Two Broke Boys, No Cadillac

The life of a lowly wordsmith rapping in Eugene

Photo by Sarah Northrop.

For local rapper Speno, the money is on his mind and his mind is on the money. But on his new EP Hand Me Downs, through his ferocious wit and ability for self-examination, Speno proves that money isn’t everything — even if that’s by virtue of having none.

“I wouldn’t be here without hand-me-downs,” Speno says. “From handing me down clothes, to handing me down cigarettes — all the way to hand-me-down beats from Smyth.” A frequent collaborator, Smyth produced the new EP.

“I’ve never been that dude that’s been poor and found value in like, the butterflies flying up across my face while I’ve been like sleeping on a fucking bench or something,” Speno says. “It’s better to see butterflies fly across your face while you’re traveling because you have the money to travel.”

Born and raised in Eugene and a graduate of the University of Oregon, Speno has been a regular in the local music scene for years. The first time I saw him rap was in 2018, backed by a full band at Luckey’s Wednesday night Funk Jam. Before the virus you could still catch him there if you were lucky, often performing with members of a band he’s in, called Doink!. “That’s ‘Doink’ with an exclamation mark,” Speno says.

He’s also performed regularly at house shows around campus with Smyth. The beats are some of Smyth’s darkest yet and remind me of my favorite horrorcore records from the ’90s, like Kool Keith’s “Sex Style” or any beat Canibus has ever rapped on.

Smyth released his self-produced debut album Spore Atti, last summer and has recently landed production credits on albums from Portland-based rappers Wynne and Slick Devious, among others. But Smyth’s focus on Hand Me Downs has never been clearer. Each song is able to build on the one before it in a way that adds a level of cohesion missing in most contemporary rap releases.

“Working with Speno is so beneficial to my artistic development,” Smyth says. “He constantly teaches me new techniques and aspects to analyze.”

The starkness brewing directly underneath Smyth’s head-bobbing production becomes the perfect playground for Speno’s morbid philosophizing. At the end of “Shoulda Jabbed,” Speno asks what I consider to be a centralizing question: “Posted in my robe, I’m exposed, they say how in sweet Jesus is Moses so broke?”

One of my favorite things about Speno as an artist is his ability to place his situation within a larger context. He’s able to take the bigger picture of poverty and make it wallet-sized by using language that’s meant to be relatable. There are multiple Taco Bell references; he uses plastic silverware at home, and there’s an entire track dedicated to EBT.

But part of what is so fun about Hand Me Downs is this acknowledgement of class unity among the impoverished. A sense of pride comes with growing up poor — with knowing you’ve had to work a little harder for your things. Speno does a good job of never letting his pride morph into victimhood, a common failing among today’s young rappers. Speno knows, as all of my fellow millennials do, that there’s plenty of blame to go around as to why so many of us are finishing our 20s with peaks and valleys of debt. Speno only blames himself.

The key to Speno’s music lies in his ability to draw from a seemingly endless well of self-deprecation. But it isn’t born out of a need to talk about oneself in a galvanizing manner, although there is that sense of urgency, but instead it comes from his desire to understand the world around him; to place himself in the center of existence and then look around, taking notes.

“I’ve never been that dude that’s been poor and found value in like, the butterflies flying up across my face while I’ve been like sleeping on a fucking bench or something,” Speno says. “It’s better to see butterflies fly across your face while you’re traveling because you have the money to travel.”

Speno is the kind of rapper Eugene is lucky to have showing up at open mics and house shows. His technical skill is far beyond the stages that have been built around him, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he found he was getting bigger in the future. But for now he grinds. Patiently waiting for a way out.

Hand Me Downs is available on all major streaming services. It can be purchased for actual money that goes straight to the artist on Bandcamp at SmythMusic.Bandcamp.com/album/hand-me-downs.