Parker and the Numberman w/DJ Collagey
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Parker and the Numberman w/DJ Collagey

San Diego, California, United States | INDIE

San Diego, California, United States | INDIE
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"Save Your Love Life With Parker & the Numberman"

Parker & the Numberman
Save Your Love Life With Parker & the Numberman
The local rappers shoot viral video with Qualcomm to promote their Snapdragon mobile processor. A catchy, cautionary tale ensues
By Scarlett Aguilar
| Saturday, Jul 14, 2012 | Updated 7:03 PM PDT
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Save Your Love Life With Parker & the Numberman

Three things that local telecommunications giant Qualcomm isn’t normally synonymous with: dating advice, viral videos and rap music. Yet somehow, with the new ad campaign for their mobile processor, Snapdragon, they attack all three subjects.

“How to Improve Your Relationship” is a three-minute advertisement for the Snapdragon mobile processor featuring the locally based rappers Parker & the Numberman. The video documents misadventures caused by miscommunications due to spotty cell phone reception. Static-filled phone calls and bad GPS signals cause a world of problems for the group, resulting in angry girlfriends, bad directions and lonely nights.

The crazy thing is, it's actually pretty catchy and not in the way that evokes images of autotuned tweens kicking it in the backseat on “Friday." Parker & the Numberman manage to make an otherwise boring and commercialized subject interesting and catchy, with bouncy beats, '80s-workout-clad dancers and eye-catching, technicolor settings.

Parker and the Numberman formed in 2007, a project created by Jack King (Parker Edison) and Jamal Smith (aka, 1019, aka”, the Numberman). The duo became a critically acclaimed trio after the addition of Brandon Zamudio (aka, DJ Collagey), who discovered the group’s work on MySpace. The trio, who call Lemon Grove and Paradise Hills home, have garnered praise on the local scene for their intelligent socially and pop-culture relevant style. The trio released an EP, "Clockwork Slang," and contributed tracks to the Gondola mix tape for London-based arts magazine Art Wednesday. They were nominated again this year for their second San Diego Music Award for Best Hip-Hop.

Marketing and Hip-Hop have gone hand-in-hand for some time now, but “How to Improve Your Relationship” shows the rap trio's prowess behind the mic and its ability to make microchips fun. Will we see a Parker & the Numberman special edition Snapdragon processor in the vein of “Formula 50” Vitamin Water? Time will tell.

Source: Save Your Love Life With Parker & the Numberman | NBC 7 San Diego
- NBC 7 San Diego


"Interview: Parker & The Numberman talk ‘Shortbread’ and ‘Lorna Doone’"


You may have seen this already on SoundDiego but I don’t think it got enough shine. Parker & The Numberman just released the Lorna Doone DVD available at Access. I talked to them about the visual aspect of their work including Lorna Doone and the Shortbread movie. This is part of a larger interview that also included DJ Collagey but I gotta save the rest of it for the time being. Peace to Tony for the ill flicks though.

SDRaps.com: What is the Lorna Doone DVD?

Parker Edison: Lorna Doone is like a video presentation of the last year. It’s seven video clips and as you watch them, it really does cover like the last 14 months. We got the original Parker & The Numberman shirts, which Access–big shout to Third Bird Studios and A. Rogan. They did the first set of shirts. Then it really became this grassroots thing. We really started taking control. We’re gonna kinda direct traffic and make some things pop off. And that’s what Lorna Doone is, you get to see it as it happens. It’s kinda like this weird documentary thing. But it’s based off pushing the Shortbread EP. I say–

10-19 The Numberman: Hah, that’s not really what it is! We were playing with some ideas, I don’t know how we got started. And from Shortbread, he took it to Lorna Doone and that was just the flyest s**t. It was based off the shortbread and the cookies and then the Lorna Doone snacks. And it was just … natural selection. Evolution.

SDRaps.com: So Shortbread: The Movie is on there?

