Tha Pumpsta
“I don’t know any other rapper-painters that are doing styling for Ralph Lauren,” says Jeremy Parker, a Southern white boy whose perhaps unfortunately named “Kill Whitie” dance parties led one of America’s largest newspapers, The Washington Post, to call him a racist. The Brooklyn resident is currently finishing a new album under the name Tha Pumpsta in between making art and creating looks for a preppy design icon.
Tell me about the new record.
It’s called “Bass Black Treble White.” It’s kind of abstract, dancy, noisy, Southern hip-hop.
What does the title mean?
It’s from a speech that Martin Luther King gave. He’s been a role model from an early age. He said that “every man from a bass-black to a treble-white is significant on God’s keyboard” I felt like that was really beautiful and really musical and really colorful. I just found it really inspiring. After all that shit happened with the Washington Post I felt a responsibility to return with something as sincere as it could possibly be. It’s about my experiences, and the contradictions I felt, while growing up.
What’s one of the stories on the album?
The first track on the album is called “1987.” It’s about the first car I got, which was a 1987 Ford Tempo, and me asserting my independence.
Where did your car take you?
My car took me downtown. It took me to Freaknik, the black college spring break, where everyone came down and partied in the streets of Atlanta. It’s this insane spring break party. It’s booty bass, Atlanta hip-hop, Dirty South stuff. People fucking in their cars. Leaving Marietta, Georgia, this really hyper conservative Republican neighborhood that I grew up in as a punk rock white kid who was also gay as hell , and going to this very expressive, very free, liberated party, that really stuck with me.
I assume that was a big influence on the “Kill Whitie” parties you threw several years back. Those got you a lot of media attention, and people called you racist. How did that feel? Was any of the criticism legit?
Well, it’s funny because when we did the interview with The Washington Post, I sat down with Shannon Funchess, who was the black, lesbian co-founder, but when they published the article she received no mentioned whatsoever. So they painted this picture that there was this hip-hop party going on in Brooklyn that was thrown by a white person who is making fun of hip-hop culture and adapting to this culture in an ironic fashion, which people naturally were offended by. I would be, too, if I had just read that article. But that’s not at how things went down, and I deal with that a lot in the album. I think I try to paint a clearer picture of what it was, which was a local neighborhood party that was full of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and lesbians.
People are very entranced by the stereotype of the ironic Williamsburg hipster.
I think that we’re a bunch of young people trying to find an identity, and I think that can easily get misconstrued as hipster or ironic, but we’re doing stuff. We’re challenging things. My favorite thing about Brooklyn right now is this kind of collective conscious thing that’s happening artistically and musically. I feel like there are a lot of exciting projects in the works.
I think it’s interesting that you say your car brought you out of conservative white America into these black parties so influenced you growing up, and now that part of you, that liberated creativity, brought you to Ralph Lauren, who in some ways is the epitome of conservative white suburban America.
It is interesting.
New York is a place that values those contradictions.
Yeah, but to be completely honest with you, I separate myself from the identity of Ralph Lauren. I look at it as a means to fund my creativity. And it’s also another thing that challenges me to rethink my ideas and values and personal style.
What do you do for Ralph Lauren?
I started there doing freelance window design and interiors, and now I’m basically putting together looks to be photographed. It is Ralph Lauren, and it does have a huge corporate identity and it’s hard to escape that, but obviously I’m going to bring what I see in my day to day life into that environment.
Do you think that identity has influenced you?
I think it influences me in a good way. I’m kind of doing this very punk rock Brooklyn thing today, wearing my tight, acid washed jeans, but with a gingham button down and a Ralph Lauren sweater that somebody else would also be wearing with a pair of pleated khakis and boat shoes. I think that’s exciting. It comes back to the idea of the album, the paradoxes I talk about on the album. It’s acknowledging everything, not necessarily as good or bad, but as significant.
kill-whitie.com
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