Few hiphop performers can style a written flow as well as Sleepyhead, and even fewer can project a larger-than-life image of themselves on a listener who’s never seen them. His stellar recorded presence might lead to a mental picture of a six-foot scrapper with a battle record to match his spoken swagger. Were that the case, he might be Portland’s favorite rapper. But at five feet and change, and looking to be about 120 pounds, Sleepyhead—his nom de reality is Kevin Elder—is a bit like a tiny pilot who climbs into the cockpit of a hulking robot to record rap records. Good ones.
I first heard of Sleepyhead back in 2003 when a song of his, “Rip Van Winkle,” played on DJ Kez’s KBOO radio show. The slow, warm-hearted funk of the beat mixed with Sleepyhead’s cascading cadence reminded me of all the best elements of fun hiphop (which is probably why I taped the show and played back that song about five times in a row). “Rip Van Winkle” is on Sleepyhead’s first release, Narcolepsy, and to this day stands as one of my favorite tracks ever.
In the intervening five years since the release of Narcolepsy, Sleepyhead has dipped in and out of the local rap scene and now mostly collaborates with Portland electronica luminaries like Copy and Casiocity. The few times that I ran into him around town I would always bug him about making a new record, but to me it seemed like he had gotten his fill of the rap scene and had moved on to other creative endeavors. Thankfully, this month Sleepyhead has proven me wrong by dropping another stellar disc, No School.
A gradual change in Sleepyhead’s musical inspiration over the years is present in the production and overall sound of No School. The album features fewer sample-based creations and more glitchy tracks, a divergence that takes the record further from the traditional sonic meanders of hiphop and more toward the laptop beat scene. “[The change] really wasn’t intentional,” says Elder. “I just knew so many people making beats, and my friends are making those kinds of beats.”
This transition for Sleepyhead was not that surprising, and besides, Portland’s underground rap scene never really assimilated Sleepyhead—he of small stature, poof-ball hat, and thrift-store wardrobe. You can’t front on a guy for naturally gravitating toward friendlier stages. “[My music] is kind of leftfield in comparison to some of the other members of the hiphop scene around town,” he explains. “I’m really a [hiphop] purist in a sense. Still, you have to keep it interesting and stop recycling the same music over and over.”
While Sleepyhead is still making good hiphop, he’s just not creating it with the co-sign of many other established members of that group. Hip hop in Portland, and the nation over, has splintered, with fans of any one of its multiple shards not necessarily fans of the others. Still, true heads can appreciate good hip hop from the street side, the backpack side, and from anywhere else as well. Sleepyhead’s musical locale is not one populated by Timbs or LRG, but it is home to fresh beats and rhymes, and while it may be out of your comfort zone, that doesn’t mean it ain’t dope.
- The same is true for many Portland hip hop artists. While a few have came from gangster backgrounds, most are just normal hip hop people. What does that mean? well most folks have it rough growing up. That’s one of the main contributing factors for whether or not people like hip hop. Studies show that people who grew up poor or in broken homes gravitate to subversive culture like hip hop. That being said, Portland is not an extremely violent city. In fact it is very peaceful. There are random violent events and gang violence in certain neighborhoods, but for the most part the extent of the violence is street fights and bar brawls. While most “hip hop” music that can be found on the radio contains content about Money, Cars, Bitches and Drugs the real hip hop music that comes from the Portland hip hop scene is true to the roots of hip hop. It is about culture, the streets, life. It is conscious, open minded and enlightening. It can also be in your face, violent and offensive, but thats still a major step up from the garbage that plays thousands of times a day on the radio. While I am not familiar with Sleepy Head, I am familiar with a lot of hip hop artists in Portland, and this article could include any one of them as contenders for up and coming, unique, influential and brilliant hip hop artists.
Who is Sleepy Head and how come i have never heard of him? who originally posted this article? Portland Mercury? they usually have a pretty good grasp with whats hot at the time… i guess this post must have been from a while ago because according to most of Portland Hip Hop sleepy head is in a coma