Parker: No, Shortbread isn’t on there. But here’s the deal: What you have is like three–it’s really four different things happening. One is these video sets. Akira Chan was one of the first video cats that ever f**ked with us. So he did like “Sadie Hawkins” and stuff. And then the Shortbread EP was an endeavor that 10-19 the Numberman was doing. And then, we actually shot a clip that uses … I don’t know if Shortbread uses any parts of it.

10-19: It does, it does. Really, it’s … There are certain ideas, certain themes that we had been playing with for awhile. And now I think we have the ideas fully figured. We know what we want to do with these ideas. But when you’re doing it on this level, the funding on the backend is hard to come by. So these things are kinda coming out in the wrong order. In a lot of ways, I feel like shit would make perfect sense if it came out in the right order. So Lorna Doone was supposed to be out … I wouldn’t say awhile ago, but it was supposed to be a lot sooner than it is and that’s just because we didn’t have the funding to get it out. Then it was supposed to be Shortbread and all these things.

SDRaps.com: So Lorna Doone is first and then–

10-19: Lorna Doone is first. Shortbread came after that. If you see Lorna Doone, there’s a clip on there that makes perfect sense with Shortbread. It’s just so out of order that I can understand why people are like, “What?!”

Parker: Just for the titles, we did Shortbread the EP, which was a 6:34 of just raw music by 10-19 The Numberman. Then we get Lorna Doone, which is the 7-video clip documentary of the last year or so. And then you have the Shortbread Movie itself which is like some hood, avant-garde, semi-porn, now hella gully–

10-19: He said “gully!”

Parker: [Quan] said “gully!” And she LOVED it! Comisha T. Edwards, the chick, is so very conservative and square–

10-19: And NOT gully. She’s the furthest thing FROM gully!

Parker: She read the review last night. I was at a party and I sent it and told her to look and she just FLIPPED! She just dug it. She’s a Down South chick. She’s Mississippi, Gulf Coast. So maybe she just IS gully.

SDRaps.com: Dude, she’s like sitting there drying her hair and watching porn at the same time? What other word is there for her?

10-19: It’s interesting because there are certain things we’d been playing with for awhile. And if we had presented it the way we had wanted to present it, it would’ve made much more sense. Seeing things out of sequence, out of context–I see why it’s like, Huh? Kinda scratch your head. But it’s interesting to hear people’s reaction or what they take from it. Sometimes, I’m like, “Wow, I don’t know if we were going for that.” But if that’s what people take out of it, hey! It’s gully!

Parker: You know there are no animal sounds in the Shortbread EP. There are no animal sounds.

10-19: But I was like, Okay! Maybe there are!

SDRaps.com: Hah, no I wasn’t trying to say there ARE animal sounds in there. I was trying to say, the guitar distortion–that’s guitar distortion, right?

10-19: Sure! It’s guitar distortion! It’s not! I mean, I don’t wanna–This dude, I was chatting with this dude on Facebook. And I was asking these questions. He said it made him feel comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. I said, “What’s uncomfortable about it?” He’s like, “Ah well, it’s like I know what’s going on but at the same time, I have no clue. But art is best when it’s ambiguous.” So I was like, What?! Hey! And as corny and cliche as this sounds, now I’m like, it’s whatever people take from it. And I know that s**t is trite but I’m like–there’s animal sounds in it! It’s guitar distortion, ya know! Go with it!

SDRaps.com: See the guitar distortion, that’s just me being an idiot and not knowing what that sound is. But I wasn’t saying they ARE animal sounds but the rhythm of how the sounds are coming in and out is like you’re walking through a jungle.

Parker: Oooooh!

10-19: You’re spot on. That’s it son!

SDRaps.com: So that music on the Shortbread Movie, was that from the EP as well?

10-19: Yeah, some of it is from there.

