Dumbfoundead reveals his hip-hop survival story in new book ‘Spit’
Jonnie Park has always gone by many names. The most Google-able is his hip-hop moniker “Dumbfoundead,” which he’s gone by for decades as a seasoned battle rapper and an artist who’s put out a jaw-dropping 13 albums while becoming one of the kings of legendary Leimert Park hip-hop crew, record label and open mic Project Blowed. As a resident of L.A.’s Koreatown since childhood, he’s still known as “The Mayor of K-town.” To his friends, he’s just “Dumb.” Of all the aliases and titles he’s fought for, “author” might seem to be the most unlikely. But as a professional when it comes to producing scathing hot bars in battle raps, it felt only right to put his journey down the warpath of rhymes on paper in his debut memoir “Spit: A Life in Battles,” released April 14 on Third State Books.
The memoir (which includes a foreword by Park’s longtime friend, R&B star Anderson .Paak) recounts razor-sharp memories starting from childhood, including the harrowing story of his family’s immigration from Argentina to L.A. when he was 3. He talks frankly about the perils and prejudice of growing up Korean American in Southern California and thrusting himself into the hip-hop scene, where, after stumbling in as an outsider to Black culture, he ultimately found his voice on stage. It speaks to the foundation that later served him well as an actor, podcaster, comedian and recently TV writer for season 2 of the hit show “Beef.” But he says his reputation as a battle rapper is the one that will always matter most.
Recently Park spoke to the Times about the hardest parts of writing his new memoir, the importance of Project Blowed and taking his underground rap mentality with him from the gutter to the stars.
For your memoir you purposely take the parts of your life from childhood until about age of 30, the peak of your hip-hop career. What was it like to go back and take that journey again?
To me, it’s always kind of the core of who I am. Even as a multi-hyphenate, I always say I’m first and foremost a battle rapper. It was such a pivotal moment at a time in my life and I take that label with me wherever I go, so it doesn’t feel too distant. But to actually be in that arena feels very distant. I look back and I just think about the audacity of a young Asian kid in that world. I’m just like “Wow, I really had the balls to do this at one point.” And I still love the subculture of battle rap. It’s something I’m a part of and a story that I want to tell in all these other mediums — whether it’s screenwriting or developing a TV show, I still feel like there’s a lot to be done with that subculture.
Why was it important for you to help your readers learn about the technical aspect of battle rap and what it takes to be a battle rapper?
There’s a lot more layers to it than people know. Obviously we know Eminem’s “Eight Mile” was the height of the story of where battle rap got to, and it did a great job of that. Obviously it’s been many years since then. But I also wanted to let people know that the people involved in this subculture aren’t just in poverty trying to make it out and get on a record label. This is a real subculture that people obsess over and I just wanted to find an excuse to nerd about it and also teach people this kind of new era of battle rap. I also highlight some of my peers really deserved it, and including the open mic I went through called Project Blowed. That’s the one thing I love about this book is that I can immortalize some of my personal heroes and places that I hold dear to my heart.
But mechanics of how our brains work when freestyling is something I find interesting. People always ask me “How do you guys freestyle or battle?” And I was really nervous about explaining it. I just didn’t know how I would do that. I had the help of my co-author, Donnie Kwak, who I’ve known for many years. He’s never written a book either, but he’s just kind of like a big brother to me and we’ve had many conversations about this. So being able to break that down was really cool for me. And I still really love that chapter about freestyling and battling for dummies.
Dumbfoundead’s memoir “Spit” chronicles his rise through underground battle rap, offering deeper insight into the subculture.
(Lenne Chai)
What was it like for you as you were discovering your voice through open mics at Project Blowed?
Project Blowed freed such a big part of me. I think when I saw the other rappers there, and they were taking [rapping] to heights I never imagined, the styles of raps that I would see here, from there, were so unorthodox. At that point, I was listening to everything on the radio along with mix tapes and stuff. But this was not even that. This wasn’t even like the underground mix tapes. It was the most raw and purest form of rap. It was so weird and abstract, even for me, just the young Korean kid at the age of 14 that hadn’t gone south of Pico Boulevard, growing up on Third Street, and all of a sudden I’m on 43rd. It was like another world for me. Next thing I know, I’m immersed in this world where there’s black kids that are into anime, punk rock and rapping their a— off. And I’m like, “This is insane!” So it did a lot for my perception of everything, more than just hip-hop.
Why was it so important for you to kind of showcase your Korean from not only the standpoint of a rapper but also as a writer?
Definitely the Korean American part was very important to me, because we see Korean culture, Korea especially being this global powerhouse, and what we know of it is the “Squid Games,” and the K-Pop of it all. And so I did want to share this more in the perspective of a Korean American. Even more specifically, in Southern California, in Los Angeles, there is a different vibe of Asian American life than the rest of the country. I’m the epitome of that. A lot of our parents have these wholesale businesses downtown or dry cleaners or liquor stores. Growing up in K-town, a lot of Korean families have a dad who’s an alcoholic, and there’s a lot of domestic violence situations. I think through my story, a lot of people will see themselves in these situations.
Jonnie Park, a.k.a. Dumbfoundead, writes in his memoir about growing up in Koreatown.
(Third State Books)
I think it also just speaks to all the different layers of struggle, battles that you and your family have gone through. Were there any aspects of this book that were really challenging for you?
The hardest part was definitely writing about my father, and knowing that this book is going to be out in the public because it’s so revealing. There’s affairs, there’s businesses that he worked at that are named. These families do exist — I grew up with that family that my dad had an affair with. I don’t talk to them or anything, but it’s all in the book. And I did want to be honest, I just felt like this is a place to do it if I’m going to do it. I don’t know if my dad will read it, but if it ever got translated into Korean, he’s definitely reading it. I still don’t have a great relationship with my father and I just feel like there wasn’t, there’s not much of a closure to that still. And maybe the book will help open up some new conversations between him and I. So that part was a little difficult, and also talking about some of the domestic violence in my house. Growing up with my dad and my mom, it made me feel for my mom a lot.
The beginning and the end is the most difficult part, because the end really discusses kind of like that insecurity as an artist, and where I’m at in my life as an artist, seeing a lot of my friends becoming extremely successful. I really wanted to be honest about that. The book doesn’t necessarily end with me being triumphant and feeling at ease.I still feel that as an artist, and I think that’s why it’s just an ongoing battle.
Describe what that’s like having come out of that underground rap scene and showing your skills to the world in TV and film while holding on to that underground mentality.
Even being in a writer’s room for “Beef” Season 2 — that was my first writer’s room — felt like a cypher. Knowing when to jump into the conversation at the right time, and knowing when to fall back. That just tells you that the skills that I acquired from freestyling and battle rap, I was able to take into the real world and apply it in so many different places.
I think it’s so interesting that I got that “Beef” Season 2 gig because the showrunner and the creator of the show really loves my perspective on Asian American culture on my podcast [“Fun With Dumb”], just based off of that. I got to a place in my life where I just felt very comfortable being vulnerable and self-deprecating through all the things I’ve done in battle rap. I was able to apply it to podcasting, too. And to have that humor and wit and that vulnerability, that comedic sense that I’ve acquired from battling and freestyling, one thing just led to the other. I still have the same kind of slate of stories and ideas that I’ve been trying to get made for many years. That includes stories on battle rap, K-town and being Korean, American. Those are always kind of the things I take with me to whatever I’m trying to make right now, and maybe once I make those, I can move on, but I’m still working on that.
