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Black Portlandia: Matching Up Young Thug and Bloody Jay's New Project with 'Portlandia' Sketches

We pictured Young Thug and Bloody Jay watching “Portlandia” for inspiration while in the studio.

Young Thug and Bloody Jay released a tape last week as Black Portland. Like everything else Thugger is doing these days, the project is great. It’s a brief nine songs (plus Thug’s “Danny Glover” and the duo’s previously released “Let’s Go Play”) but the new stuff features both rappers in peak form.

And then there’s the name, which raises some questions. The art for Black Portland” features the Trailblazers’ logo and that’s the most logical Portland connection for two rappers from Atlanta. FADER got in touch with Bloody Jay who confirmed this, noting that they are “on fire in the streets of Atlanta right now” and also that they smoke a lot of weed (aka “blazing”). Jay also mentioned the somewhat anonymous but very good 2013/14 Blazers as an inspiration. (Also, “blazing” may or may not be blood slang, which would make sense for the amount of “soo-woo” on the tape.)

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Still, Black Portland is funny obviously because Portland is an objectively very white city, both demographically and culturally. This comes up in the interview as well; the idea of a Portland filled with black people strikes Bloody Jay as so antithetical that he describes it as a “imaginary place”, more of a state of mind than an actual location.

But even if the white people joke is a hilarious side-effect of a quadruple-entendre about Portland’s basketball team, I instantly pictured Young Thug and Bloody Jay watching “Portlandia” for inspiration while in the studio. So I decided to watch some “Portlandia” and listen to Black Portland and see if anything lined up. It’s like Dark Side of the Rainbow but way more stupid.

I decided to use the second and third episodes of the series because the show gets on my fucking nerves and I didn’t get much further than that when I tried to watch it the first time. Stream Black Portland now, and here we go:

Song: “Suck Me Up
Sketch: ”Put A Bird On It"
It’s immediately clear this isn’t going to be as satisfying as pairing a sprawling, continuous prog rock album with a visually groundbreaking piece of movie history. “Bird” is frantic whereas “Suck Me Up” starts slow and creepy. But watching Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein run around plus the sketch’s several sudden mood shifts make the visuals ominous as hell. It feels like the “Black Hole Sun” video. These people are crazy and this is not a safe place.

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Song: “Suck Me Up”
Sketch: “Portland Song Mayor Meeting”
An immediate problem is that the songs and the sketches don’t change at the same time. The end of “Suck Me Up” and Fred and Carrie’s meeting with Mayor Kyle Maclachlan don’t really sync up, although watching people talk emphatically without hearing their words reminds me of every underwhelming R&B video from 1999.

Song: “Florida Water”
Sketch: “Portland Song Mayor Meeting”
The change in the music inadvertantly changes the tone of the meeting, although it’s still just goofy non-dialogue. The mayor sits on an ergonomic yoga ball instead of a chair and when he idly bounces he becomes an ersatz 64 Impala with hydraulics. It’s like the world’s worst economics thesis.

Song: “Florida Water”
Sketch: “Fixie Bike Dude”
This is actually pretty funny. Thug’s warbling and the reverb-soaked drum turn Spike (Fred Armisen’s aggro-cyclist) into an everyday dude just trying to live. Mayor Maclachlan rolls by and gives a perfectly timed thumbs up. The “snapshot of culture” vibe reminds me of the video for DJ Mehdi’s “Signatune”.

Song: “Florida Water”
Sketch: “Feminist Book Store”
The idea of a feminist book store playing “Black Portland” gets some token laughs. The sketch is pretty dialogue-heavy, but Young Thug does yell “you a freak!” right when Aubrey Plaza enters the scene. The song’s denouement lines up with the feminists staring down Plaza about pole-dancing classes, making the moment extra dramatic.

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Song: “Signs”
Sketch: “Feminist Book Store”
Brownstein tells Plaza to stop pointing, yelling “every time you point, I see a penis”. Jay and Thugger yell about gang signs.

Song: “Signs”
Sketch: “Portland Song Brainstorm”
Carrie and Fred leave each other voicemails with ideas about their song for Portland. Why do they have answering machines? Anyways, Brownstein goes through a whole romantic arc which ends with her accidentally killing her love interest. Death occurs right as Young Thug yells “BRRRAT”.

Song: “No Fucks”
Sketch: “Portland Song Brainstorm”
The sketch ends with Fred picking Carrie up from the dude’s funeral, dressed in all black. It’s almost some Death Row shit.

Song: “No Fucks”
Sketch: “Abandoned Dog”
This is great! Carrie and Fred play two brunch patrons irate about what appears to be an abandoned dog tethered to a parking meter. Jay and Thug just don’t give a fuck in general. Carrie and Fred don’t give a fuck about brunch decorum, especially in the face of potential animal abuse. Lingering shots of the dog are like the stoic shots of hood veterans in so many rap videos.

Song: “4 Eva Bloody”
Sketch: “Cacao”
A triumphant and kind of fun song about gangbanging might be worst possible musical backdrop for a goofy gender-bending sketch about sex positivity. Maybe Girls could pull it off?

Song: “Movin”
Sketch: “It’s Over”
The sketches follows Spike as he sees square people adopting things he likes and declaring them “over”. It paces time with graphics (“Monday”, “A Year Later” etc), a rap video cliche as time-worn as wildly optimistic “TO BE CONTINUED…” messages. It turns the sketch into the Portland equivalent of a rap song wondering where all the real dudes in the game went. “Movin” is just a slow banger about street activities, but it still works pretty well.

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Song: “Paranoia”
Sketch: “Coffee Land”
This whole concept is falling apart quick fast.

Song: “No Love”
Sketch: “The Box”
The excessively large box for a sex toy stands in the way of a couple’s romantic evening. “Black Portland” threaten disloyal friends. Thugger yells “you ain’t never been a thug!” at the box and “you ain’t my blood!” at the chess set Fred (in drag) makes out of the packing peanuts. It’s a powerful message about integrity (and the environment).

Song: “No Love”
Sketch: “Aimee Man Is Our Maid”
As “No Love” continues, Jay and Thug pull more cards. Aimee Mann, moonlighting (poorly) as a maid, is not their blood either! Fred and Carrie rip up a picture of Suzanne Vega and throw it on the floor: she is also not their blood. Who can you trust in “Black Portland”?

Song: “Nothing But Some Pain”
Sketch: “Aimee Man Is Our Maid”/“Get Out Of There”/“Shadowing”
Stripped of the dialogue and coupled with a somber piano beat, this sequence of sketches become a few slow-motion arguments away from an emotional Def Jam c-side from 1998 with Rell singing the hook. It probably wouldn’t open with the destruction of a Sarah McLaughlin piñata but it makes Aimee Mann’s apology to Sarah in the next scene pretty emotional. Later, crust punks help their friend out of a jam and a stripper struggles to learn the ropes. The club’s red coloring fits “Black Portland”.

Things go rapidly downhill from here, even if Carrie Brownstein licking a dude’s tie seems like a compelling visual for the opening of Young Thug’s “Danny Glover.”

Anyways, go listen to Black Portland, preferably not while watching “Portlandia."