Spending a day with Josh Rizeberg is like a box of chocolates ... no. ... Spending a day with Josh Rizeberg is like watching two wolverines fight in a sleeping bag ... no. ... Spending a day with Josh Rizeberg is like peeing in the hot tub while the ghost of Allan Ginsberg feeds you fresh pecan pie and reads poetry.

That's close. 

Josh Rizeberg is Tacoma bred, fed and lay him to dead. He's got a huge Jewfro. He raps. He wrote and won slams for spoken word poetry before it was trendy. He's likely to show up with a stuffed Swisher behind his ear (it's OK, he's got a prescription). His voice is soothing, but what he says isn't always nice. I once watched him rap about political corruption to a room full of local politicians. He referred to them as "lizard people," and the politicians in the room still applauded. He's one of the hardest working people I've ever met. He writes, records, performs and hustles ruthlessly.

You hear about people who don't give a fuck. Rizeberg is one of those people - but only about things that aren't worth giving a fuck about. He cares a whole lot about the things that matter. He tells me he's been working to organize a public community dialogue to discuss the recent efforts to crack down on gangs in Tacoma, and some of the community concerns that have emerged in the wake of those efforts. He says he even managed to talk Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist into sitting on the panel with local educators and community organizers. Lindquist backed out. Perhaps wisely so.

"No one can build a bridge or destroy one quite like me," says Rizeberg.

Our day starts kind of early, around noon-ish. He arrives impeccably dressed,  clean with nice kicks. His hair floats around his shoulders like a kinky, salt-and-pepper nebula.

The day was scheduled to begin with a trip to the studio to record vocals for a project due out later this year, but studio sessions get rescheduled as often as they happen. Rizeberg suggests that we record something, but my mic is on loan. No music happening today.

Rizeberg mentions that he's got a protest to hit in Seattle - a march for native woodcarver John T. Williams, who was fatally shot this past August by Seattle Police Officer Ian Birk. A gallery of witnesses and four of eight inquest jurors say the shooting was unprovoked.

Rizeberg meets up near Westlake with sister Leah, Tacoma producer Eee-Tree and A_Hyp, who "manages" Tacoma-based hip-hop artist EvergreenOne. They're early for the protest at 6 p.m. and are three of only 30 people there. By the time the march begins, there are hundreds of people. Every so often, people throw up a cloud of leaflets that read "Fuck the Police". People crack flares and wave them like they're directing air traffic. Native war cries erupt repeatedly over drums and horns. Most of the cops don't seem to want to be there.

Rizeberg and company decide to leave the march early to go have drinks with a woman that he describes as "having that hot mom status." Her name is Rose, and is a ménage à trois on the table, which Rizeberg declines. A_Hyp opts in for a ménage deux. 

Rizeberg mentions he's going to be a father in April - the baby is a boy who will be dubbed Eli Marquez Rizeberg. His unflinching cool slips for a second. He's excited like a kid who's been told that someone is on their way over with ice cream.  He talks about his girl in mythic terms; nothing but respect and adoration.

While he talks, he fiddles with a huge stone ring on his pinky. It's plastic, turns out, and looks kind of like a flat brain. He takes it off and hands it to me. I point out that it has a "7" imprinted on the inside - a number with vast symbolic significance in Islam, the Moorish Science Temple of America, Judaism and other perspectives that permeate hip-hop culture and many Rizeberg rhymes.

Turns out he has a whole track about the number seven, "Supreme Mathematics," which he recently dropped on a beat by Seattle producer Boom Box Massacre, who'll put it on a mixtape due out later this year. Rizeberg has it with him. I get a pre-release listen. It's an overdose of numerological association and cultural knowledge over a pounding noggin nodder with dirty synth stabs.

Seven notes in an octave. 
Seven body chakras.
Seven days of the week.
Seven braids in the fades of Egyptian and Olmec reliefs. 
Seven Mandingo ships came here before Columbus done run up on us.
The Ancient Kemetians.
They were believin‘ in Seven stages of humanity.
Seven stars with independent, unconstrained motion in our galaxy.

"I got it at the mall," he says, slipping the ring back on his finger.