeat music) (hip-hop upbeat music continues)