Mic Crenshaw

Sonicbids Spotlight: Mic Crenshaw
May 22, 2009
Story by: Joe Puglisi

This week the spotlight is on a hip-hop vet with fifteen years of rhyming under his belt. Mic Crenshaw blends his smooth flow with a street-hardened attitude, effortlessly spitting rhymes over a menagerie of horns, drums and keys. Born on the south side of Chicago in the '70s, Crenshaw fronts one of Portland's most infamous and beloved live hip-hop bands, Hungry Mob, channeling (and in some cases predating) contemporaries like the Roots crew with a flow as intriguing and witty as Kanye West.

Violence was influential in Crenshaw's formative years, as the growing movement of hardcore music in the '80s led to white supremacist gangs flooding the streets. A young Crenshaw actively fought against racism in Minneapolis, helping to form the Anti-Racist Action and the famed Minneapolis anti-racist skinhead crew, the Baldies. Eventually an older Crenshaw moved away from the mean streets, becoming a social worker in Portland, where he co-founded Hungry Mob. After winning Slam Poetry contests and working on numerous albums, collaborations and social work projects (including co-founding Global Fam), Crenshaw independently released a solo album, Thinking Out Loud, this year in conjunction with Focused Noise Productions. Fifteen years of making music, helping those less fortunate and social activism have made Mic Crenshaw a force worthy of a new generation of listeners.

Tour Dates for Mic Crenshaw:

05/22 - Seattle, WA - The Vera Project
05/23 - Portland, OR - Berbati's
05/24 - Seattle, WA - Folklife
05/29 - Portland, OR - Portland City Hall
08/08 - Eugene, OR - Northwest International Reggae Fest

http://www.sonicbids.com/miccrenshaw
- CMJ.com by Joe Puglisi, May 22, 2009

Don’t Sleep on Crenshaw
One of Portland’s most dynamic live hip-hop vets releases an appropriately outspoken solo debut.
By Sara Brickner
Published on January 06, 2009 at 6:25pm

For a lot of "conscious" MCs, political activism begins and ends onstage. But for Mic Crenshaw, activism was a way of life years before he picked up a microphone.

A 15-year veteran of the Portland hip-hop scene, Crenshaw's originally from the south side of Chicago. As a youth he moved to Minneapolis, where he made a living teaching classes on topics like the relationship between hip-hop and social consciousness. Crenshaw also belonged to an infamous antiracist crew, the Baldies, who often came to blows with members of Minneapolis' white supremacist gangs. In at least one documented incident, Crenshaw, a tall, tattooed black dude who's built like a brick building, reportedly pummeled a Nazi skinhead. (Crenshaw was never charged with a crime, but the incident made it into a City Pages story many years after the fact.)

It wasn't until he moved to Portland in 1992, though, that Crenshaw decided to eschew violence and transform his thoughts into spoken word. He began performing at poetry slams in 1993, and in the fall of 1994 started rhyming as a member of Hungry Mob, a soulful funk band that's still active today.

But one project alone couldn't absorb everything Mic Crenshaw was putting out. "It took so long to get out music [working with a live band]," Crenshaw explains. "Eventually I branched out and started other projects just to satisfy my need and ability to create."

Like Hungry Mob, though, those projects—Suckapunch and Line of Fire (the rechristened Cleveland Steamers)—weren't strictly hip-hop, but an eclectic amalgam of that and other influences, from funk to drum 'n' bass, rock and roll to trip-hop. In fact, Crenshaw's experimental instrumentals might be the reason he hasn't achieved the level of name recognition in Portland of, say, the Lifesavas or Cool Nutz, with whom Crenshaw helped organize the original POH-Hop festival (Portland's first local hip-hop showcase) in 1995.

"I definitely feel that frustration around being here just as long, or longer, than some of these people that are getting this exposure, and being just as good (or better) than some of the people that are getting exposure," he says slowly. "That's not me being an egotistical asshole, that's just me taking stock in what's going on."

Now that Crenshaw's finally taken the time to record his first full-length solo album, however, that could all change. Titled Thinking Out Loud, the LP is a whole lot more composed than the stream-of-consciousness style its name implies.

