Monthly Archives: May 2012

Another white girl rapper.  That’s what I think.  Really though, another white girl rapper? After Kreayshawn and Iggy have passed through our doors, after Azealia sneered at the influx herself in our last issue.  What makes Nova Rockafeller any different?

Well, if we’re simply honing in on the label, sure. She’s white. She’s a girl. But if you were to ask Nova, she’d respond, “I’m just a rapper.”  For the past 8 years of her life, she’s been doing the music thing. The rap thing.  DIY… setting up her own touring engagements, performing alongside Killah Priest, RA the Rugged Man, opening for Odd Future and Pharaohe Monch in the Czech Republic, watching over the marketing, handling the books. She writes all her raps (and they are exceptional raps. Say what you want, girl’s got flow). DIA… Doing It All.

She’s a self-professed product of ’90s rock and underground hip-hop, but then of classic film, Woody Allen; she’s a craftsman of homemade merch tees, a successful jewelry line, and a natural-born photographer with a damn good eye.  But she has nowhere to call home, a nomad songstress pinballing from one urban location to the next.  Hailing originally from Edmonton, she’s New York, she’s Jamaica, she’s Los Angeles, wherever her music takes her.  And today it brings her here.

I’m still skeptical. These days I’m not much of a hip-hop fan. You have to be that good to get my attention (I’m sure you feel the same).  The act has to live beyond a quirky Youtube video or a catchy hook or a WSHH co-sign.  And you have to be that much more special and unique if you’re a female. And when you’re a white girl? Do we have more enough room?

Maybe not.  But that’s fine, because Nova’s in a different room altogether.  A room all to herself. At first glance, she’s a Hot Topic suburban bopper, a fresh face that’s ethnically hard to pinpoint, too many accessories, a free braid, neon undershirt accents.  But she talks about punching dudes in the face, Rakim, existing on 3 hours of sleep after a long night.  We listen to a few of her songs.  Produced by the highly-respected Justin Warfield (She Wants Revenge), they are loud and big, aggressive, grimy, in-your-face and you can’t help but like them, and so the music is unadulterated her.  This is how Nova is, this is the way she controls the crowd, owns a room, this week having slayed meeting after another with L.A.’s biggest record labels and their executives. Reducing the industry’s most famous into silly putty, vying for her signature across the dotted line.  In the midst of our meeting, actually, her manager fields a call from one of them.  The phone conversation takes him outside for half an hour and upon his return, “I think we just got our first record deal offer…”

Nova explodes.

You’ll be the judge.  Over the next few weeks to months, you will be hearing a lot about Nova Rockafeller.  And by this time next year, she won’t just be relegated as another white girl rapper.  The next white girl rapper will just be deemed another Nova Rockafeller.

Introducing the world premiere of Nova Rockafeller’s latest music video.  Produced on a shoestring budget of $200 (80 of which was spent on broken boomboxes), entirely shot, edited, and cut by her friend in the rapper’s only 2 free days this month.

This one’s entitled “Batman” and you’re seeing it here FIRST:

by bobbyhundreds

I had it all wrong.

To me, imitation was the furthest thing from flattery.  As a designer and architect of a Streetwear brand, nothing could be worse – especially in our niche universe – than to hijack a concept, steal from a peer or predecessor, rip off an idea. (Although many would fiercely disagree) I believe I’d upheld this duty; I purposefully distanced myself from competitors’ work, shielded my eyes from industry news blogs, when I’d see the marketplace climb towards one direction, I’d turn away.  Our graphic parodies obvious and educative “homages,” our inspired work re-appropriated and tweaked from the originals; That’s how much I’ve objected to copycatting and bootlegging in my own work – despised it, really – detested it in others.  But that’s what I had understood (or misunderstood) as constituting a respectable and respectful career.  And if you pay any attention to the Streetwear/culture comment boards and bloggers (any graphic designer over the age of 25, really), quick to declare any semblance of duplication as guilty until proven innocent, I wasn’t alone.

But Kirby, Austin, and Jonah would somewhat disagree.

Kirby Ferguson is the New York-based filmmaker who brought you the 4-part video series, Everything is a Remix (embedded at the end of this post).  Independently produced and broadcast over Vimeo thanks to viewer donations, the 10-minute chapters were my favorite online video content of 2011.  Kirby painstakingly diagrams the Ecclesiastical truth that “Nothing is new under the sun.”  In plain, relatable English, he defends that nothing is truly original, everything is in fact a “remix” of what came before.  The greatest works being those that have successfully built upon established ideas, combined them, and expressed a new whole.  He demonstrates Led Zeppelin as one of the biggest copycat, yet subsequently copied, rock bands in music (Part 1).  Then to Star Wars as a chopped-up salad of film history (Part 2).  Part 3 is where Kirby drives the point home:

“Copying is how we learn.  We can’t introduce anything new until we’re fluent with the language of our domain and we do that through emulation.  For instance, all artists spend their formative years producing derivative work.  Bob Dylan’s first album contained eleven cover songs.  Richard Pryor began his stand-up career by making a not so good imitation of Bill Cosby.  And Hunter S. Thompson retyped the The Great Gatsby just to get the feel of writing a great novel.  Nobody starts out original.  We need copying to build a foundation of knowledge and understanding.  And after that… things can get interesting.”

It’s a sentiment that is also shared, echoed, and well, remixed, in Austin Kleon’s pocket-sized book, STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST.  (Please get this if you don’t already have it!!!  Borrow it from the library, support a local, independent bookseller, the author himself, or okay fine, Amazon)  The fantastically creative and succinct writer/artist breaks down a 10-step process on achieving the creative mindset.  And although I don’t necessarily endorse or disagree with his entire process, I will admit that much of this book explains how even The Hundreds came to be.  Like Kirby, Austin emphasizes the importance of imitation and replication in the developmental crawl.  And it made me realize that I learned to draw by mimicking Jim Davis’ characters.  My comic humor was lifted from Bill Watterson.  My early skate photography was fisheye-framed and light-trailed á la Atiba.  And my writing, by way of Steinbeck to Didion.

And The Hundreds?  Well, can I forsake the Stussy tees and plaids I devoured as a kid?  The Freshjive parodies, the Fuct rebellious spirit, the Supreme attention to classic American stylings?  And for those Streetwear pioneers, can they abdicate Chanel’s luxury-minded blueprint, vintage California surf and beachwear, utilitarian workwear and technical military apparel, Ralph Lauren’s sense and philosophy?

In IMAGINE, Jonah Lehrer continues this discourse, offering Bob Dylan as an example of a “thief” whose work was stolen from the likes of Rimbaud, Brecht, Robert Johnson, and Woody Guthrie, and then remixed into his own genius craft.  And what about Shakespeare, the most notorious robber baron of all, pillaging Marlowe’s product, taking shamelessly from Greene’s Pandosto, Chaucer…

And in a way, this blog post is a remix – a new creation.  Nothing I have quoted or repeated is original or mine.  But what I do own is the re-hash of the video content, the amalgam of the books’ message, and the perspective of it all in relation to The Hundreds.

Voltaire wrote, “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”  To the Streetwear/street culture/street-oriented crowd, keep that in mind the next time you call out someone’s work as derivative.  We’d be foolish to think that any individual or brand is void of imitation, of stealing.  It’s in the very nature, the DNA, of who we are as creatives, and it’s where all great and wonderful ideas come from.  You can quote me on that (or just rip it off).

“Most people think an artist tries to be original, but originality is the last thing that develops in the artist.” — Lukas Foss

by Kirby Ferguson, by Austin Kleon, by Jonah Lehrer, by bobbyhundreds