The Leaders Of The New Cool will be invading Los Angeles on Tuesday, January 26th so get ready! With performances from some of the hottest underground hip-hop artists around including Curren$y, El Prez, LEP Bogus Boys, and others it’s such to be a must-attend event! With sponsors like Upper Playground, IM King, Sedgwick & Cedar, Bloodbath, and many others you can be sure that this is something worthwhile and will be jampacked with give-aways.
Interview feature with legendary photographer Estevan Oriol from “The Run UP,” produced by Upper Playground in association with FIFTY24SF Gallery. Filmed by Shaun Roberts.
Hey, tell us a little information about yourself. Who are you and where are you from?
In short, I’m Jeremy Sullivan A.K.A. Sir Remington III and I manage UGHH.com out of Boston. I grew up skateboarding in the 90’s, and this culture connected me to so much creativity in art & music. Most of my interests can be traced back to this golden era. The underground Hip Hop movement of the late 90’s led me to DJing, and little did I know this site called undergroundhiphop.com that I checked regularly for new music would be where I ended up working.
What is life like up in Boston, As far as music, fashion, and popular culture?
Packed into less than 50 square miles, Boston is such a unique city. The never ending rotation of students attending the 100+ colleges alone makes for a lot of excitement. But, besides all the colleges, sports teams & history it’s typically known for, the Boston music scene has always been solid. The Hardcore and Hip Hop from the mid to late 90’s got a lot of people’s attention and there is still a lot of local talent. More recently, Boston has seen a surge of local DJ’s running shit. Most nights you can find some local staples holding it down w/ a wide variety of sounds. You can always check them w/ guest DJ’s at our monthly DJ event, Fresh Produce, which is running 3 years strong.
As for fashion, there have been a lot of boutiques opening doors. Heavyweights Karmaloop def. have a strong presence in the city, as well as Bodega and Concepts. What makes certain places stand out in Boston are the people behind them and their involvement in the local scene. Everyone has their own experiences that shine through their styles of products & events. We all do have many of the same interests and run similar businesses but it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re in competition…it’s great to see consumers interested in what we’re all doing. We’ll always point our customers to other boutiques with purpose in Boston.
Tell us a little about UGHH and the people involved?
Undergroundhiphop.com or as the kids say “UGHH” was est. in ’97 and is the one-stop shop for all Hip Hop related merchandise. We carry a broad range of products & thousands of titles, updated weekly, to satisfy all Hip Hop fans around the world. UGHH has become the industry standard…we select all the best products available and put them all in one convenient store. You still hear this notion of Hip Hop being a trend, but for anyone in the know, it’s obvious that there is so much depth to what Hip Hop is and we’re here to represent all elements of it.
UGHH is what I like to call a small giant b/c within our niche we are very well known, but our operation is pretty tight and we do things on our own terms. There are only a handful of us cranking everything out over here…CEO, Quest created this beast back in college and along with many other things handles all programming of the site; You can catch Van Stylez VJing & editing all of our exclusive interviews when he’s not doing customer service for the site; a_ronious is the face of our store front and is also responsible for bringing in select products and putting the word out in our blog descriptions; Rain holds down our warehouse, which is no small task, and also finds the time to snap product photos and produce records – look for his upcoming albums on Brick Records in 2010; DJ Food Stamp, who has been down since day 1, makes all those buttery mix CDs we give away; As for myself, I’m always looking to refine what we’re already doing and add on where it makes sense…one of those projects I started back in ’05 was making clothing available on UGHH, which now makes up the majority of my work. Besides the people on payroll we do have many remote supporters via street teams, message board moderators & loyal customers who all play important roles to our success.
What kind of brands does UGHH carry?
When I first started buying for UGHH I only carried graphic tees closely related to Hip Hop, but now that people know to check UGHH for gear, we’re expanding to a lot of lifestyle brands w/ slick outerwear & accessories. Everything is closely tied to streetwear, but some of it is just more mature. We also stock a good amount of limited headwear. What you can always count on is that the brands we select have timeless designs and are at a reasonable price. I would have killed for a lot of this stuff years ago and know I will be reminiscing on the styles in the future.
What are some of your favorite brands out right now?
From the 60+ solid brands we currently carry, some stand outs are 101 Apparel, Acrylick, Beautiful Decay, Bloodbath, Cardboard Robot, Conart, Dissizit!, Flud Watches, Free Gold Watch, Frank151, GoodWood, Imaginary Foundation, Listen, Manifest, Methods NYC, Novem, Official, Quintin, Rocksmith, Scifen, Secret Society, Society, Tank Theory, The Seventh Letter & all the Upper Playground brands (:Shinganist:, 12 Grain, Estevan Oriol, Fifty 24SF & superFishal). We also have some new brands coming up I’m excited about and we look to keep adding new styles & brands.
What new upcoming events or releases are you currently working on?
Our most recent installment of Fresh Produce @ Good Life in Boston happened on Sat, 10/24 and we’re featuring Diamond D of D.I.T.C. We’re also threw an album release party for Edan’s upcoming Echo Party CD/LP @ Good Life on Wed, 10/14. You can always check out our front page for upcoming events & in-store performances.
As for releases, check out our hat line called HATCH we put out w/ some brands last year. We had them custom made so we could have full control of the details and the end product is amazing.
What would you say are the most difficult aspects or being in your line of work?
Well, it’s really a bittersweet situation because I get to work in what I love, but I’ve also made my hobby work. A lot of times I skip out on things I would have never missed b/c I’ve been immersed in it all day. Besides that, we’re always facing the challenges of a small business…there is never enough time to do everything we want.
The fashion and music worlds are often tied together…What music artists out right now are grabbing your attention?
Yeah, that tie is unbreakable, and so much of it overlaps. Every song out there has a matching style. Labels like Stones Throw delve into both sides of product, which always keeps me interested. Their newest CD/LP from Mayer Hawthorne is no joke. A couple other albums that have sparked my interest are the Tame One & Del collabo & the new Black Keys project. I could talk about music for days…I’ll have to save the rest for another time. P