The aim, Crenshaw explains, was "to not only incorporate my eclectic tastes, but go after an audience that's into more traditional music styles of hip-hop." And on that level, he's succeeded. Though Crenshaw's penchant for rock and roll shows up on a couple of tracks, it's not so pronounced that it'll put off the traditionalists. The vast majority of the beats (several of which were produced by Line of Fire MC Gen.Erik) will appeal to hip-hop purists, and when Crenshaw's at his best, his thoughtful rhymes are as good as anything that's ever come out of Portland's hip-hop scene. Tracks like "What We Wanna Hear," "So Serious," and "MC Duz It" prove beyond a doubt that Crenshaw's capable of putting out intelligent bangers about everything from his previous altercations with neo-Nazis to Igor Stravinsky.

Of course, Crenshaw still practices what he preaches. Several years ago, Crenshaw co-founded a nonprofit, Global Fam, that acquired hardware for a computer center in Burundi where students were once forced to learn about the modern-day machines from cardboard models. In other words, Crenshaw is everything a truly "conscious" rapper should be—but he's not ready to be relegated to a subgenre where he and other like-minded rappers languish, ignored by a mainstream controlled by, as Crenshaw puts it, "motherfuckers who want to keep people stuck on stupid."

"I'm able to understand that my whole existence is political," Crenshaw explains. "Everything is political. People and policy and economics are all intrinsically tied together. To pigeonhole people that talk about these issues as if we're part of some special select group that doesn't deserve the attention that some other entertainers might get...to me, that's bullshit. To me, that's only looking at part of the truth."
Link:
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2009-01-07/music/don-t-sleep-on-crenshaw/
sbrickner@seattleweekly.com - Seattle Weekly- Jan 6th, 2009

Sonicbids Spotlight: Mic Crenshaw
May 22, 2009
Story by: Joe Puglisi

This week the spotlight is on a hip-hop vet with fifteen years of rhyming under his belt. Mic Crenshaw blends his smooth flow with a street-hardened attitude, effortlessly spitting rhymes over a menagerie of horns, drums and keys. Born on the south side of Chicago in the '70s, Crenshaw fronts one of Portland's most infamous and beloved live hip-hop bands, Hungry Mob, channeling (and in some cases predating) contemporaries like the Roots crew with a flow as intriguing and witty as Kanye West.

Violence was influential in Crenshaw's formative years, as the growing movement of hardcore music in the '80s led to white supremacist gangs flooding the streets. A young Crenshaw actively fought against racism in Minneapolis, helping to form the Anti-Racist Action and the famed Minneapolis anti-racist skinhead crew, the Baldies. Eventually an older Crenshaw moved away from the mean streets, becoming a social worker in Portland, where he co-founded Hungry Mob. After winning Slam Poetry contests and working on numerous albums, collaborations and social work projects (including co-founding Global Fam), Crenshaw independently released a solo album, Thinking Out Loud, this year in conjunction with Focused Noise Productions. Fifteen years of making music, helping those less fortunate and social activism have made Mic Crenshaw a force worthy of a new generation of listeners.

Tour Dates for Mic Crenshaw:

05/22 - Seattle, WA - The Vera Project
05/23 - Portland, OR - Berbati's
05/24 - Seattle, WA - Folklife
05/29 - Portland, OR - Portland City Hall
08/08 - Eugene, OR - Northwest International Reggae Fest

http://www.sonicbids.com/miccrenshaw
- CMJ.com by Joe Puglisi, May 22, 2009

After 15 Years, Mic Crenshaw Goes Solo
Portland rapper plans Seattle CD release party for 'Thinking Out Loud'
By Brian Stimson of The Skanner

Flexing his solo strength for the first time, rapper/poet/activist Mic Crenshaw is showing that he’s more than just a piece of the puzzle. After nearly 15 years of recording and playing with a number of different acts in Portland – including Hungry Mob, Cleveland Steamers and Suckapunch – Crenshaw took the last year to produce his first solo project, “Thinking Out Loud.” He is holding a CD release party in Seattle on Jan. 7 at the Nectar Lounge.
A testament to what Crenshaw stands for – “Thinking” is not an album that reverts to cheap tricks or fake street songs. It’s deadly serious in the subject matters he encounters and challenges – government corruption, failed relationships, personal destruction, oppression, Attica.
“This record is more of a personal statement of myself as an artist,” he told The Skanner.
Several tracks on the album come from Crenshaw’s side projects, and he says the album couldn’t have come together without the help of other Portland music industry types that he’s worked and performed with over the last decade. And it also couldn’t have come together without the political passions that fuel much of Crenshaw’s projects.

