Local artists and music curators discuss the beats Portland’s Black Lives Matter movement is marching to
A few short months ago, the streets of Portland were eerily quiet, subdued by the uncertainty of COVID-19’s sudden grip on the globe. Now, Portland is marching into its third month of nightly protest, propelled in part by a soundtrack of the city’s music community.
While summer is usually a time when things would be revving up for promoters like Angela Foster, she had no plans when she stumbled into founding the new platform Hip-Hop Stands Up. It happened after she co-produced a show near the Multnomah County Justice Center in July. The show was set up to spotlight the rap community, which she says has been forged through conditions responsible for the current rebellion.
“A lot of that is what hip-hop has evolved from,” Foster said. “So I think that it’s important that we give the hip-hop community a platform, and also that education that this is the outlet that they’re using to express their creativity comes from.”
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Since that show at the Justice Center, her team has organized several more across the city, including one on July 4. But that show was cut short as law enforcement declared the surrounding protest an unlawful assembly.
Hip-Hop Stands Up’s latest event, on July 17, inadvertently merged with Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty’s vigil scheduled at the same time, and it was marred by use of force by police. Just a half-hour after Hardesty left the event, the Portland Police Bureau deployed tear gas.
The commissioner swiftly decried the police’s actions the next day.
“But not long after I closed out the speaking portion of the event — while hip-hop artists were still performing, while my staff, speakers, and attendees I love were still on the ground,” she said, “there was another unprovoked brutal attack by federal government.”
She continued by denouncing violence from local police as well, and asking Mayor Ted Wheeler, who is the police commissioner, to relinquish the bureau to her. He declined.
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While the city has become a place of national political spectacle, for seasoned emcees like Swiggle Mandela, performing at these protests holds significance beyond the spotlight.
The 29-year-old just welcomed his second child into the world, so while he has been inspired by the mass civil disobedience, he said, he hasn’t been out marching because his priority has been staying at home with his wife. But, when he got the call to perform at Irving Park in front of thousands, he felt compelled to show up.
Upon the call, he wrote a new verse to his single “Dear Portland Police,” an open denouncement of local and national police violence to better reflect the times. The original features Mandela’s longtime mentee and survivor of the 2017 MAX train stabbing, Mika Fletcher, rapping under the name Kool Chief Rocker.
Kevin, a DJ, and Rell, perform in the back of a pick-up truck alongside protesters who were marching to Portland Police Bureau’s North Precinct on June 26.
Photo by Mariah Harris/Moments by Mariah
Mandela said he stands on an “unfortunate” platform. One powered by the execution of George Floyd, but centuries of state violence, and Black and Indigenous resistance and organizing both before and after the Middle Passage.
“I grew up running around that park, playing in that park. I grew up in that neighborhood. It’s always been a special place to people in Northeast Portland, and so it really just felt like something that was owed to me. I was just really grateful to be there because it’s something we have to fight for, even though it’s ours, so it just felt like destiny,” he said.
A subsequent performance at Peninsula Park proved even more moving for him, having grown up around the corner from the iconic greenspace.
“Me, my brothers, my friends, we would go there every day,” he said. “I fought there, learned respect there, been around all types of people there,” he said, invoking the name “Pat-Pat,” a nickname for Patrick Kimmons, who was shot and killed by Portland police in 2018 — as someone he saw in the park every day.
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Mandela has been performing since he was a teenager, but the Jefferson High School graduate said having a show at Peninsula was an elusive dream for years, until now. He said permit fees were a barrier.
“Of course it’s just so hard to make that happen, as far as getting permits and really doing the music that we want to do. Because, a lot of our music is revolutionary, but some of my music is just fun. Some of my homies’ and my brothers’ music is just party music. And to really just be ourselves and unapologetically Black up at Peninsula Park, that just would seem like just a hard thing to do, to get those permits and make that happen.”
Nonetheless, he called his performance debut at the park “another magical moment.”
VNPRT has been hosting virtual events only since the stay-at-home orders took effect. After receiving a same-day invite to DJ a Juneteenth event, however, he reluctantly agreed.
“It’s interesting because it’s Portland. I saw my people, but I also saw a lot of white folks out there. I was mainly out there because it was Juneteenth,” he said.
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“It was dope to see my people in the front, just really having an outlet to enjoy themselves,” he said. “At the same time, I was thinking about their safety, via COVID and stuff.”
His name serves as a nod to a World War II-era town with a large African American population, Vanport, which grew to become Oregon’s second biggest city before a flood destroyed it. The town also was home to the founder of Oregon’s first Juneteenth, Clara Mae Walker.
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An open-format, or multi-genre, DJ by trade, VNPRT said he took the opportunity not just to entertain, but to educate.
“Especially in house music, that’s pretty dominated by white people in Portland,” he said. “I thought it was really important to bring the focus back to all of music is Black music, and all Black music came from a revolutionary standpoint.”
As the masses continue to lean into Black artists for comfort during the stress of the simultaneous uprisings and pandemic, he sees an opportunity for them to “regain their value.”
Five years ago, Mia O’Connor-Smith (her last name will soon be changed to Ralah) created the now inactive platform Deep Underground, or DUG, as an open mic to give voice to that value. Particularly, she wanted the mic, started in the basement of her then-Northeast Portland home, to amplify burgeoning discontent of Black and brown communities in Portland as the killings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown swept the headlines.
“It was like comrades coming together but very relaxed because it was an open mic,” O’Connor Smith said, describing DUG.
The mic quickly grew beyond the basement to one of the largest arts movements in the city: one that nurtured and gave rise to some of Portland’s favorite acts today, like Fountaine, Brown Calculus, Mat Randol, Blossom and many others.
And while things at DUG are on hold for the future, surveying the land of today’s uprisings, she still has a message:
“Turn to the artists sharing their stories because they are going to be the ones to help us make sense of this all.”