Solomon &ldquo;Jumbo&rdquo; David is getting ready to hit the stage at The Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado. Along with his tour partners, Blackalicious and Latyrx&rsquo;s Lateef the Truthspeaker, the Portland-based emcee&rsquo;s explosive performance perfectly encapsulates the passion his has for his craft and hip-hop culture. As a member of the Lifesavas, he&rsquo;s built a reputable career of his own and is grateful for every day he gets to get on a mic, which as of late, is quite frequently.&nbsp;

Currently overseas continuing his run with the Quannum Projects family, Jumbo is witnessing the upheaval in the United Kingdom since the country announced its succession from the European Union (EU). While it&rsquo;s frustrating and scary, and could have a profound effect on the entire world, maybe he&rsquo;ll write a song about it.&nbsp;

In Part I of the Jumbo interview, he talks about growing up in the &lsquo;70s and &lsquo;80s and why he gravitated towards hip-hop. In Part II, he&rsquo;ll discuss the situation in the U.K., how he initially connected with Blackalicious and what&rsquo;s on his plate this year.&nbsp;

RAPstation (Kyle Eustice): First things first&mdash;where did you grow up?

Jumbo: I&rsquo;m a &lsquo;70s baby for real. My youth was spent experimenting with music in Northeast Portland, Oregon in the early &lsquo;80s, when Northeast neighborhoods were owned predominately by African-Americans. Woodlawn Park area, Dekum Courts, and 17th Liberty were my stomping grounds. I&#39;m so Northeast Portland, ask about me.&nbsp;

What about your household? Was it a musical one?&nbsp;

My mother used to play Stevie Wonder &quot;I Wish&quot; a lot when I was a youngster, rocking the oversized sunglasses, grey hoody and my &ldquo;King of the Jungle&rdquo; slippers. Yo, that song was my childhood anthem and changed my life growing up. My grandmother saw me singing along and tried to teach me how to play piano early on. I really wasn&#39;t interested though until she took my hands and showed me some crazy jazz chords. Those chords spoke to my soul. Pops&mdash;Rest In Power&mdash;played guitar. Long after he and my mother split, he used to send me cassettes of his songs. He had a silky, smooth voice. Moms sang soprano in stiff white church choirs, and made me take trumpet and clarinet lessons. Thank God for my Uncle Chuck. He was my first experience with records. I spent a good amount of time over at my aunt and uncle&rsquo;s house, where my uncle had a nice record collection in the basement and told me not to mess with his collection.&nbsp;One day, I got caught looking for that Stevie Wonder song and playing his soul records. I didn&rsquo;t get in trouble; he taught me the value of vinyl, how to care for the records, and what drum solos [breaks] were about.&nbsp;

Why do you think you gravitated towards hip-hop?&nbsp;

I am hip-hop. I was born to do this. Way back, when I loved playing basketball, I had NBA dreams, but realized early I was better at music, especially hip-hop. So I found a kindred spirit in my childhood friend Mixmaster KD. He schooled me on how to mix records and liked my scratching skills. We practiced by making hip-hop blend tapes and started making money DJing house parties. It was on from there. I recorded with my mans Big Red&mdash;Rest In Power&mdash;out of Bosko basement, met Vursatyl [then called Chill Master Irv] and his group called the Crew. We talked about hooking up and recording and what not. My mans Big Red got killed and the homies were saying, &lsquo;Solomon, you are the chosen one fam, you the music man, you gotta make it outta this bullshit.&rsquo; I wasn&rsquo;t no gangster, but I was repping my hood and my city when LA cats moved into the city and tried to bang on our hood. All the original cats from Woodlawn know what I&rsquo;m talking about. I had a choice&mdash;it was get gangster, get revenge for my fallen friend or create music and live another day to tell the story.&nbsp;After that, I was finding my way with different groups. KD and I used to dance like Scoob-n-Scrap [Big Daddy Kane&rsquo;s dancers] with the fly steps for this Portland group called Krowd Kontrol, until one night we got to perform our solo song called &ldquo;Tasty&rdquo; at Portland&rsquo;s Mayor&rsquo;s Ball. I think Bud Clark was the mayor at that time. We looped up &ldquo;Remote Control&rdquo; by Loose Ends and the hook was KD cutting &ldquo;Mmmmm Tasty&rdquo; by Big Daddy Kane. The crowd went nuts and I was ready for the stage. I linked up with Vursatyl, started smashing local shows, added our DJ Rev. Shines, and created the group now known as Lifesavas. We became Portland&rsquo;s hip-hop ambassadors touring worldwide and making history by putting Portland hip-hop on the map. God gave me music and saved my life.