“In my music, I own, I’m accountable for all aspects of my personality,” he said. “What I write about politically keeps me up at night and gets me out of bed in the morning. My emotions are connected to my political existence. That said, I’m just using the language as a tool — it doesn’t mean I’m righteous.”
Far from it, Crenshaw doesn’t want to use the microphone as a bully pulpit, and he shies away from being given the label of an activist or socially conscious rapper. Making no compromises with his music, he doesn’t hesitate to spell out problems in a way that masks any form of exploitation. Take “Follow Your Instincts,” an anthem about his time spent in Minneapolis fighting racist skinhead gangs.
“This is more than an anthem on an intense beat/How many homies you got that fought klansmen in the street?/I’m the grandson of a chief and history repeats/ As I carry on traditions generations deep/ Channel my aggression into challenging oppression/Knowledge is a weapon both powerful and deadly …”
Crenshaw’s business partner, Morgan Delaney, says it can be hard to know when the art ends and social activism ends. Delaney and Crenshaw say it is melded together – one could not necessarily exist without the other. The music is also what fuels Crenshaw’s nonmusical side projects.
In 2007, Crenshaw started the nonprofit Global Family organization. He originally traveled to Rwanda for a cultural exchange. Through the friendships he started there, he learned about the extreme poverty experienced by native peoples in Burundi, one of Africa’s poorest and smallest countries. The project raised enough money last year to supply computers – through a Free Geek grant – and money for a computer lab.
Delaney and Crenshaw are also helping USA La Familia – a hip hop group with many members from Jefferson High School – raise money for a compact disc duplicating machine. Many of La Familia’s members are ex-students of Delaney’s. They’ve raised a bit over $1000 of the $1,600 needed so the young artists can have a tangible way of putting together mixtapes and mass producing them. Just like the MCs from hip hop’s early days, Crenshaw wants to see the self reliance that embodies many of Portland’s indy rappers continue on with the next generation. The group will also be able to provide the service to other students and community members at affordable prices.
“It’s showing them that someone’s not going to come along with the golden ticket,” Delaney said.
Crenshaw’s time in Africa has solidified his belief in tangible change. Ever since he went on an American Friends Service Committee-funded trip in 2004, Crenshaw has made a lifelong commitment to foment positive change in Africa.
“The world got a lot bigger,” he said. “The options and the possibilities and the potential about how the world could be — I started seeing that more physically. I’ve really been reactionary and response based on oppression and economic injustices and racism, all my life. Something happened there that was more based on proactive potential – this is what we can do, this is how it can be …”
The goal of Global Family over the next few years will be to ensure the Burundi computer lab stays up and running. Rent alone costs $395, not counting staffing and other expenses. Crenshaw is unsure of when he will be able to return.
With the attention he’s putting on making “Thinking Out Loud” a national success, Crenshaw and Delaney will have to juggle all their commitments.
But given Crenshaw’s history it isn’t a matter of if he gets noticed by the big guns of the music industry. It’s when.

Link:
http://www.theskanner.com/index.php?action=artd&artid=8102 - The Skanner- Seattle and Portland - Dec 17, 2008

By Legendary Hip Hop Journalist Davey D

Meet Mic Crenshaw-Revolutionary Rapper in Effect

One of the tightest rappers around is Mic Crenshaw out of Portland, Oregan. This brother is definitely a front-line soldier who is fearless on the mic as well as him continuously pushing for social justice. A lot of cats are up on him.. but many others aren't so lets spread the word to be on the look out him. This is the first of a 2 part video-Mic Crenshaw talks about the importance of conscious emcees being relevant to the hood. He says he works everyday at making sure his material and he as an artist will be embraced by the hood the same way they embrace Lil Wayne and others. He says the secret to this is having tight beats and dope flows.. Check this brother out-don't sleep it's Mic Crenshaw- Revolutionary in Effect...

Mic Crenshaw Takes on Wall Street Crooks

This is pt2 of our interview w/ Portland rapper Mic Crenshaw. Here he talks about the bailout and does a freestyle taking out Wall Street Crooks.It's pretty nice.. He talks about why the economic collaspe is happening. He says its because most of us here in America are used to being pimped by the system and have been walking the track for a long time. We don't know anything else have have been beaten into submission. Crenshaw challenges other rappers like 50 Cent and Rick Ross to stop having petty beefs and step their game up to take out our real enemies. Mic Crenshaw is the truth-Spread the word..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s25ZcfsjV54

Portand rapper Mic Crenshaw comes hard and shows us what a dope rapper is really supposed to be about…
- Davey D

http://wweek.com/editorial/3328/8995/

Mic Crenshaw, Saturday, May 26
Hungry Mob's Mic Crenshaw and Dead Prez get global for a good cause.

