Portland Played a (Small) Role in Last Night's Most Memorable Grammy Performance

Kendrick Lamar entered the stage to music from XRAY DJ Kenny Fresh's Fresh Selects label.

By Matthew Singer

Damn, the Grammys ain't got no love for Portland?

Guess not. Local artists got shut out in all five categories for which they were nominated—make that six, if you count Death Cab for Cutie, which includes Portland musician Dave Depper among its touring members. So please, excuse us for one moment while we throw a Kanye-style tantrum:

This is an outrage, fam! First of all, how're you gonna give Best Children's Album to Tim Kubart over Laurie Henriques? She made a jazz album for kids, fam! This Kubart dude wrote a Postal Service song about breakfast, meanwhile she's introducing children to the original American art form! Give that shit back, son! And then you're gonna go give an "Uptown Funk" remix an award instead of RAC, on top of Record of the Year?! That shit jumped the shark a year ago! And how do you even fix your face to not honor the Oregon Symphony? I'm sorry, Judith Sherman, but Blanton Alspaugh's production on Spirit of the Range is the best production on a classical album of all-time! Give those Grammys back, fam! All of 'em! This is some bullshit!

Now that we've got that out of our system, while Portland didn't come home with any tiny gold gramophones, it did play a small part in the night's most memorable performance—and no, we're not talking about Lady Gaga's Vegas-style tribute to David Bowie.

We're talking, of course, about Kendrick Lamar. When the Compton rapper—who picked up seven awards himself but lost Album of the Year to Taylor Swift—first appeared onstage, shackled in prison chains, he entered to a saxophone loop taken from "Omari's Mood," a song by L.A. singer-producer Iman Omari. How is that Portland related? The album the beat appeared on, High-Loops and Higher Loops, was released last September by Fresh Selects, the label operated by Portland blogger and XRAY host Kenny Fresh.

It wasn't a totally left-field choice: Omari's production work appeared on Lamar's first album, Section.80, in 2011. And Fresh has lately been making in-roads with the Top Dawg crew, as The Fader documented in December. While implementing the snippet might represent a small nod for a superstar like Kendrick, it's a major cosign for Fresh, who's long possessed Portland's sharpest pair of ears when it comes to underground hip-hop and futuristic soul.

Watch the full, fiery (literally) performance below, and check out the original Omari beat below that.

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