Solomon &ldquo;Jumbo&rdquo; David is getting ready to hit the stage at The Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado. Along with his tour partners, Blackalicious and Latyrx&rsquo;s Lateef the Truthspeaker, the Portland-based emcee&rsquo;s explosive performance perfectly encapsulates the passion his has for h...

Jumbo of the Lifesavas Interview 

Hip Hop God, Craig G., out with his new album&nbsp;I Rap And Go Home, sat down to talk with RAPstation a bit about his new album and his career in general. Former Juice Crew member, Craig G. came from Queensbridge, New York, and has been rapping for what seems like his whole life. At a young age, he began working with Marley Marl of the Juice Crew and went on to where he is at today, still making music as a solo artist.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

RAPstation (Kianna Woods) How did you get started with the Juice Crew?

That story is actually not as exciting as a motion picture but how I started with the Juice Crew was I had the good fortune, basically, of living in Marley Marl&rsquo;s building in Queensbridge. I used to harass him constantly just to have him hear me rap and then one day he had an idea for a song and he didn&rsquo;t have to go far. Just come down to the second floor. It was luck and annoyance!

Did you freestyle?

That was all I ever did. Actually, when I recorded my first record I had to have MC Shan help me do the song because I knew nothing about song structure. I just went in the studio and rapped non-stop. So they were like &ldquo;no you have to break them up put them into parts and put them a hook!&rdquo; I was like &ldquo;oooookay&hellip;?&rdquo; So I mean that&rsquo;s all I ever did. I didn&rsquo;t even write my first single. I actually just freestyles it. Not any more so much. It kind of &ldquo;Pigeon-holed&rdquo; me. I had a few legendary battles or &ldquo;legendary battles.&rdquo; This was well after I made what would be considered classic songs and people were like &ldquo;well, you know, guys that freestyle can&rsquo;t make songs like Craig G.&rdquo; and I was like &ldquo;ok, I want to try and create some albums&rdquo; so I kind of stepped back from it.

What was it like working with the Juice Crew?

It was like family. The main thing for me though was during like the heyday of the Juice Crew, I was still very very young. I was like 15 years old and my mother was an educator, so I couldn&rsquo;t go on the tours if they weren&rsquo;t on a weekend or my older brother came with me or something like that. It wasn&rsquo;t like I could be around as much, but I was around Marley more than anything because we were of the same neighborhood. It was always a friendly competition. I&rsquo;d be like &ldquo;ok I gotta write&rdquo; you know what I mean? It was never anything personal with competition between us but we were all from different areas. Being the youngest, the only person I really hang out with was mostly Marley and Ace.&nbsp;

What drives you today to continue to make music?

Pissing people off. You know, they have this thing where for some reason out of all the genres of music, Hip-Hop has this sort of self-imposed expiration date that no one informed me of. So I just believe that as long as my mind stays sharp and I can still create, I&rsquo;m going to continue to put out music because I believe that they marginalize our whole section of fans. They feel like if you grow to be 35, or whatever, you&rsquo;re not supposed to like Hip-Hop anymore. You&rsquo;re supposed to listen to what a 17-year old&rsquo;s rapping about but there are tons of artist that are still making quality music. I believe that recently they have these classic Hip-Hop stations popping up all over the country and the ratings are great because that dynamic of people are who advertisers want to advertise to. People that grew up listening to me now have houses, and bills, you know, family and they still enjoy Hip-Hop. They just don&rsquo;t enjoy what&rsquo;s being forced down their throats.&nbsp;

What made you want to be a solo artist?

