Thirstin Howl III
interview excerpt
THIII:I mean the importance of gettin' fly in New York, I can say for myself and all of my friends, I mean it was something that you wanted to do. I mean the atmosphere in New York is just that. Everybody fly everywhere you look.
SG: Yep.
THIII: I mean as a teenager and all that, you had to do it to to protect yourself from the jokes, and the harshness of the...
SG: Yeah
THIII: Cuz you know I come from, you know a team of rankin motherfuckers.
SG: Yeah people would cut ya ass all day.
THIII: Yeah, so you know I grew up poor man. I didn't have furniture in my house. I didn't have a phone. Barely had food. Barely had dishes and shit, but I knew even in that case, I had to get fly before I worried about even the crib because even when people come in my house, they rankin. So, I could imagine the people outside who can't see my house. So, I'm the only person they can attack, or you know, how you look. What ya sneakers look like, and this is a 24 hour 7 days a week thing in New York. Especially in Brownsville, the ranking, the harshness. And you know I was Puerto Rican in Brownsville. I get hit with every Goya Bean joke in the motherfucking world. You know, that's what actually made me a crazy punchline rapper. Being attacked so much with the jokes, I had to defend myself against 20-30 niggas at a time. So, my jokes had to be on the next level, and that's what made me the punchline rapper I became.
SG: Totally, totally, totally dig that. You preaching to the choir. My family definitely gave it up to, in doing similar to what you're talking about. Doing whatever it took to like get fly whether it was Boostin' whether it was doing the thing ah ah ah ah ah. And so, what was the transition, because I mean in the 80s you could've copped anything to get jiggy, right? Like cats was doing the lee jeans, cats was doing the gazelles, but yall like, what was the transition? Like yeah there are mad other brands, but this Ralph shit is different. And so we want to rock with this, because it's not only a part of the American Dream, but it's just different. So, what was your transition into rockin' Lo?
THIII: Well, it was an evolution, right? Because I tell mad people, the LoLife style was not on with Polo. The LoLife style is a b-boy style.I'm a break dancer. I'm a break dancer, I'm a graffiti artist. I always dressed in the suits, those Enyce suits, those Puma suits, those Adidas suits, the Kango, the Gazelles, the sheepskins. I went hard with those, with all of that.
