Cool Nutz Saturday, Dec. 1

[November 28th, 2007]

[HIP-HOP] Being Cool Nutz poses a few occupational hazards. Aging gracefully in a young man’s game would be hard for anybody, but Nutz, a.k.a. Terrance Scott, has spent the last decade releasing music to little local press—against the backdrop of a seemingly endless string of violence that has taken the lives of his best friend and his brother, among others. He gives a shrug and a nod when post-traumatic stress disorder is suggested. Still, he says from a window booth at Northwest 23rd Avenue’s McMenamins Tavern and Pool, “As long as I’ve been making music, I feel like I’m where I want to be.”

In 1997, Cool Nutz released Harsh Game for the People, a funky, slang-infused cruise through the streets of pre-gentrification Northeast that’s widely considered the first classic Portland hip-hop record (he’s released nearly 10 since). “I didn’t have no real expectations,” Nutz says of Harsh Game, which he produced and released with money from a disintegrated deal with Atlantic.

Nutz took that initial success and ran with it, starting a booking and management company in addition to Jus Family Records. The rapper carries two cell phones, and at least one is usually ringing. It’s a far cry from the days before Harsh Game, when making a Nutz record was easy. “Hustlin’ and makin’ music,” he says with a laugh. “That’s all we were doing. And kickin’ it and playing video games.”

Despite all the multitasking, Nutz is in the midst of his most prolific period. He released a collaborative album with Luni Coleone, Every Single Day, earlier this year and has at least two in store for ’08. This week sees the release of the half-jokingly titled King Cool Nutz. The album’s themes—street violence, the rap game, the City of Roses—haven’t changed, but Nutz has found new perspective as a game vet. On “Written in My Book,” city violence surfaces again: “Don’t glamorize that, chastise that/ These rats, these snitches that blasphemize that/ The codes, the morals, the street etiquette/ Take heed to the warning how hot the lead’ll get.”

Not all of the tracks on King Nutz have a PSA attached—the swagger that has become the rapper’s trademark is in full effect on the Bosko-produced “Deal with Me,” and “Yo Mouth” is an dirty R&B send-up that’s among the funniest, filthiest things Nutz has been involved with. But Nutz’s reflective moments are also his most compelling. While he gives praise to the “almighty game god” on “Have It My Way,” the relentless violence is enough to make him admit, in person, that “it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”