I&rsquo;m really antisocial, and I don&rsquo;t like people.&nbsp;

*Laughing* I would not be able to tell!

Well, I mean for one, RAPstation has been very very supportive and I feel like actually with this album, titled&nbsp;I Rap And Go Home, it&rsquo;s like I&rsquo;m getting a lot of rest so I&rsquo;m actually in a better mood these days.&nbsp;

Your latest album, I Rap And Go Home, what led you into making and releasing it?

Well every one of my albums I&rsquo;ve done, and I hate to sound like a hipster when I say this, &ldquo;organically&rdquo; because the production team that did the album they are friends of mine and I&rsquo;m very much into sneakers and stuff like that. We became friends because he owns a sneaker store way out in Long Island and we were hanging out and, you know, one day I just went to his crib and we were at the studio, we were playing music and he started playing these beats and I was like &ldquo;ok, send me that, send me that, and send me that!&rdquo; I don&rsquo;t know, four months later we had like 25 songs. Every album I do never really starts out as an album. It&rsquo;s just &ldquo;ok, I like this guys vibe, I like the sounds, so let&rsquo;s record them.&rdquo; And then you listen back and see a body of work that is like &ldquo;ya, this would actually be a dope album! Ya so let&rsquo;s get it out!&rdquo; That is the freedom of independent artistry.&nbsp;

What does being an independent artist mean to you?

It means that I don&rsquo;t have some snot-nosed college kid telling me what to rap about.

*Laughing* It&rsquo;s true, look at Prince.

Well, he was my hero because he was one of the few guys that actually fought his major label conglomerate and won! To me, especially with Hip-Hop, it didn&rsquo;t start out with any rules, you know? We just did it! It actually started out from having nothing. Some guy one day said &ldquo;you know what, let me take my grandmother&#39;s turntable with my aunt&rsquo;s turntable and let me see if I can make these records blend toge&hellip; OH SH!T! I DID IT! WOW!&rdquo; There were no rules. Now, when the major started putting their hands in it, it was like &ldquo;well we want you to sound like the last guy. This record was big we want you to do something similar to this,&rdquo; but in the heyday of me coming up, sounding similar to get you to approach that shelf, you know. Nope, biting was a crime. That could possibly get you beat up. But now everything is a clone of something. I believe that the majors, the radio, have the biggest argument. It may seem I come across a lot go times as chastising other artist but they&rsquo;re only doing what they feel they need to do to be heard.

Who, in the beginning, inspired you?

To be honest with you, before the free styling and stuff, before the Juice, I was a huge fan of any Hip-Hop I could get my hands on. A lot of the early artist, like in the late 70s and early, early 80s, their image, as far as how they dressed (which I understood because they couldn&rsquo;t get the clubs in the city unless they dressed a certain way) never resonated with me. When I saw Run DMC, and I saw them looking like my older brother or my cousin and rapping about things I could relate to, to me it made me feel like &ldquo;ok they are representing the &lsquo;every&rsquo; man,&rdquo; and now I feel like I can do this. I don&rsquo;t have to put on a costume or have the smoke machine. I could just come on the stage like I just came off the street. SO to me, they were like, you know how in the black households you have like Martin Luther King? Well, I have Run DMC on the wall.

Today, who inspires you?

Anyone that keeps the original elements of what Hip-Hop was built on. Even if they do go reference style they keep the basic elements of Hip-Hop and they still think lyrics are important, that&rsquo;s who inspires me. We are speaking to a lot of people and why take that opportunity to say nothing?

Who would you want to work with that you haven&rsquo;t had the opportunity to, yet?

