MAZE KOROMA isn’t going anywhere. The 24-year-old Portland native has seen a parade of rising rappers leave his hometown over the past few years, including Tope, Glenn Waco, and Luck-One (now known as Hanif). But he’s not following them, at least not anytime soon.
“I’m trying to build a foundation,” Koroma says. “I’ve thought about leaving [but] I just want to make sure that I have my skill set first. Right now I just feel confident about what’s going on here.”
Listen to Koroma’s Osiris EP and you can practically hear the North Portland emcee’s confidence pouring from the speakers. Just six tracks long, Osiris is an efficient amalgam of sturdy rhymes, wavy beats, and a finely tuned aesthetic, right down to the vintage video-game cover art. Along for the ride are a small handful of guests, including Zoo? and Slick Devious, Koroma’s cohorts in local hip-hop collective Renaissance Coalition.
RenCo, as the group is known, formed when its members were just out of high school. But Koroma’s interest in rap stretches back further, to a childhood spent falling asleep to Jammin’ 95.5 FM and regular trips to visit family in New York, where his mom lived before moving to Oregon. (His parents are originally from Sierra Leone, but Maze—whose given first name is Komeh—was born in the US.)