This summer has already been packed with local hip-hop releases and happenings, and I am whelmed. Here are two dope things that happened in Portland hip-hop recently, and two things happening this week that you won’t want to miss.
THIS HAPPENED
Karma Rivera, Don’t Sleep on This
At the end of July, Portland MC Karma Rivera finally released her debut EP, Don’t Sleep on This. Willamette Week called the project “meticulously aggro,” and I don’t know about alladat, but it’s It’s Rivera’s most enjoyable work to date. Highlights include opener “No Fairy Tale,” which is about staying true to numero uno and not getting wrapped up in somebody else’s bullshit. “Friendship” and “Like a Flip” are also solid bops, and “A Game” sees Karma talk her shit again. My personal favorite is “Not Yours,” with Mike Mo’s slowed-down production, thick bass line, and whining background distortion. Rivera softens her typical nasal register on the smoothed-out song to deliver clever punchlines about being in a romantic chase: “I know you got your eyes on me, which is no surprise to me/Feelin’ like the shit so they be all like flies on me/I feel unattached but you can’t cut no ties with me/You like that I rap/See me in person, I act so awkwardly.”