Let&rsquo;s see, I would really like to work with, Pharoahe Monch, he&rsquo;s like a great friend of mine. Like a lot of the people I consider friends in the music business, we don&rsquo;t talk about music. Like with Monch, I talk about the Mets. You know, again, not to sound like a hipster, I don&rsquo;t want to force any of that I just like when it&rsquo;s done naturally. Like when people ask me &ldquo;well when you did the symphony, you had to know it was a classic?&rdquo; I&rsquo;m like I believe any artist that made a great mark they didn&rsquo;t know what they were doing when they did it. They just did it because they loved it. There was no preconceived notion about it. There are more artists but I hate to make a list and I leave someone out than see them at the bar and they&rsquo;re like &ldquo;why didn&rsquo;t you mention me?&rdquo; and I&rsquo;m like &ldquo;I smoke reefer&hellip;? I blame it all on that.&rdquo;

*Laughing* If you could do a tribute to anyone, who would it be?

Bob Marley. He was fearless in the stuff he talked about in his music. Even singing about the worst conditions till sounded like a feel good song. I would love to have been able to sit in a room and smoke a couple of spliffs and just pick his brain.&nbsp;

Lastly, do you have any shoutouts?

Just if you still believe in the blueprint of what Hip-Hop was, go get the album&nbsp;I Rap And Go Home, it&rsquo;s out now, it has 11 songs on it. It features Ras Kass, Canibus, Jarobi, Buckshot, Kool Keith. After this, I&rsquo;m working on an EP with Nottz who&rsquo;s like a grammy award winning producer and, um, no I don&rsquo;t want to shout out any of you guys, because you know what, y&rsquo;all only say you&rsquo;re going to buy it on social media, GO BUY IT FORREAL! Naw I&rsquo;m just playing! *laughing*

&nbsp;

Long time artist, Craig G. has put in work and remains true to the &ldquo;blueprint&rdquo; of what Hip-Hop means to him. His album,&nbsp;I Rap And Go Home, is available now! Support those, like Craig G., who stay true to the Hip-Hop you grew up with!

&nbsp;

By Kianna Woods for RAPstation.com

Hip Hop God, Craig G., out with his new album&nbsp;I Rap And Go Home, sat down to talk with RAPstation a bit about his new album and his career in general. Former Juice Crew member, Craig G. came from Queensbridge, New York, and has been rapping for what seems like his whole life. At a young age, he...

CRAIG G.: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

A collection of significant articles, artwork and items of hip hop culture will soon be&nbsp;accessible&nbsp;to the public in 2017. The Universal Hip Hop Museum (UHHM) is planned to be&nbsp;located at the Old Bronx courthouse, a block away from where chief curator, Claude&nbsp;&ldquo;Paradise&rdquo; Gray went to high school. The UHHM president&nbsp;Rocky Bucano and Gray have&nbsp;had a long work history together, joining forces in the 80&rsquo;s. Both Bucano and Gray bring&nbsp;valuable knowledge of the hip hop scene, Bucano ran a successful hip&nbsp;hop label in NYC&nbsp;and Gray developed himself in different areas of hip hop including rapping, dancing,&nbsp;journalism, and as a casting director.

The content of the Universal Hip-Hop Museum will showcase a collection of old flyers and&nbsp;photographs that Gray has captured throughout the decades which will be featured as&nbsp;&ldquo;The Paradise Collection&rdquo;. Gray&rsquo;s collection will be the foundation for the museum&nbsp;however there will be collaboration of other artists which who will be added to the&nbsp;museum&rsquo;s walls. In an interview with City Lab, Gray shared his objective of the project&nbsp;saying &ldquo;Our job is to document the history of every culture that ever contributed to hip&nbsp;hop&rdquo;. The museum will have a strong emphasis on the word &lsquo;Universal&rsquo; &ldquo;Meaning it&rsquo;s not&nbsp;just about New York,&rdquo; Gray explained.

