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Portland, OR. the Northwest’s rose garden city, is not a place known unequivocally for hip hop. There are a chosen and incredibly talented few who have risen to household name stature. Soul Music, the inaugural solo LP from the flexible emcee, producer and sneaker fan Anthony Anderson, known on stages as Tope and one half of locally acclaimed group Living Proof has the intrepidity to smash through all brick walls paving the way to recognition and land on its feet with the composure of an Olympic athlete.

After gaining his sea legs by frequently opening up for some the Northwest’s best, Tope currently graces stages all over town in between shifts at a record store to pay the bills and fund musical expenditures. The yellow brick road to hip hop fields of glory began as a child, when Tope studied MTV music videos and wrote his first rhymes in the 3rd grade. “I thought my teacher would be able to get me a record deal and I would blow like Kriss Kross”. In high school, using computer speakers as microphones, Tope and friends crafted their premiere simple tracks. Saving for home studio equipment has since allowed for more professional song-making methods and has given Tope the freedom to create new music endlessly.

Post high school, after meeting and collaborating with Living Proof partner in crime emcee Prem, the duo took off sprinting and dropped Roots To Branches, the group’s freshman first course album. The LP is a musical stew, marinated in beats by Sapient (with scratch assist from DJ Spark) that overflow with timely old-school rap sound bites, sped-up soul samples, squeaks and guest cameos by Portland principal players Liv Warfield, Sandpeople, AED, and Freestyle Fellowship’s Myka 9. Sample encouragement from a well-chosen Group Home track (Living Proof) displays historical knowledge of hip hop’s early culture.

Roots To Branches is a 14-track long play of tracks solidified by Tope’s reedy, halcyon flow and. The album’s simple messages - respect yourself, love hip hop, back your crew - and easily digested lines, from ‘N.W. Connect’, “When I’m on that shit / making songs that stick / its this compact disc/ I’m doing combat with,” make the album a ringer for hip hop audiences of varying appreciation.

Since the LP’s release and with the Midas touch from the group’s manager Anthony Sanchez, the momentum from Roots To Branches has allowed Tope to open for a platter of hip hop’s royalty like People Under The Stairs, Blu, The Coup, Grouch & Eligh, Mistah FAB, Souls of Mischeif, Nappy Roots, Zion I, Haiku D’ eTat, Common Market, Shawn Jackson, One Be Lo, Cunninglynguists and C Rayz Walz with additional bills being offered frequently. The emcee has also paced stages at PDX Pop Now!, Music Fest Northwest, Music In The Schools 2008, Po-Hop, and Curbstock 2008.

On the production credit side, Tope has put his green thumb on projects by Cool Nutz, Living Proof, Top Shelf, The Kid Espi and Lessinlyricist. One of his first original beats was used by Cool Nutz for “Black Music” and was featured in November 2008’s The Source magazine.

2009 marks the scheduled release of Soul Music, an album produced and beat-mined soley by the Portland emcee. Inspiration for the LP came from a combination of life experiences in Portland and personal growth periods. “I want to say something real and being around so many talented rapper/producers like Ohmega Watts, DaiN, Theory Hazit, Dave Notti, and Sapient is inspiring to me”, Tope explains. With DJ Flip Flop on track scratch detail, Soul Music spills over with soul samples, heartfelt lyrics and Tope’s addictive metronomic rhyme patterns. The album features guest appearances from Cool Nutz, Illmaculate, Iame, Living Proof, and Epp.

With upcoming projects on the horizon including Living Proof 2, T&E, another solo project, and a collab album with Xperience from Oldominion, this NW emcee is set to help define the Northwest’s sonic capability for hip hop.

–Sara Moskovitz (sarahmoskovitz.com)