BY CASEY JARMAN
WWEEK
[May 23rd, 2007] [HIP-HOP]

In 2004, politically charged Portland MC Mic Crenshaw took a trip to Rwanda he'll never forget. In the month he spent there as a guest of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group dedicated to debt relief and community-building in Africa, Crenshaw says he made a lot of friends and a few promises. Primary among those promises was Crenshaw's pledge to help send computers to Rwandan community centers, a goal he is in the process of achieving thanks in part to donations by Free Geek and CTL computers of Portland. On May 26, Crenshaw and his newly formed Global Family Network (globalfam.org) hope to move one step closer by raising money through a benefit concert starring radical hip-hop outfit Dead Prez. Crenshaw spoke with WW via telephone from Hawaii, where he recently toured.

WW : Why is it important to you to help Rwandans?
Mic Crenshaw: When I went there in 2004, it changed me on a spiritual level. Being able to meet people and see firsthand all the potential, all the beauty, and also what's not right with their situation. A lot of people don't have access to opportunities even though people are getting filthy rich off exploiting the resources in Africa. People are not able to compete on a certain level because they don't have computers, or even clean water. It's absurd. I visited community centers and saw kids trying to learn to use computers on a cardboard replica of a computer.

WW: How difficult is forming an organization like Global Fam?

MC: Global Fam happened overnight. There was about a month between the conversation [between Crenshaw and co-founder/Jefferson High substitute teacher Morgan Delaney] about starting it and the Dead Prez show manifesting and the computers being donated and the website being up and running. The gates just kinda opened, and it's not because it was some whimsical flight of fancy—we both have been working in the schools and with music for years, and I think the time was just right.

WW: Was it important for the event that Dead Prez's mindset meshes with yours and with the ideology of Global Fam?

MC: It is, man. Once I told them what the cause was, [Dead Prez's Stic.man] specifically was like, "Yeah man, I want to do anything I can to help rebuild African communities." It's like, you can talk about revolutionary ideals, but you really have to be able to do things that make a difference in the lives of people. That's where the integrity of what you're talking about starts to manifest. That's what I've always tried to be about, and it's a lifelong commitment.

Crenshaw's Hungry Mob plays with Dead Prez Saturday, May 26, at Wonder Ballroom. 9 pm. $15. All ages. Also see music listings.
- Willamette Week - Portland, OR - May 23rd, 2007

Tall Tales
Mic Crenshaw Is Larger than Life
by Graham Barey Tall Tales

If you were asked to picture in your mind's eye the quintessential rapper, it's likely you would conjure something similar to the image on Mic Crenshaw's driver's license. Crenshaw cuts a John Henry-esque profile—massive, black, tattooed—and further comparison to that tall-tale hero is not entirely inappropriate. Mic Crenshaw is a pretty mythic character, and this month he releases a pretty mythic album, Thinking Out Loud.

To get an idea of the importance of Mic Crenshaw to the Portland rap scene over the last 15 years, picture the first caveman rubbing two sticks together to create a spark. The term "pillar of the community" is not one that should be thrown around lightly, and Crenshaw embodies it with numerous creative and scene-building efforts that span genres and musical styles. Crenshaw was making dope tracks long before other Portland rappers were born, much less forming complete sentences.

Crenshaw relocated to Portland from Minneapolis in 1992. At the time, he was moving away from a job as a high school teacher of, among other things, political consciousness in black music—a job he had begun immediately after his own high school graduation. But the transition out west was something of an exodus. In leaving Minneapolis, Crenshaw was vacating a dangerous scene he had inhabited for many years as an organizer in that city's violent, underground struggle against white supremacist gangs. Even though he was qualified to pass on knowledge in a formalized classroom setting, he had never escaped the realities of that turbulent life. Of his move to Portland, Crenshaw says, "I wanted something new. [At the time] my ties with the streets were still pretty strong, and my social life involved drinking and fighting. I was ready for a change."