Discussing the influences of hip-hop, Gray uses Muhammad Ali, The Last Poets,&nbsp;The Watts&nbsp;Prophets,&nbsp;Moms Mabley,&nbsp;Pigmeat Markham,&nbsp;The Jubalaires as a few of his examples. He&nbsp;also goes on to mention the influence of pop culture saying &ldquo;Popular culture has been&nbsp;inspired by hip hop, but it also inspired hip hop. I&rsquo;m interested not just in the works of&nbsp;people like&nbsp;Warhol&rdquo; &hellip; &ldquo;but also artists like&nbsp;Keith Haring, who was himself inspired by hip&nbsp;hop and ended up influencing hip hop back&rdquo;.

The UHHM will be an informative and creative space for hip hop and pop culture enthusiasts&nbsp;to come and observe and possibly be inspired by the art work. Gray summaries his&nbsp;intentions of the collection stating, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m about: Creating a symbiotic&nbsp;relationship between hip hop and the larger art world, using media ranging from&nbsp;photography to digital graphics to sculpture&rdquo;.

<a href="http://www.citylab.com/design/2016/06/the-original- architect-of- the-bronx- hip-hop- museum/488108/">You can read to full interview here</a>

For Courteney Tobin by RAPstation.com

A collection of significant articles, artwork and items of hip hop culture will soon be&nbsp;accessible&nbsp;to the public in 2017. The Universal Hip Hop Museum (UHHM) is planned to be&nbsp;located at the Old Bronx courthouse, a block away from where chief curator, Claude&nbsp;&ldquo;Paradise&rdquo;...

A place for hip-hop and pop culture enthusiast 

Every so often, hip hop is gifted with a landmark album that challenges the status quo and forever alters the trajectory of the art form. &nbsp;Rather then fall in step with the norms of the time, these albums eschew the immobilizing tendency towards stagnation and push the boundaries of what can be done within the genre. &nbsp;One such album that fans and critics universally regard as a genre transforming classic is Jay-Z&#39;s Reasonable Doubt.

Given Jay-Z&#39;s current status as a giant of popular culture, its interesting to examine the music he released before he rose to these meteoric heights. &nbsp;Reasonable Doubt captures Jay-Z at an intimately raw juncture; the music exudes a brooding darkness that stands in contrast to the glossy sheen radiating from his later pop-inspired offerings. &nbsp;Songs such as &ldquo;D&#39;evils&rdquo; and &ldquo;Regrets&rdquo; showcase Jay-Z poignantly ruminating on the struggles of his life in way that is far more reflective than glamorizing. &nbsp;In addition to the personalized tone, Reasonable Doubt also saw Jay-Z offering some of the most intricately-crafted lyrics of his career. &nbsp;Despite all of Jay-Z&#39;s subsequent work, which is impressive in its own right, the rhymes on Reasonable Doubt function as the crux of the argument that Jay-Z is one of hip hop&#39;s lyrical kings.

June 25th will mark the 20th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt, and in commemoration of the classic album, Jay-Z will be launching a Reasonable Doubt themed pop-up shop at Apt. 4B in Los Angeles. &nbsp;The space will be designed to look like Jay-Z&#39;s Brooklyn apartment in the 1990&#39;s, complete with Roc-A-Fella memorabilia and old behind-the-scenes photos. &nbsp;Roc-A-Fella co-founder Kareem &ldquo;Biggs&rdquo; Burke will host the opening of the pop-up shop on June 25th, from 12PM to 7PM. &nbsp;The shop will be open for 30 days, at 517 Fairfax Ave in Los Angeles. 
 
By Ryan Donberg for RAPstation.com

Every so often, hip hop is gifted with a landmark album that challenges the status quo and forever alters the trajectory of the art form. &nbsp;Rather then fall in step with the norms of the time, these albums eschew the immobilizing tendency towards stagnation and push the boundaries of what can be...

Jay-Z Opening Reasonable Doubt Pop-Up Shop in Los Angeles

Long Beach rapper Vince Staples has made quite the name for himself this past year. &nbsp;In 2015, he not only secured himself a position in XXL&#39;s Freshman Class, but he also released his debut album, Summertime 06, to widespread acclaim. &nbsp;With the production responsibilities largely being held down by No ID and Clams Casino, the album offered listeners a sonic coming of age tale couched between atmospheric production and Vince Staples&#39; intelligent, street-savvy rapping.

