Recently, the annual Power to the Peaceful Festival welcomed some of today's hottest performers to the stage. Among them was, the Portland based hip-hop trio Lifesavas. Vursatyl, Jumbo, and DJ Shines just recently finished their second album for Quannum Projects and are on tour to support it. MetroWize had a chance to sit down with them for an interview about life on the road, inspiration for the new album and plans for the future.

The new Lifesavas album is called Gutterfly. Jumbo describes it like this, “Originally, we wanted to do something that had a theme to it…we were watching a lot of blaxploitation flicks just to get us open in terms of our writing…” A pattern appeared to them as they submerged themselves in the genre. Each film had a notable artist doing the soundtrack. They referenced Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, and The Staple Singers as sources of inspiration. Jumbo went on to describe how it eventually would grow into a way of exploring dark subjects in their lives. In the past year the group experienced rape in the family, a parent being killed in a police cover up, and loved ones being jailed for crimes they didn’t commit. “We decided maybe we could show a side of ourselves that wasn’t shown on Spirit in Stone (their first album) and jump into character, and give the album a nice two side of the coin balance where you get Lifesavas as Vurs, Jumbo, and Shines. And you also get these characters we created Bumpy Johnson, Sleepy Floyd, and Jimmy Slimwater.”

When asked about the current state of hip-hop in the Pacific Northwest scene and their role in it, Jumbo explains, “At this point with two albums under our belt and what we’ve done for the Northwest, I would definitely say we laid the foundation for a lot of groups and have inspired a lot of groups to actually pursue a career… because some of them were doing it just as kind of, you know, a hobby.” He went onto describe the scene as “crabs in a barrel”, referring to a movement formerly divided amongst itself. Lifesavas have been wildly creative in their approach to hip-hop ever since they founded the group over five years ago. Their show is a combination of brilliant free style lyrics, tightly timed and choreographed songs and crowd interaction.

If you missed Lifesavas the last few times around, check out this video from this performance @ Mezzanine earlier this summer and make sure to catch them when they come through in October to play with Galactic at The Fillmore.