Rapper Dumbfoundead unapologetically represents K-town in memoir ‘SPIT’

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.