Now that he&#39;s earned himself a spot at the forefront of hip hop music, Vince Staples is using his position to launch a program that will help give back his hometown. &nbsp;On Tuesday, Staples and Long Beach Ninth District Councilman Rex Richardson introduced the Youth Institute in North Long Beach, a YMCA affiliated program that will offer North Long Beach youth the opportunity to learn music production, film making, 3D printing, and graphic design. &nbsp;The program will be located in Hamilton Middle School, and it&#39;s geared towards helping students in eighth and ninth grade. &nbsp;Staples, who grew up in North Long Beach, has donated generously to the program.

&ldquo;I think the most important thing is opportunities,&rdquo; Staples said when discussing the program. &nbsp;&ldquo;What I can say is, living over here my entire life, I&rsquo;ve never had an opportunity given to me from the area, only examples of how to mess up, and what I didn&rsquo;t want to do.&rdquo;

In addition to giving back to the town that functions as the backdrop for so much of his music, Staples is still finding time to remain productive in the studio and churn out great music. &nbsp;The Long Beach rapper is featured on the single &ldquo;All Nite,&rdquo; which is on 32 Levels, the forthcoming album from East Coast producer Clams Casino. 
 
By Ryan Donberg for RAPstaton.com

Long Beach rapper Vince Staples has made quite the name for himself this past year. &nbsp;In 2015, he not only secured himself a position in XXL&#39;s Freshman Class, but he also released his debut album, Summertime 06, to widespread acclaim. &nbsp;With the production responsibilities largely being...

Vince Staples Teaming Up With City Officials To Launch Long Beach Youth Program

On the heels of the success surrounding his 2014 major label debut, Oxymoron, ScHoolboy Q is now about to release his sophomore album, Blank Face. &nbsp;With just a few days left before the album hits store shelves, Q has just released an accompanying cinematic trailer. &nbsp;Complete with consummate cinematography and professional-looking footage, the trailer depicts life in Q&#39;s South Central, Los Angeles stomping ground. &nbsp;It opens with Q hanging out with his friends, before quickly cutting to subsequent footage of Q getting arrested and going through the rigmarole of legal proceedings. &nbsp; 
 
<a href="http://www.rapstation.com/videos/74/schoolboy-q-blank-face-trailer-7816">See ScHoolboy Q&#39;s Blank Face Trailer</a>

Nestled in the background of the trailer sits a new track that features a menacing, minor key piano sample layered over a trap drum pattern. &nbsp;Paired with the already-released singles from the album, &ldquo;Groovy Tony&rdquo; and &ldquo;That Part,&rdquo; this new song showcased in the trailer has the album poised to be an impressive offering. &nbsp;The video was directed by Jack Begert, who also directed the video for Q&#39;s &ldquo;Groovy Tony,&rdquo; and The Little Homies, Kendrick Lamar&#39;s directing team. &nbsp;

Just a few days prior to the release of the trailer, Q released the album&#39;s cover art. &nbsp;Before initially trolling fans with some parody versions of the album cover that featured the Crying Jordan meme and Donald Trump, Q finally unveiled the official art for Blank Face. &nbsp;Fans can purchase the album in stores on its July 8th release date.

By Ryan Donberg for RAPstation.com

On the heels of the success surrounding his 2014 major label debut, Oxymoron, ScHoolboy Q is now about to release his sophomore album, Blank Face. &nbsp;With just a few days left before the album hits store shelves, Q has just released an accompanying cinematic trailer. &nbsp;Complete with consummat...

Jumbo of the Lifesavas Interview

CRAIG G.: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

A place for hip-hop and pop culture enthusiast

Jay-Z Opening Reasonable Doubt Pop-Up Shop in Los Angeles

Vince Staples Teaming Up With City Officials To Launch Long Beach Youth Program

Schoolboy Q Releases Cinematic Trailer for Upcoming Blank Face LP

Sight

Sound

Story