StarPower, hip hop artist |
I had a crush on him in 7th grade. He was a bad boy with too much brainpower for his own good. A few years ago when I reconnected with many old junior high school friends, I learned he stuck with hip hop and was also a teacher. I went to a few of his shows and was sold on his in-your-face lyrics. I added him to my "Men of May" UrbanErotika lineup. Now he's taking those skills to teach in Qatar. We fueled up with burgers and soccer at Bill's Bar and Burger then headed over to The High Line to discuss.
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Introduce yourself
and tell us about art, your discipline.
Rod, R-O-D. I always spell it out because I went to a
workshop one time and the guy told me I don’t enunciate well enough he said,
“It sounds like you’re saying ‘Roz’” so I always say, Rod – R-O-D. Yeah, Rod AKA StarPower. My art is hip hop –
writing and performing. My discipline is discipline; discipline’s changed my
life, discipline has made me the person I am ‘cause I had none of it and now
it’s an addiction. So yeah, that’s me.
So, you’re a hip hop
artist. Is there a message to your music?
Yeah, definitely. The message is to be an individual. A lot
of hip hop used to be dangerous, it used to be about “I don’t give a fuck” but
it was not give a fuck for a reason. Now they’re not even trying to not give a
fuck anymore so I’m not gonna give a fuck for all of us. My message is you’re
here once, don’t leave anything on the table, don’t regret anything. There’s a million things that you could be rapping about but they don’t do
it. And if you’re in a position, like in
my position, I’m just a no-name rapper somewhere, I can
say what the hell I want and I’m gonna rap about it. My message is just you’re
beautiful, the world is beautiful, it’s also ugly and disgusting and you need
to speak about all of it, in detail, that’s
how I feel.
Now, introduce the
world to StarPower. How was he born?
Man, StarPower… I used to call myself Rod the
Immaculate—it was a horrible rap name. Then I was in a group called The
Dugout so we all had baseball names. I was the Power Hitter ‘cause I was so
aggressive, I was going for the homerun every time. And then Merc one
time was playing with my name and he was like The Power Hitter, Star Power Hitter,
StarPower and I was like, “I’ve been waiting my whole life for that name.” I
was like that’s me. Let’s do it. That’s when that was born. Maybe O-six’ish…
StarPowering |
Explain what
StarPowering is and how you came up with it.
StarPowering is when you take a picture in a superhero pose,
each hand on your hip, so you’re making a triangle with each arm. And you find
something you enjoy standing on top of. That’s really what it is—something you
really enjoy standing on top of or a situation where you’re just having fun. You could be on the ground in a situation you’re really enjoying. I’ve been
taking pictures like that for a while. I went through my phase where I was big
douche and I would take every picture with my middle finger up. I thought that
was cool and then when I looked back I was like that wasn’t cool at all. And I
used to do this thing where I just put my chin up real high, you know, chuck it
up, and then I added the arms. I used to stand like that sometimes and my wife
was like, “Why do you stand like that?” then I started taking pictures like
that, automatically. The first time I did it was the one where I was around my
way and I was standing on the two poles around the fire hydrant. And I was
like, “I always take these pictures, I’m gonna call this ‘StarPowering’”.
(laughs)
You said discipline
is your discipline and you’ve been doing it for a long time. Do you have a
vice? What’s your artist’s vice?
I speak in ways or I rap in
ways that people might feel are disrespectful. I’ve been censored by artists
that would be considered edgy themselves. Whatever I say and how I say it,
people wanna censor it sometimes. I don’t have a filter when I rap. I’m not gonna have
a filter. I refuse to have a filter. I think even the most so-called dangerous artists nowadays have a huge filter.
That’s my vice—I don’t care how disgusting it is, I don’t care how brutal it
sounds, I think it needs to be said. That doesn’t mean that I feel that way all
the time, I may just be speaking in character… a lot of times, I am speaking in
character. That’s my vice—all vices
will come out in my songs. Everything. You’re guaranteed that shit.
Was there a moment,
and if so, what was it, where you knew you’d made the right career choice or the
right choice as far as the type of art you would create?
Recently. After not doing it for a while, I was like when I
decide to do it again real tough, real consistent, will I even make sense
in the landscape of what’s going on? And every time I did drop something people
were with it like they always were. If you’re truly doing you, you’re the only
person who could do you, you’re gonna get felt because they can’t get that
anywhere else—that’s what I realized. I have something no one can get anywhere
else. That’s why my new record is gonna be called, All Else Failed, cause I waited, I waited, I waited and no one did
anything close… I was 30, 31 and I was like fuck it I’m the only one who could
do this—I knew it was the right decision.
What’s your opinion
on the term “wordsmith”?
Wordsmith… anytime I hear something with “smith” at the end
I think “cocksmith” (laughs) one of my favorite words, cocksmith, but uh,
wordsmith…
(laughs) Yeah, how do
you feel about people describing themselves or being described as a “wordsmith”?
I feel like someone has to describe you as a wordsmith.
Someone describes themselves as a wordsmith? I don’t think they’re much of a
wordsmith. (laughs) They could use something else to describe their “wordsmithery”.
(laughter) I don’t know about that
term, man, because I’ve seen people and I’m like oh that’s a wordsmith but few
rappers, you know, few artists that I felt are wordsmiths but it’s an all right
term, I have nothing against it.
What stereotype do
you fit?
Oh man, a bunch of them. I’m a pretty much, tatted-up
rapper. I go in the inner city and teach every day and I use hip hop slang, I rap and everything like that so I fit all of those stereotypes. What
other stereotypes? A little of the militant Black dude—got “Unforgivable
Blackness” tatted on me, talk a lot about hating police, and I hate police, I
sure do, I don’t hate a lot of things but I come close to hating police, so yeah
I fit those. Tupac said black people don’t like police so don’t try it, yup,
I’m one of those black people, I don’t like police. I fit all of that shit
right there.
