Collection is open for research.
Gift of The Immigrant Story, June 2021 (RL2021-057).
Elijah Russell was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 2001. His mother was an American citizen, and his father was a well-known German rapper known as Samy Sorge. When he was four years old, his parents divorced, and in 2008, he moved with his mother to Portland, Oregon. He attended Sunset High School in Beaverton, and started Kids of Color, a school club to facilitate conversations about race. He subsequently attended Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Oral history interview with Elijah Russell, by Sankar Raman and Allison Merkel, SR 12325, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Elijah Russell was conducted by Sankar Raman and Allison Merkel on June 26, 2019. The interview was recorded for The Immigrant Story, an organization that documents and archives the stories of immigrants and refugees in the United States.
In this interview, Russell discusses his family background and early life in Hamburg, Germany, including the music careers of his parents, and the reasons he and his mother moved to Portland, Oregon, in 2005. He talks about growing up with a famous father, about writing music, and about his education in Germany and Beaverton. He shares his experiences as a Black person in both Germany and Portland, and speaks at length about starting a school club called Kids of Color. He talks about writing songs, plays some of his music, and discusses his musical ambitions. He talks about his plans for college, about sharing music with his father, and about his identity. He closes the interview by discussing plans for the future.
Joint copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society and The Immigrant Story. Use is allowed according to the following statement: In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted,
An article about Elijah Russell, "Giving Others a Voice" by Allison Merkel, was based on this interview and published on The Immigrant Story website at