June 19, 2019
Page 5
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photo by D anny p eterson /t he p ortlanD o bserver
Mic Crenshaw (left) and his longtime producer Prince Strickland have been recording numerous
collaborative pieces of music this summer at Portland Underground Recording Studio in southwest
Portland, including an album with fellow rapper and Max train stabbing survivor Micah Fletcher under
the moniker Last of a Dying Breed.
Mentoring on Rap
C ontinueD froM f ront
Benson High School, called Alli-
ance, and teaching at Caldera arts
camp. He uses his music to fight
racial and economic injustice and
empower young people to thrive
in their creative fields.
“I’m in numerous relationships
with young people who are intent
on developing their careers as art-
ists. And so some of the kids that I
work with at Alliance, we actually
bring them here to record in the
studio. And we’ve recorded about
six or seven songs with them
here,” he said, adding that he’s
also brought kids to another studio
in northwest Portland, called Bo-
decker, to record songs.
“I don’t see that work stopping
any time soon.”
Crenshaw’s recent collabo-
ration with Fletcher, who knew
Crenshaw for years before he
survived a brutal stabbing on the
Max train two years ago, had them
doing a hip-project. The pair is
known together as Last of a Dy-
ing Breed and their debut album,
called Brink of Distinction, came
out on June 15.
“I was honored that he asked
because I actually have a lot of
respect for Micah, as an artist as
well as just a human being. He’s a
bright person,” Crenshaw said.
Fletcher told the Portland Ob-
server that he was one of the youth
who had been mentored by Cren-
shaw, when he was just 13 or 14,
having worked with Crenshaw
on a sexually transmitted disease
awareness campaign-centered al-
bum commissioned by the State of
Oregon.
Fletcher then tied for first
place in a hip-hop competition
Crenshaw hosted years later at
KBOO called Chapel of Skills
and the two have been friends
ever since.
Fletcher, now 23, said he drift-
ed apart from hip hop after grad-
uating high school, but told the
Portland Observer that changed
after the trauma he endured.
“After the stabbing that I went
through on the 26th of May in
2017, I just ended up, as a way
of trying to deal with this, to
write more and more. And even-
tually that led into me having full
songs,” Fletcher said.
The duo has already dropped
two music videos on Youtube—
for the songs “Sunlight” and
“Heavy Bag”—and has performed
in shows in Portland and around
the nation, most recently in Min-
neapolis, Minn.
Reflecting back on the stab-
bing, when he was attacked while
defending two teenage girls from
racist taunts, Fletcher said he
doesn’t think of it any differently
than he did back then, an act of
senseless violence.
“It was an unfortunate event.
It as something that I changed the
way I looked at the world for basi-
cally the rest of my life it seems,”
he said. “We’re so busy living our
own little bubble that we forget to
check on the person standing next
to us.
Looking back on his career,
Crenshaw had reflections of his
own.
When he was younger, Cren-
shaw said, being on MTV or on
the cover of XXL magazine de-
fined success.
“I wanted to be respected by
people the world over for my lyr-
ical skills—that was the dream.”
Now, he said, receiving the sup-
port from Oregon Humanities and
the other groups is like being vali-
dated for his years of work.
Remarkably, Crenshaw had
another recent eye-opening level
of public support from a former
student—a woman over 70 – who
wanted to learn how to rap and
talk about social issues.
The student was a wealthy
white woman who believed in
reparations, he said. After she
heard about a struggle Crenshaw
was having with a racist neighbor
who had been threatening his fam-
ily with violence, she gave him
$210,000 to buy a new house.
“I feel for the first time, in a
very deep way, the value that other
people place in my work and I’m
just really grateful,” Crenshaw
said of the experience.
Last of a Dying Breed’s debut
album, Brink of Distinction, is
available now on iTunes, Spotify,
Amazon Music and other digital
music services. You can catch the
Last of the Dying Breed duo on
Thursday June 20 at the Bit House
Saloon for a 7 p.m. show with
fellow Portland rappers Swiggle
Mandela and Mic Capes.
Sweet 16 to 100th
Event Coverage,
Prints on site
and Video
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