Rarely do you find an artist whose message transcends the music through which he or she speaks. Only a few special artists each lifetime have the exceptional ability to incite a movement that is far more valuable than the sounds they create. From the same mold as important socioeconomic and political sculptors Tupac Shakur, Bob Dylan, and Bob Marley, comes Luck-One; an awe-inspiring hip-hop artist from Portland, Oregon.

As a classically trained musician since childhood and son of an on-again, off-again jazz musician, Luck-One (Hanif Collins) has always been dynamic in his approach to the music that would grow to be his life’s calling. Nearly ten years ago, as Luck was on the verge of releasing his debut LP Live From the Underground with his now defunct group, Seventh Science, he was arrested on robbery and gun charges. After being tried as an adult under Oregon’s mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, the 17-year-old would tragically wind up serving over half a decade behind penitentiary bars.

Since his confinement, Luck-One has emerged triumphantly with a vision to use his music as a cross-cultural medium for change. In February 2009, less than a year after his release, Luck-One collaborated with up and coming production wiz Dekk to release the not-for-profit EP Beautiful Music which was acclaimed by critics everywhere, and raised funds to fight poverty in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation of Haiti. Beautiful Music was regarded as one the Top Ten EPs of the year by the widely popular blog, Kevinnottingham.com, named Editor’s picks three months in a row by CDBaby, and proclaimed Breakout Hip-Hop album of the year in Willamette Week’s 2009 year in review. Riding off the buzz from Beautiful Music, Luck-One has built a dedicated following, and has shared stages with Internationally known superstars such as The Game, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Mike Jones, dead prez, RZA of Wu-Tang Clan, Zion I, and Naughty By Nature.

Luck-One and Dekk are musicians who believe that artistry is too impactful of a tool to be squandered on such empty pursuits as narcissism and vanity.