From left: Manny Salinas, Darrien Mack and Logan McDonald of Truehoods.
Run-D.M.C. Salt-N-Pepa. De La Soul. KMD. The Beastie Boys. Some of the most successful hip-hop groups of all time, they share something else in common: Each consists of three members.
The same goes for local hip-hop trio Truehoods.
Composed of rappers Manny Salinas and Darrien Mack, as well as producer Logan Daniel McDonald, Truehoods came together organically about five years ago when Salinas and McDonald invited Mack, who was then working at a video production company, to sit in on a filming session.
“I see him, and he’s just sitting there kind of mumbling to himself,” Salinas says. “And I was like, ‘You got something? Get on the mic!’”
Both Salinas and McDonald were immediately impressed by Mack, despite the fact he’d never rapped before. In that moment, the trio felt there was an obvious musical connection they needed to explore and thus began making music together.
“I’ve been doing music since I was in high school,” Salinas says. “I always wanted to have a rap group or some sort of music group. I would go to shows and talk to people, and nobody wanted to work with me. That whole time I was waiting for it and trying for it, but it never worked out because those people weren’t Logan and Darrien.”
The trio gelled immediately with a unified love of classic hip-hop music. Truehoods’ sound is truly unique in the region, fully embracing the sample-heavy style of ’80s hip hop, courtesy of McDonald, and pairing it with easy-flowing, creative bars from Mack and Salinas.
Truehoods released their debut album, Thirteen, in October 2025, and two EPs prior, aptly titled 1-6 and 7-12. The group came in third in the Best Rap Act/Artist category in the Inlander’s 2024 Best Of the Inland Northwest Poll, and local music fans would be wise to see what all the buzz is about when they play at the Montvale Event Center on March 15 for the first edition of Saturate, a new concert series presented by Emerge CDA designed to blend the best of Spokane and Coeur d’Alene’s local musicians with unique arts performances.
Collaboration often has the best outcome when all parties unanimously agree on something or have similar outlooks, but Truehoods pride themselves on their differences.
“Our writing style is different, and I love that contrast that we have,” Mack says. “It creates this crazy super team where we can communicate to different types of listeners.”
Mack points to Salinas’ more direct and pointed lyric-writing style, saying it’s helpful when they need to get a clear message across and have a distinct throughline in the song. Salinas often pulls from conversations he has in his daily life or relationships, whereas Mack’s lyrics are on the more abstract side of the spectrum, utilizing spoonerisms and other kinds of wordplay.
The cover of Truehoods’ album Thirteen.
“I bring in references to movies, names of actors, pop culture,” Mack says. “I’m inundated with all of this media and I’m a writer — I may as well pull from it and make it work in our music.”
“We all bring a different ingredient,” Salinas adds. “There are a lot of groups out there, but none of them have our secret weapon: Logan McDonald.”
McDonald is a completely self-taught musician and samples most of Truehood’s beats from vinyl records that he sources locally. He says he has a top-secret supplier of rare and obscure vinyl records that, most likely, no one in Spokane has heard before.
“I [put] a lot of pressure on myself because, ultimately, as much as these two can influence a song, at the end of the day, they’re adding their voices to the samples I find and the textures I create,” McDonald says. “I end up having more of an influence than I think I would like.”
Before any of the recording, producing or songwriting begins, however, the trio sits down to plot out their project. But it’s much deeper than just determining the message behind each song.
For example, their album Thirteen is split into four sections with separate themes. The first three songs all represent pride, while songs seven through nine were written with the underlying message of self-esteem in mind. “Handbags” (song five) and “Handshake” (song 10) are purposefully positioned that way in the tracklist due to the obvious hands/fingers reference in the titles.
“When we began making Thirteen, we wrote down like 20 values that we wanted to talk about,” Salinas says. “We need to know what the story is, what’s the point we want to make? And then what would that sound like?”
“[Mack] operates like the pacemaker,” McDonald says. “He sets the initial vision and curates it all.”
In Truehoods’ song “216,” Mack and Salinas discuss the concept of putting $100 in a shoebox every month of a child’s life until they turn 18. Mack says that prior to writing the song, he and Salinas sat down and discussed the specific themes and messages they wanted to convey.
“[Salinas] already has four children,” Mack says. “I have zero. So, he’s speaking from the place of already being a father and bringing in the history of being a dad. And then me, I’m thinking in the future.”
The pair of rappers have an almost mathematically equal amount of bars on the album. And, each song on the album features the voice of a local creative, family member or a friend, pulled from interviews conducted by Mack. Some of those guests include Spokane Poet Laureate Mery Smith and Vika & the Velvets drummer Azariah Ramirez.
“We think really deeply about these things,” Truehoods’ Salinas says. “I don’t know if anybody notices these things, but it’s really important to us.”
When McDonald’s unique production, Mack’s abstract lyricism and Salinas’ clear morals come together, a groove-ridden, synth-filled, cerebral soundscape unlike any other in the region is born in the form of Truehoods.
With two EPs and an album under their belts, Truehoods isn’t looking to make any more big music moves in the future; they’re willing to just ride the wave of Thirteen’s release until the time feels right to make more music.
All of the members are also successful solo artists: Mack performs DJ sets and makes music under the name rosethrow, McDonald is an ambient music whiz, playing 30-minute live sets on YouTube each week, and Salinas releases solo music under the name Manny the 3rd.
While they’ll all keep focusing on their individual endeavors for a while, they all agree that making music as Truehoods feels different.
“When you write your own stuff and you’re working on your own music, you’re your own critic,” Salinas says. “And when your friends hear it, they’ll usually tell you it’s good even if it sucked. So, with these guys, we all know we can be honest and that we can push each other to do better. We aren’t just ‘yes men’ to each other and it helps us grow.”
“I really care about these guys a lot,” McDonald says. “I love these guys. While we were making Thirteen, they were in my living room for five to eight hours every Saturday. They became pretty enmeshed in my life. These two make my life better, and I hope that’s what makes the music connect a little more — to have that relationship with one another.”
Saturate: A Concert Series featuring Truehoods, T.S the Solution and Olga Loktev • Sun, March 15 at 4:45 pm • $20 • Montvale Event Center • 1019 W. First Ave. • emergecda.com
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated the last name of Manny Salinas. We regret this error and it has been corrected.
