Portland Events, Music, Art, Entertainment, Sustainability | PDXPIPELINE.com

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Related on Pipeline: Our Portland Events Calendar & Ticket Giveaways

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From our sponsors at DoubleTee:

Double Tee Concerts and Soul'd Out Present:
Pharoahe Monch
June 9, 2011
Peter's Room @ The Roseland
8:00pm; All Ages

$20 | Tickets on sale NOW here!
Win Tickets from Pipeline here (drawing June 6)

The wave of Hip-Hop runs through all of us with certain keys touching all of us at certain levels. Where some flood the masses with a river of average music, Pharoahe Monch, throughout his storied career, has always chosen to attempt to reach the souls of Hip-Hop folk with high caliber lyricism over a wide variety of music inspired by some of the greatest musicians of all time. ¬Å“Music is dear to me,¬Â says Monch, ¬Å“it is the soundtrack to our history. So many legends have partaken in it since its inception.¬Â

An artist from birth, the Queens, NY born and bred emcee began his experience with expression as a visual artist, putting his heart and soul on canvass. While in art school, Pharoahe was introduced to Hip-Hop culture through its visual manifestations of graffiti and fashion. From there he discovered DJing and rapping and instantly recognized them as the viable means of expression they have been since their inception. To Pharoahe, art is a unifying force that brings together all divisions.

An artist with new brushes, Monch found a partner in rhyme, Prince Poetry, and began painting on the canvass of Hip-Hop with a critically acclaimed run as the legendary Organized Konfusion, bursting on the scene with the creative and inventive ¬Å“Who Stole My Last Piece of Chicken¬Â. The group took off with the remix of ¬Å“Fudge Pudge¬Â featuring O.C., the only guest appearance on their self-produced, self-titled debut. The album was critically lauded for the duo’s inventive rhyme schemes, jazz related production and densely packed lyricism that challenged their listeners and stretched the boundaries of conventional Hip-Hop.

From there, the duo took another creative leap forward with sophomore release Stress: the Extinction Agenda. The album was also low on features and high on concept and expression, notable for the narrative ¬Å“Stray Bullet¬Â which chronicles the path of a bullet through the life of it’s flight path. This concept was later ¬Å“borrowed¬Â for inspiration by Hip-Hop legends Nas on ¬Å“I Gave You Power¬Â and Tupac Shakur on ¬Å“Me And my Girlfriend¬Â. Also notable is the track ¬Å“Bring It On¬Â which features Pharoahe Monch delivering one of the greatest verses of all time with a rapid fire staccato, yet melodic delivery, internal rhyme schemes and breath control techniques that pushed him to the forefront of his contemporaries in rhyme, solidifying Monch as an emcee of the highest order.