One Love

One Love Records in St. Johns has just expanded, and a man wearing Ben Franklin specs is now painting a loosely chronological mural of hip-hop’s old-school greats (including the obligatory, Run-DMC Tougher than Leather stance, and a mushy image of DJ Hurricane emerging from a bottle of Budweiser). When I drove there last night—20 minutes from my house, a lifetime in Portland—the wall was still wet, the air pungent with oils. Octavius Miller, the store’s owner, had me take a photo of him coddling a turntable to his face like his newborn, and kissing it. He is an impressive melange of ideation, sweetness, and humility.
Octavius is the surviving brother of Seagram Miller, who released three records on Rap-a-Lot Records before he was murdered on the streets of Oakland in 1997—three months before Tupac Shakur died. That was the year Octavius turned to music as life-raft; otherwise, he says he might have embarked on a more destructive path. He moved to Portland ten years ago; he likes it. He says it reminds him of Oakland or Berkeley in the early days.
He tells me these stories with a palpable, self-assured pride; Octavius is, after all, the kind of man who talks big, but whose dreams indeed come to fruition. He’s been staging West Coast Peace Tours—huge hip-hop events in parks and woods—for ten years. The Peace Tour is how he hooked up with Fat Tony, from Fat Tone Records in Brooklyn; they’re looking to organize something nationwide. Octavius also keeps a recording studio in the back of One Love; hosts the most-watched cable access show in Portland; and, this week, he and Fat Tony are holding a giant benefit for KPSU (1450 AM) with about 30 artists from all over the nation, a panel for artists on protecting themselves against the record industry (attended, ironically, representatives from all major record labels), an emcee battle, a raffle, and an afterparty.
He is also currently filming a remake of the greatest movie ever made, The Warriors. Do not worry! I have generously offered my rollerskating-in-a-baseball-uniform services, gratis. I will indeed mug loco on the MAX train, complete with lime green face paint and a carved-up luulvlle slugga.
Octavius Miller’s main goal in life, though, the one after which he will retire all other promotional endeavors, is RAPSTOCK, to be held on the top of Mount Hood: “Like Woodstock, but for hiphop.” He has the Woodstock Soundtrack record displayed prominently, next to flyers for R.B.L. Posse shows (“That was the last show Mr. Cee ever performed—dying after a show, it’s the Portland curse”), photos of Octavius posing with Ice Cube and Too $hort, photos of Octavius with Bushwick Bill, who is rolling up the most gigantor nug of West Coast Carmelo Anthony I have ever seen in a Polaroid. With love, he opens the Woodstock album, a tri-fold, and shows me the photo from the stage. “I want to do this for hiphop. I want to make the biggest party ever. Even if that’s the last thing I do… Even if it’s in 2007 or 2008.”