Skip to main contentThe beats of Verbal Porn, the new album by Portland urban music kingpin Cool Nutz, penetrate a sticky dog day's night as the last dirty lick of sun melts behind Big Pink. Across the river, Northeast Portland wakes up in twilight's shadows even as Cool Nutz's rhyming strokes bring the neighborHOOD to life on his wax tableau.
To Portland hip-hop fans, Cool Nutz--known to his mother as Terrance Scott--really needs no introduction. Through many years and many releases, the leader of Jus Family Records has fought to establish a hip-hop identity, both for himself and his hometown. Now, as he sits down to discuss Verbal Porn, CN looks like a man who has won a few victories, despite the battles to come.
Lightly blinged in a diamond earring, the goateed and bespectacled man speaks candidly about his music, his label and the future of Portland hip-hop.
"What I talk about is the stuff that I see," he says. "I can't rap about how I'm out on a jet ski on the Willamette everyday, because that's not what I know. I grew up around certain elements. I don't want to glorify it, but I can't change that about my life. Growing up in Northeast Portland, I know a lot of people who were murdered in gang violence.
"My brother ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even when he got killed, he was kind of getting away from that stuff. I think about it a lot still--kinda my mind be on that sometimes. Whatever's in me is going to come out on record."
As preoccupied as he may be with the gritty details of city life, Cool Nutz's fourth release, the just-dropped Verbal Porn, proves that his mind wanders elsewhere as well. Porno interludes heat up the disc, with titles like "Harder" and "Boil Over."
"I wouldn't let my daughter listen to my record," Cool Nutz admits. "I'm not real freaky. When I say 'verbal porn,' I mean I'm giving you hip-hop in a raw form."
The album is released on the label Cool Nutz founded in 1992 with childhood friend and super-producer Bosko.
"Me and him are like family," says Cool Nutz of Bosko. "We grew up together from the first grade. At Grant, he was our valedictorian."
The fact that their own indie label is releasing Cool Nutz's record speaks both to the challenges the pair of hip-hop entrepreneurs have faced and their determination. After high school, while Bosko pursued a degree in engineering at USC, Cool Nutz stayed in Portland, went to Portland Community College and worked at Safeway.
"I've had a number of those square billies," he says with a laugh.
In '92, the two decided to get earnest about their music and started the label, looking to build up the Portland scene and grab national attention. Dalliances with majors Atlantic and, more recently, Universal have taught them tough music industry lessons.
Universal signed Cool Nutz, Bosko and Poppa LQ, a mainstay of the LA scene, to form the "supergroup" DBA (Doing Business As). After some initial heavy press and an unreleased album, things began to go downhill.
"When we went to Universal, we've got laptops and we're serious about our b'ness," Cool Nutz recalls. Unfortunately, it seems that Universal perceived his professional approach as insufficiently "street."
"If you listen to the album, you won't hear the word 'bitch' on there, because that's not me," says Cool Nutz. "I don't call women bitches."
Resisting the expectation that he and his DBA-mates carry themselves a certain way, Cool Nutz says, "We came in contact with people who weren't enlightened."
Now planning to release DBA on Jus Family, Bosko and Cool Nutz have put their label back into sharp focus. Their roster includes local artists Maniac Lok; G-Ism, with surviving member Ray-Ray going it solo; Izaya, an urban gospel group; Phranchise, five young guys between the ages of 16 and 21; Bleek, a young rapper from Portland; and Bullet, a white rapper from Bellevue, Wash. The label also works with Mr. D.O.G. from Tacoma and Mac Dre, a Bay Area legend.
"We're looking to better our situation and make it prosperous for everyone," says Cool Nutz of Jus' Family's indie ambitions. "We're not the kind of people who want to ride around in a Benz while the artists catch the bus. My main goal is to create some stability for all of us, where we could buy houses and support our kids, send them to college--where everybody can just live where life is good.
"Portland hip-hop is waiting to be discovered," he says, restating a notion that seems to be the unofficial motto of the Rose City scene. Cool Nutz says he hopes that the Portland sound, something of a hybrid style, will attract fans who are in it for the music.
"The MCs and rappers from here, you can see the influences of different places--East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, Down South, underground, mainstream, gangsta. Everything is like a melting pot. Portland is a real open-minded city."
Thursday night at the Roseland, Cool Nutz is part of the hip-hop showcase kicking off Musicfest Northwest. The show's admission is separate from the $20 MFNW wristband fee.
"That was my idea," says Cool Nutz. "That way it's in the spotlight, at a prominent venue, and it's important to the festival. We get to headline all of the cream-of-the-crop groups from the Northwest that will make this show a big success."
Featuring Latyrx, Cool Nutz, Lifesavas, Proz and Conz, etc.
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave., Fastixx
8 pm Thursday, Sept. 20
$10
For a complete list and previews of Showcase artists, please see the www.musicfestnw.com .
WWeek 2015