Skip to main contentMic Crenshaw's debut album, Thinking Out Loud, has been hyped as the culmination of 16 years Crenshaw has spent on the fledgling local hip-hop scene.
But what fans attending his string of shows this week in Portland and Seattle may not know is that on Nov. 13, just five days before the album's official debut, a Multnomah County grand jury indicted Crenshaw on two felony counts of theft by extortion and coercion.
The charges stem from the aftermath of a bar fight last summer in which Crenshaw—a trained martial artist built like The Rock crossed with an Abrams tank—took a beating that landed him in the hospital. The bouncer who delivered that beating is the man he's accused of extorting.
Michael Webster Crenshaw faces a maximum six months in jail if he's convicted. He hasn't yet entered a plea, but his attorney, David Peters, says the 38-year-old rapper is an innocent man.
"When all the facts come out, it will be clear Mr. Crenshaw was the victim in all of this," Peters says.
The fight happened June 26 at Dante's club on the corner of Southwest 3rd Avenue and Burnside Street, where Crenshaw works as a daytime bartender.
According to owner Frank Faillace, Crenshaw tried to enter the club at about 2 am and was stopped by Arjun Dey, a bouncer working the front door. A scuffle ensued, and a second bouncer entered the fray.
"I ran outside and saw our security holding Mic, and he was bleeding from a cut on his nose," Faillace wrote in an email to WW. "All they could say was he wouldn't stop when they asked him to."
Mike Damron, frontman for the band Thee Loyal Bastards and a bartender at Dante's, saw the tail end of the fight.
"When I walked up he was already bleeding and pepper-sprayed and all that shit," Damron says of Crenshaw. "It was kind of scary."
According to Faillace, Crenshaw went to the emergency room for a punctured eardrum. Faillace says Dey had been involved in at least four other incidents "where his aggressiveness was in question."
Neither Dey nor the other bouncer was scheduled to work at Dante's again, Faillace says. Dey could not be reached for comment. Crenshaw continued to work at Dante's until about a month after the fight, Faillace says, then took another job.
According to an affidavit filed in court by Deputy District Attorney Sean Riddell, recorded phone calls show Crenshaw repeatedly asked Dey for compensation for his injury. Dey also received violent threats from "known associates" of Crenshaw, the affidavit says.
"During the phone calls, [Crenshaw] stated that he would tell his associates to leave [Dey] alone and not to harm him if [Dey] paid him a monetary sum," the affidavit says.
Crenshaw arranged to meet Dey on Nov. 4 at the Janzten Beach Starbucks. Portland police were working with Dey and supervised the meeting, the affidavit says. After Dey handed Crenshaw an undisclosed sum of money, Crenshaw was arrested at the scene.
"When questioned," the affidavit says, "[Crenshaw] admitted making the phone calls and admitted stating he would tell his associates to leave [Dey] alone if he paid a monetary sum."
Crenshaw is scheduled to enter a plea Thursday, Nov. 20. Damron is convinced his friend—whose previous criminal record turns up a 2001 charge in Oregon for cocaine possession that was dismissed after Crenshaw completed a diversion program—is innocent.
"His record's clear as far as what he's done in Portland and the kind of guy he is," Damron says. "He's a solid guy, as good as they come. It's highly improbable that some bullshit happened like that."
Crenshaw's album includes recollections of his time in Minneapolis with the baldies, a crew of non-racist skinheads who would brawl with neo-Nazis.
WWeek 2015