Parker: The Shortbread EP is the soundtrack to the movie Shortbread. And then there’s one clip in Lorna Doone that kinda …

10-19: It would help tie it together better. If we had presented it the way we wanted to, if Lorna Doone had come out on time, it would’ve made more sense.

SDRaps.com: When did you put out the Shortbread EP?

10-19: Just a few months ago.

Parker: You can still get it on Bandcamp.com. Get it, get it, get it. - SDRaps


"Parker & The Numberman bring the ruckus"

On a Saturday afternoon at Ranchos Cocina restaurant in North Park, Jack King, Jamal Smith and Brandon Zamudio bounce off each other electrically. Between the three members of local hip-hop group Parker & The Numberman, you can hardly get a word in. They break down lines from ’80s diss songs, bringing in obscure trivia to add context, and are thoroughly enjoying it. They stumble over each other to give each other props. They riff on W.E.B. Du Bois, Joan Jett and Lorna Doone shortbread cookies. It’s a show in itself.

“We hang out all the time,” explains Zamudio, who goes by DJ Collagey. “So when we’re out there onstage, that’s just us. It’s not like we’re trying. Speaking just for myself, it’s just me going out there and wilding out with two of my friends, who like to get equally crazy while performing.”

The group’s been gaining steam in the past two years with its dynamic live show and unique, fun music. After earning their first San Diego Music Awards nomination last year, the trio has garnered two more nods this year for Best Hip-Hop and Best Hip-Hop Album, the latter for their Clockwork Slang EP, which came out in April. Now, just a few months later, they’ve dropped BDP&T, a collaborative EP with like-minded duo Broken Dreams.

In a time when hip-hop collaborations are often slapped together via email with little interaction between artists, chemistry has become rare. But Parker & The Numberman have it in spades, especially live. As DJ Collagey mixes a random selection of beats—sometimes from the group’s own songs, often not—King and Smith take on their eponymous roles as rappers Parker Edison and 10-19 the Numberman, playing off each other and flowing effortlessly over Collagey’s curveballs. Smith raps unassumingly, acting as a stoic counter to the animated King. King moves fluidly between his roles as rapper, entertainer and gracious host (“MC” is short for “master of ceremonies,” after all), helping to hype up his fellow performers. On any given night, you might see him explore every corner of the stage, pocketing mics as if he’s stealing them, pointing mic stands into the crowd like rifles. “It is this thing of, How far out can we go?” King says. "My goal is to have done a song so many times… I can do it to 17 different beats to the point where I get onstage and really just leave [to] this place where you just black the fuck out.”

BDP&T is an extension of the group’s onstage chemistry, though with Broken Dreams rappers Moodswingking Yomi and Brek One in the mix. Moodswingking Yomi recalls that after naming the first two songs “Bukowski” and “Boss-Key-Ought (Basquiat),” they aimed for a “portrait scheme,” using different cult icons to guide their songs.

While quirky, braggadocio-heavy lyrics and playful group dynamics are constant throughout the album, the relationship between the icon and the song varies. “Don Cornelius”— named after the creator of the R&B, funk and soul music showcase Soul Train—features a funky beat with samples of soulful crooners. However, on “The Buse (Gary Busey),” King takes on the eccentric personality of the actor, claiming to have “invented question marks” and stealing Moodswingking’s notebook before expounding on the virtues of living life on your own terms instead of your critics’.

“We can mock Gary Busey, but he’s genius,” King asserts. “I’m playing with these lines of stupidity. But if you keep listening, you’ll catch some real tidbits of reality in there.”

King and Smith—both in their early 30s—grew up in Paradise Hills and Lemon Grove, respectively. They met in the mid-’90s, when mutual friends passed King some of Smith’s music. Amazed with one song in particular, “Third Life,” King found Smith’s phone number on the back cover of the album and dialed it. A decade later, in 2007, they formed Parker & The Numberman, originally with King as the lone rapper and Smith as a brutally critical producer.

