Bocha / Portland, Oregon
Music is
the entry point.
Bocha is the artist world of William Hayes, a Portland rapper, creative director, entrepreneur, and producer building music into culture, products, experiences, and play.
Who is Bocha?
A Portland artist building the whole world around the record.
Bocha is the music and entertainment identity created and independently developed by William Hayes. The work combines honest rap storytelling, heavy bass, melodic textures, visual identity, merchandise, campaigns, partnerships, events, and interactive design.
Rather than treating a song, shirt, performance, or game as separate output, Bocha connects them into one recognizable world. William directs that world from concept through execution while representing Portland’s independent music and creative community on a wider stage.
The value
What Bocha and William Hayes bring.
Music & performance
Original rap and hip-hop releases, live performance, touring, album campaigns, and connected visual worlds rooted in Portland.
Creative direction
A complete creative point of view spanning identity, campaign concepts, art direction, photography, merchandise, digital assets, and launch execution.
Artist development
Release strategy, visual identity, distribution, publishing, partnerships, PR, merchandise, and the systems that help an artist world grow.
Brand partnerships
Culturally grounded collaborations connecting music, apparel, community, retail, and live experience with a coherent story.
Merchandise & products
Character-led apparel, graphics, accessories, packaging, and product concepts designed as extensions of the music.
Interactive worlds
Playable and digital extensions such as Vined Out that let audiences enter an album campaign rather than only view it.
Current world / Sour Grapes
An album designed to be entered.
Sour Grapes is an 11-track Bocha album expanded through a grape character, typography, apparel, bags, promotional materials, digital assets, and Vined Out, an interactive browser game that gives listeners another way into the project.
Portland music & culture
Built in Portland. Designed to travel.
Bocha’s work is grounded in Portland’s overlap of independent music, streetwear, art, community, and entrepreneurship. Through Bocha, Produce Portland, Oregon Trail Sessions, Red Bull programming, and Portland Trail Blazers work, William connects the city’s artists, audiences, brands, and creative spaces.
For collaborators looking for a Portland rap artist, multidisciplinary creative director, artist-development partner, cultural producer, or brand builder, the value is the same: one person who can shape the idea, build its identity, connect the right people, and carry it into the world.
Selected press
Independent perspectives on the work.
Reporting and interviews documenting Bocha’s music, Portland roots, creative process, visual world-building, and growth as an independent artist.
Portland Monthly
Ripping the City with Bocha
A Q&A tracing Bocha’s West Coast sound, Portland perspective, intentional visual worlds, Red Grapes: Volume 1, Hooligan, and creative work beyond his own releases.
Willamette Week
On His New Single, Rapper Bocha Reflects on Growing Up in Gresham
Mac Smiff examines “Ride Along,” Bocha’s Rockwood and Gresham perspective, his collaborative process with Yellow Trash Can, and the purpose behind the record.
Music · Creative direction · Partnerships