The Brief

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Koreatown-raised entertainer Dumbfoundead tells it straight: “I don’t think I’m just Korean or Korean American. I’m more Koreatown than both of those labels.”

The Korean American rapper, born Jonathan Park, moved to Koreatown at 3 and has lived there ever since. He’s often called the “mayor of Koreatown,” a title he proudly embraces.

The neighborhood sits at the center of his memoir, SPIT: A Life in Battles, which he promoted at a book launch in early April hosted by the Los Angeles Korean Festival Foundation.

Set to be released Tuesday from Third State Books and co-written with Donnie Kwak, SPIT traces Park’s childhood through his late 20s. He chronicles coming up in the music scene while dealing with racist stereotypes, problems at home and addiction.

“This is the culture I grew up in, in the neighborhood, and that’s what made me who I am. If I didn’t grow up in a neighborhood that proudly had Korean letters on menus and signs and I could be unapologetically Korean, I would not be able to battle rap in confidence and be able to have thick skin to fight opponents verbally,” he said.

Rapper and actor Dumbfoundead (Jonathan Park) at Love Hour in Koreatown on March 26.

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Brian Feinzimer

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The LA Local

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Park, 40, was born in Argentina to Korean parents. He and his younger sister later crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with their mother, eventually landing in Koreatown. The neighborhood didn’t have much of a hip-hop scene but provided the young Park a space to find his voice.

Enter the hip-hop scene of nearby Leimert Park. Old, grainy YouTube videos show him performing at Project Blowed, where rappers gathered for open mic sessions that could run late into the night. He would skateboard there as a teenager, then head back home late. With his immigrant parents working long hours to support the family, the lax supervision allowed him to roam the city freely and build his street cred.

Seth Eklund, executive director of the Koreatown community and resource center Bresee Foundation, remembers the teenage Park from those early years.

“I do consider him like a son, one of my many sons from over the years,” Eklund said. “I started at Bresee in 1996, he started coming in 1998 when we were still up on the third floor of the church.”

In his memoir, Park describes the Bresee Foundation as transformative for his childhood. He started going there when the center served mostly Black and Latino youth. Park, his sister Natalie and their Korean friends Andy and Mimi “stuck out like sore thumbs,” Eklund said, but they quickly became regulars, spending most afternoons at the center.

Eklund remembers Park getting into music and media production. He even went to Leimert Park to watch Park freestyle.

“You had guys out there that were gangsters from all over L.A.,” Eklund said. “It was a really cool cultural scene. And there were really angry battle rappers, gangster rappers, all sorts of people, and he was always the funniest of everyone that would pick you apart with laughter as opposed to angst.”

Sociology professor Oliver Wang from Cal State Long Beach has researched Asian Americans in hip-hop and said the kinds of community spaces Park was part of were critical to him being able to “take off.”

Wang also points to how closely Park has tied himself to Koreatown. He said hip-hop, from its earliest days, has always been rooted in a sense of place, but especially with someone like Park, grounding himself in Koreatown helps listeners understand he is coming from a particular place and, therefore, a particular perspective.

“I think for Asian American listeners, the fact that he comes out of Koreatown, an Asian American ethnic enclave, that completely matters,” Wang said, “because it’s tied into a larger sense of Asian American-hood when you’re naming your Asian American hood, no pun intended.”

Even after growing up and leaving the Bresee Center, Park stayed connected to them, something Eklund says he really appreciates. Park returned to the center for a few summers to run workshops for younger kids, teaching writing and music production. He would also bring his artist friends to teach DJing and graffiti art.

“For a couple summers, our center was just flooded with not just kids from this neighborhood but kids from all over L.A. to learn from him and participate,” Eklund said.

“SPIT: A Life in Battles”

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Courtesy Third State Books

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“He’s a multicultural artist. He’s an L.A. artist. This is what L.A. is, it’s a melting pot of people of different traditions coming together, and that’s why I think people resonate with him,” he added.

Paul Kim, Park’s longtime friend and founder of Kollaboration, a nonprofit that helps grow Asian American talent, remembers seeing Park performing as a teenager.

“You could tell he was just different,” Kim said. “So witty, so funny.”

Kim notes that Park always stayed true to his roots.

“He’s performed at almost every Koreatown nonprofit gala, he’s supported so many different organizations, he’s performed at all the student associations, the cultural performances,” he said. “He was always rapping about real-life situations. He’s just very raw and authentic.”

That authenticity is what drew 23-year-old Johnny Nguyen, originally from the Bay Area, to become a fan of Dumbfoundead.

“I was 13 and I was looking for Asian American rappers because I wanted to support the community and stories that weren’t represented,” he said.

“He is a regular guy living in Koreatown trying to live life like everyone else in the neighborhood,” Nguyen added. “He’s not living in a mansion far away.”

Park agrees that’s all part of his approach to making art.

“I think hip-hop is just authenticity,” Park said. “When I was growing up, I had a lot of songs that were super nerdy. … The other Asian rappers were pretty gangster, and then they saw this dude named Dumbfoundead. He looks scraggly, he skateboards, and he’s rapping about not getting girls while everyone else is rapping about getting girls. Hip-hop is about being unique and standing out.”

Park says his book is about “capturing Koreatown’s legacy, Asian American history and entertainment, all just told through my lens.”

Touring made him more aware of how specific his experience was — and how lucky he was for it. In other parts of the country, he said, he would meet Korean American fans who did not grow up around a large Korean community.

After one show in Wisconsin, he said a young Korean fan came up to him and begged him: take me with you.

“To us it doesn’t mean anything because we can get great Korean food and we just gotta choose between 10 options,” he said about growing up in Los Angeles. “I think we take it for granted a little bit that this is a place where you can have confidence and be unapologetically Korean.”

Park has never left much doubt about how he feels about Koreatown.

“I really do thank the neighborhood in that way,” he said. “I think that that played a big part.”

Park is scheduled to appear in conversation with chef Roy Choi at Barnes & Noble at The Grove on April 16 and at the LA Times Festival of Books on April 19.

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.