Change came in the form of new surroundings and a new job in garden landscaping. In that creatively devoid business, Crenshaw had to find outside means to stimulate himself intellectually. It was then that he got involved in slam poetry, and later, rap. "I needed an outlet. I knew that I could write and perform." Crenshaw adds, "I had a lot of things to say."

That comment right there could go down in history as one of the greatest understatements ever spoken, right up with "George W. Bush was a shitty president" and "doughnuts are tasty." Crenshaw's creative output has been astonishingly prolific: Since 1992 he has been part of a half-dozen bands, and released more albums than can easily be counted. While it may seem like Crenshaw was spreading himself thin over too many "side projects," the truth is that he needed each of the groups just to keep up with his nonstop output. "I was putting out more than any one group could absorb," he says.

Throughout the years—fraught as they were with musical endeavors—Crenshaw never fully released a record with a traditional hiphop sound. "All the music I did was appealing to different audiences," he says. "It was a little eclectic. I got tired of putting on a CD of my stuff with friends and having them not feel it as much as I wanted them to." In an epiphany more than a decade in the making, Crenshaw realized that he had to make Thinking Out Loud—something that would provide listeners with a clear understanding of who he was as a person and artist, but also be palatable to a diverse audience.

The record is an unqualified success. On it, Crenshaw makes a powerful case to be known as the best emcee to call Portland his home. He speaks with an earnest, poetic voice with smooth flow from start to finish. Starting out with a lyrically top-notch throwback party cut, "MC Duz It," the majority of Thinking Out Loud strides in deeper conceptual waters. Crenshaw has been characterized throughout his career as a "political" or "conscious" emcee—a mantle he is not entirely comfortable with—and this album does little to change that impression. However, the content comes from an honest and unpretentious place in Crenshaw's character. "I don't want people to think this is not who I am," he says. "I'm not making this up. When I put pen to paper it's what comes out."

Talking to Crenshaw about his philosophy and political beliefs, it's easy to see why his creative content is so charged. His current efforts for global change and advancement of people include helping to facilitate the growth and expansion of a nonprofit organization he co-founded in 2007, Global Family. Through it, computers are sent to youth organizations in Burundi and to Iraqi refugees in Amman, Jordan. It is a growing concern that has enlisted the help of fellow politically minded hiphop artists like Immortal Technique and Dead Prez.

As an artist, Crenshaw is still fighting an uphill battle for recognition. The pursuit of his musical passion is just one more chapter in a life in which Crenshaw has tried to follow his heart over security and safety, tried to do what he feels is right a - The Portland Mercury- Nov. 13, 2008

In order to survive in the music business, you got be out there and make a name for yourself. A lot of artists have taken that to heart and it sometimes have a positive or negative effect on their overall music style and performance. In Mic Crenshaw's case: its a positive.

Mic Crenshaw is making his debut with his release of Thinking Out Loud. This hip hop artist lyrics and backgrounds will satisfy anyone familiar with artists like Nas, Jay-Z, Mase, and Talib Kweli. Now, his music actually sends out messages that every listener should listen to about having fun in life and living for yourself.

The music instrumentals and backgrounds is very mellow and easy to listen too. Sometimes, I was caught off track and not really listening to lyrics because the music is just so relaxing and great. Mic Crenshaw is somwehat similar to Nas with his lyrics and messages but it's not like he copied and pasted from the hip hop icon. Crenshaw is able to use lyrics from his lyrical library and make him stand out.

The first track "MC Duz It" stood out in mind. Not just because it was the first track; it the way Crenshaw was able to rap on a great beat and give the message about having fun in life. Possibly my favorite track from the album.

From listening to Mic Crenshaw's debut it doesn't sound like a crappy chopped & screwed album that has only 2 good songs. Thinking Out Loud actually sounded great with good songs and lyrics on some great beats. Plus, the additional messages given in some songs will actually make you think. Great debut by Mic Crenshaw and I think that I will be waiting with open arms for his next album.

Recommended Tracks

-MC Duz It

-A Lot of Us

-America

-Thinking Out Loud

-On the Move

-What We Wanna Hear

The Verdict:

4.4 Sold-Out Performance

For more information and music from Mic Crenshaw, check him out at myspace.com/miccrenshaw.

-Kazie


http://www.wvcw.org/music/?p=141 - WVCW - Richmond, Virginia - Jan. 29th, 2009