Portland DJ and producer Juma Blaq leads community health walks through historic Albina, using Hip Hop culture to organize around wellness in Portland.
Juma Blaq co-leads The w(H)ealthy, a Portland organizing group that hosts weekly and monthly gatherings focused on redefining health. The group's signature activity is community walks through Albina and other Portland neighborhoods, according to a KBOO Radio program listing for an upcoming broadcast featuring Juma Blaq.
KBOO host Sekoynia Azikiwe first encountered Juma Blaq and The w(H)ealthy at one of their walks during PDX Hip Hop Week in August 2026. That week, proclaimed Hip-Hop Week by the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, ran from Aug. 20 through Aug. 26 and was co-founded by David Jackson Jr., known as DJ OG One, the Portland Trail Blazers' official in-arena DJ.
The walks pass through neighborhoods shaped by decades of displacement. By the 1960s, four out of five Black Portlanders lived in Albina, which earned the nickname "Jumptown" for its booming jazz, blues and gospel scene in the 1940s and 1950s, according to the I-5 Rose Quarter Project's history of Albina. Construction of the Memorial Coliseum, Interstate 5 and the expansion of Emanuel Hospital displaced hundreds of Black families and businesses. Between 1990 and 2010, the African American population in the area declined by more than 11,000, according to Portland Housing Bureau records.
At the county's Hip-Hop Week proclamation ceremony on Aug. 26, DJ OG One spoke to the broader ethos behind Portland Hip Hop's community-building work. "Using Hip-Hop as a tool to inspire other young people, that is the culture we want to create," he said. "We want to show that Hip-Hop can be the cool thing while you are connected to your community."
Juma Blaq appears on Azikiwe's EarToTheStreets of Portland show on KBOO Radio on Thursday, Oct. 15. The broadcast will include a pre-recorded interview about how The w(H)ealthy got started, along with a special performance by Juma Blaq.