Do you consider
yourself a teaching artist?
When I think of teaching artist I think of something
different, I think of someone who’s pursuing art as their main objective and
they know that they have an ability to teach also. I consider myself more a
teacher… but I don’t really separate the teaching part from the artist part
now, I never really thought of it until I got older and I was like I’m always
telling a story, a story with some type of moral to it, some type of theme so I
feel like I’m always teaching now. I consider myself a teacher or an artist.
You’re on “Who Wants
to be a Millionaire”. What’s the one topic that you would have to
phone-a-friend for?
I have to narrow it to one?
If you got more than
one that you need help with, go ‘head…
Yeah, I would need help with Authors, um, Types of Plants,
yeah, definitely Types of Plants cause I love trivia and stuff, I’m really good
at that stuff but those are my weak categories, yeah, Literature, Types of
Plants.
Word association. And
now that I’m looking at them, I feel like I’m setting you up with some of these
but we’re gonna do it anyway. All right… Money.
Power.
Pig.
Cop.
Google
Me.
King
Me, again.
Kid
Soon.
Is the baby going to
be a citizen of Qatar?
The baby will be conceived in Qatar,
pretty sure. Yup, possibly born there.
Tell me about Qatar, how that came to be.
Me and my wife felt like it’d be cool to live in a different
country but coming from our backgrounds we didn’t have the money. But teaching
has afforded me so many different things that I never would’ve dreamed of. I
never got to study abroad; I was like I should try to teach abroad, and with
me, thought to action can happen really quick. Same thing with her. We never thought we’d be in the Middle East—I
was very anti-Middle East at first. I started knowing some people who were in Dubai,
Abu Dhabi… I wanted to go to China
and South Korea
but that didn’t work out so when Qatar
hit me up and I did the research I was like this place is awesome, man, I’m in
there. You know what happened? Kanye West is my favorite rapper and I
found out that he shot a video there, a movie, it was some ridiculous, ostentatious,
7 screens—that’s how you have to view it—and he did it in the city that I’m gonna be working and teaching in, Doha, Qatar,
[but] not even in the city, in the
complex I’m gonna be teaching, Education City, and even further it’s gonna
premiere on my birthday of this year. I was like get the hell outta here,
November 19th in Doha,
I’m in there. Yeah, that’s Qatar.
Where water’s more expensive than gas.
In any language, what
is your favorite word and why?
I like pussy in
English (laughs) that word is stimulating, can’t front. I like a bunch of words
though. I fall in love with words, definitely pussy, the word, the thing isn’t too shabby either. Um, I like melancholy…
The sound of that
word? The meaning?
I like how it looks, how the letters look and the colors
that I see when I hear it, yeah…
As a teacher, what’s
something that your students have taught you?
To remain a kid. Not to remain a kid, but to keep all that
childlike enthusiasm about everything. You know, when I send a kid to take something to another teacher for me and the kid gets 10 or 12 feet from my
classroom and then decides to jump up in the air and then run for the next 15 feet and then stop, I’m like, “What’d you do that for?”
Cause they wanted to
(laughs)
Yeah, cause they wanted to (laughs) that’s awesome. That’s
what they do, man. I do a lot of those things as an adult more than a lot of
other adults I know, but it’s still not like a kid, so I think about
that all the time. And a kid, they’ll make something they’ll be so proud of it
and they’ll be like, “here look at this”, they’ll show it to you. As adults
though you have that false modesty and everything. You did something and you
love it but you don’t show it the same way a kid does so they taught me to keep
that with me.
For you, what’s the
connection between exercise, diet, art and creativity?
Stay stimulated all the time. Discipline and stimulation. For
all of that stuff to work you have to be really disciplined and, that
discipline, I enjoy it. It’s kinda of masochistic, but I enjoy it and I like to
be stimulated all the time. I think I have to be. When I’m not stimulated, I
think I’d get depressed so exercising, being creative all of that stuff keeps
me really, really stimulated, so that’s everything to me.
One out of three, a
mani, pedi or facial?
Facial. Yeah, definitely the facial.
What is the most
useless piece of advice you’ve received?
It’s not useless though cause I’ve thought about it more lately
but I guess at the time that I heard it, it was “You’re lucky you have this
job so stay in it so you could retire early and have your pension” and that’s
it. There was nothing mentioned about joy and any of that shit, it was just be
safe, not gonna be rich, don’t try to be rich but you’ll be so-called
comfortable and that’s that. And then die whatever amount of years after your
pension. What the hell?
So it wasn’t useless
but you didn’t particularly wanna follow that advice.
No, I didn’t feel that, and I haven’t followed it.
I want you to
complete this statement: If my muse were an animal, it would be…
It would be a real tough unicorn. Like a real gangsta tough
kinda unicorn, know what I’m saying? Like picture a unicorn and then make it
tough, kinda dark, like “I know I’m a unicorn but don’t front on me. Don’t
front like I’m some just soft magical thing”, a real tough unicorn… who would
like to be a giraffe sometimes (laughs).
Ok, so a really tough
unicorn who wants to be a giraffe.
At times, yeah. A real tough unicorn.
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HILARIOUS and so insightful! I think I stored 3 new quotes. I have to agree with StarPower on one very important point...remaining childlike in some aspects is important. We should all run like mad, jump and then walk. :)
ReplyDeleteGREAT interview!
StarPower IS very quotable. Thanks for reading fellow Random Moment-er!
Delete"StarPowering" is totally embracing childlike energy. Can't wait for his StarPowering pic from the desert in Qatar... or at the premiere of Kanye's movie.