Video: Cool Nutz, "The Cook Up"

It's nice to see Cool Nutz taking a moment to celebrate his victories in this video: Having a few friends over, cooking up some pasta, passing around the champagne and reminiscing over old albums. It's also nice—in real life, I mean—to see the Godfather of Portland hip-hop embracing his classic material in recent live shows. I first saw this mini-renaissance happening at this summer's Bastille Day festival at Pix Patisserie: Nutz, with his cousin and sometime-producer Bosko at his side, went through a laundry list of regional classics from the era of Speakin' On a Million and Verbal Porn, and the crowd's reaction was just beautiful. Nutz looks to be embracing that spirit for his stacked Dec. 9 showcase at Ash Street Saloon, which he has humbly dubbed "The Greatest Rap Show Ever." Nutz promises tracks from his entire far-reaching discography, from the G-funk to the minimalist mid-aughts Bay Area/hyphy-influenced cuts.






Too often, local hip-hop listeners like myself tend to speculate on who'll be the first Portland artist to have A-level national success. But here's a guy who has had immeasurable local and regional success (while flirting with fame and fortune). More importantly, he's had a huge impact on the Northwest hip-hop scene—with the fat rolodex to prove it. Hell, I bet Terrance "Cool Nutz" Scott really does have a big fat Rolodex. I bet he couldn't bear to toss that out in the computer era. Too many memories. And as this video proves, he's all about the memories.

Not to say that the soundtracking cut from this Beejan Iranshad-directed (man, that kid has been real busy, hasn't he?), which happens to be the title track from Nutz's latest free record (get that here) isn't worth talking about. The pensive, horror-movie-meets-Lifestyles-of-the-Rich-and-Famous beat is a nice counterpoint to Nutz's trademark on-beat flow, and while the coke-game metaphor is well-worn hip-hop territory, Nutz bleeds it for all it's worth, stretching double meanings the same way he has stretched his career.

WWeek 2015

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office.

Help us dig deeper.