“I was trying to get my production chops up,” Smith says. “Not just beat-making… I was really trying to direct traffic. At the time, I just wasn’t able to articulate that shit. So it just seemed like I was Simon Cowell.”

Soon, Smith brought his own rap skills into the fold. In 2008, the duo’s performance at the now-defunct Urban Underground series Downtown impressed Zamudio, who joined the group after contacting them on MySpace.

On a Wednesday night in June, Parker & The Numberman joined Broken Dreams onstage at The Casbah to celebrate the release of BDP&T. Playing to a packed crowd, King came out in a ski mask and sunglasses. The four rappers performed the whole release with their DJ, feeding off the camaraderie.

King advises other performers to think about it like this: “You got hit by a car, God is there, and he said, ‘You got four minutes, dude. What’re you gonna do with this last four minutes?’ That’s what the fuck I wanna see you do onstage.”

- Citybeat magazine


Discography

P&T :
the Talented Tenth E.P.,
the Early E.P.,
Mr.Ridley presents: P&T's Clockwork Slang,
"What about your block?" DVD,
"the Lorna Doone" DVD

DJ Collagey :
Proper Chillage

1019 :
Dusty and Raw,
The Super Slacker e.p.

ParkerEdison :
Cherry Thick,
Caris. (the purple movie and beattape),
theTonyParker Project

Cameos: Bully Blinders(City of Dirt), Formula Abstract(Audio Autopsy), Karma(the Encounter), Daygo Produce(Fresh Crop mixtape), DJ Ntro(Cali-Smokin mixtape), Pac10(Franchise Players). A.M. project(Pacific Coast Time), Young Mass(the Best of Daygo City), Matty Hemmz( Cold Fusion), MagneticFlux Recordings: the Purple (Beat)tape

Photos

Bio

Friends for over a decade, rappers Parker Edison and 1019 have been recording music since the days of Butterfly clips and the Clinton administration. But even though the two began honing their skills and working on their chops in the late 90’s, for the most part, it was as solo artists both roughing through the music industry following completely separate paths.
It wasn’t until 2007, after a couple of Corona’s, sensing two heads were better than one that the drinking buddies decided to link up and collaborate. Following many nights spent out on the town and numerous days locked inside recording booths the team, now christened Parker & The Numberman, released their first official project. A shoot from the hip pull no punches, but do it with a smile, EP titled ‘The Talented Tenth’.
The name, a play on words, was taken from an old 1900’s social theory based on the writings of educator and race man W.E.B. Du Bois. Known for his keen insight he proclaimed college graduates would contribute to Negro advancement by grabbing the bull by the horns and leading the uneducated masses to the Promised Land. Du Bois dubbed the future leaders the “Talented Tenth”. Despite its heaviness the partners decided to adopt the moniker after creating a handful of socially relevant tracks aimed squarely at the average Joe.
Clocking in at 12 minutes and 13 seconds the five song extended player articulates a wide range of emotion. From the sober minor key narrative of ‘Track Four’ to the lighthearted cross cultural bounce of Miss Ann. Short and to the point only ‘Track Four’ exceeds the 3 minute mark, if only by a hair, ticking in at a whopping 3 minutes and 12 seconds. “That wasn’t by design” explains The Numberman, “It just happened that way. Once you’ve said what’s on your mind that’s it. You’re done.”
While the two admit a title like the ‘Talented Tenth’ might come off a bit heady or square they swear the music never will. “We aren’t fun crushing guys”, assures Parker. “We can party with the best of ‘em. And when we perform live it’s not on some Farrakhan shit. I’m standing on stage and I’m grabbing my nuts. I mean, we’re all about having a good time. We’re two live guys with glasses ya’ dig.” On average the duo plays two shows a month “Kickin’ up dust ‘til our legs get tired”, says The Numberman “We think you gotta do it the tried and true way. One show one fan at a time. Plus performing live is just fun. A room full of people grooving with you… can’t beat that!”

-Mr. Mead