In Hip-Hop fashion, it’s more about making “a statement” than making a statement. As confusing as that may be, anything that’s perceived as propaganda is often considered cheap, and thus undesirable.
For Edwyn Huang and his Hoodman Clothing line, it’s entirely the
opposite. At over 30 dollars a pop, Hoodman shirts are artistically
designed to promote Barack Obama, world peace, and racial equality in
the media. While these issues may appear small, the matter plenty to
Hoodman’s designer and creator. A law student when he’s not bringing ideas out on cotton, Huang uses
Hoodman as an outlet while he slangs sneakers, runs secret stores, and
collaborates with Democratic candidates’ staffs. Beyond just
looking fresh, Hoodman stands for something, and so does its founder.
With a fresh line of reworked Nintendo prints for the summer, get to
know the man behind the stencils, and why it’s more than just stitches
to this well-traveled visionary. At Hoodman, if you’re mind is over
matter, it ain’t hard to tell. AllHipHop.com: You do
definitely have t-shirts that walk the political line. How do you feel,
as a designer, to see people gravitate towards it, some for political
graphics and some for just style?Edwyn Huang: Well, I use
“cool” to sell the politics. For instance, Bill Maher and other social
commentators point out that liberals are boring. A lot of times it
almost seems like we don’t have enough pizzazz, we’re not selling our
candidates and things like that. I wanted to use cool to generate young
voters, especially among minority/immigrant communities too. You just
need more people involved with the political process. My
parents both immigrated later on, my mom when she was 15, my dad when
he was 27 or 28, so they never really schooled me on American
politics/social issues and weren’t involved. A lot of kids like me
don’t get that type of education at home so we don’t have an interest
in government, politics. I feel Hip-Hop was the first thing that woke
me up to it all and I owe a lot to the culture. I hope through street
culture, we can make it cool to be involved politically or just to be
socially conscious. I talk about politics a lot, but that really isn’t
my thing, it’s the manifestation of an interest in social problems and
cultural evolution. AllHipHop.com: In the year that you have been doing this, have you seen proof of success in that effort?Edwyn
Huang: Yeah, yeah, definitely. The Ali Speaks shirt that said, “I
ain’t got no quarrel” sparked a lot of interest. We used the Arabic
word for “Iraq” so a lot of people would ask what it said cause they
couldn’t read it. And that’s why I wanted to write that in Arabic so
that people have to ask about it, to say, “What does that say?” even
though you could probably assume it always people want to ask and make
sure. And then also with the Barack [Obama] t-shirt featuring Rakim
shirt where it says “Barack O. is President,” we did the writing small
on purpose because you have to look closer. And everyone that wears it
tells me that when they go on the train everyone’s staring at the shirt
now. And now they started to understand it, at first they thought bit
was weird but now they like they’re like, they’ll just stop, [and say],
“You can read it; it’s a Rakim record.” Our goal with every shirt is to
create dialogue, whether people agree with our messages or not, having
a debate gets us closer to the truth, or at least a compromise.AllHipHop.com: Do you find that you have an appeal outside of people that haven’t ever heard of 4th and Broadway Records?Edwyn
Huang: I definitely have an appeal outside, and I want to retain that,
because I’m not trying to close myself off to anyone. I’m here to start
dialogue about these issues. So I’m gonna dabble in other styles, and
things like that. For instance, in our next line, I don’t want to give
too much away, but we have a Bill Maher shirt coming out that reps Bill
Maher. Bill Maher is not somebody that is associated with Hip-Hop you
know, but I wanted to bring him to our audience for those that aren’t
already watching the show. I’m trying to slowly bring other figures
that aren’t necessarily recognized in the culture, to the culture. AllHipHop.com: Why Hoodman? What’s that name mean to you and why is that the name is of company?Edwyn
Huang: Okay, that’s a good question, because when I came to New York,
one of the first stores I shopped at was Union. I went in there and it
blew my mind. Back in Orlando, there wasn’t anything like it. I
listened to all the music, got all the references in the clothes, and
streetwear just took the whole Hip-Hop experience to another level. I
couldn’t believe that there was this option of clothing to be able to
wear something everyday that I really associated myself with, that I
could really connect with, that I could really see myself in. Back in
the day we wore Tommy, Polo whatever, and that s**t had nothing to do
with me, I don’t know where to find a horse. I wouldn’t know where to
f**king go play polo. None of that lifestyle, none of it connects with
me, but I remember we all wore it. I think in New York, we take it for
granted that the culture starts here ’cause in a lot of other places,
you where and listen to what you can find. AllHip-Hop.com: I
talk to a lot of people who are into fashion scene in New York I know
it’s very territorial, as an outsider coming in. did you feel the
rather of that?Edwyn Huang: No, nobody really bothered me that
much about that. Because I think they saw, that I was getting at these
things from a new angle. People really liked that we got behind Obama.
And not even just Obama too, it’s Ali. Everybody uses Ali but I was
like “Let’s remix the anti-war quote.” A lot of people put Mike Tyson
on and, you know I love the No Mas skate deck stuff, they have the
dopest illustrations of Mike Tyson and I actually got the Lemar Dauley
crew, but a lot of other brands just throw a picture of him up, stamp a
logo and it doesn’t do justice. No Mas really got into Mike Tyson
substantively with the whole ring scene with Don King and then the
pigeons. Those were done really well. There’s so much story around
him, there’s so much controversy. There’s a person there that a lot of
people got mixed feelings about, and I don’t think you should be
throwing Mike Tyson on a t-shirt without, like, shinning a light on
some angle we haven’t seen. I love Mike and it bothers me to see
people trying to make a quick buck making garbage t-shirts. That
happens with Biggie a lot now too. So I guess maybe, I haven’t caught
the wrath because they appreciate that I came at Ali and the Eric B.
& Rakim record from a different angle.AllHipHop.com: For
years Obama has been on our radar, have you heard from his staff or
anybody? I guess they have no problem with you using his name, have
they given you the thumbs up or anything?Edwyn
Huang: I
contacted them through their email, you know, ‘cause they have the
website, its very interactive. No one got back to me, and then I tried
to contact the Young Lawyers for Obama, and I contacted some people
there, they were all like, “Yeah, yeah we’re interested,” so I tried to
get a meeting with them and the person I contacted just kept telling me
to come out to events and he’d try to get at me there about the shirts.
From my experience, nothing ever gets done at those things so I just
told him, if he had time to sit down and set-up a fundraising thing
with the shirts, I was ready. No response though, just invitations to
go to walk-a-thons and cocktail parties. [Ed’s Note: Huang was again
contacted by Obama Youth Voting coordinators since interview. Several
retailers, including Digital Gravel, have expressed interest in
donations to the campaign from Hoodman sales.]AllHipHop.com:
Looking at the summer line tell me a little bit what your doing now
with the animation with a whole style and movement that we haven’t
previously seen from your line.Edwyn Huang: I think what I’m
try’na do with these animation things is, its not as overt as the
Barack Obama, it’s not as overt as the Ali, and its more digestible for
certain audiences. Because for real, a lot of people they say, “I like
your shirt, I like the Ali shirt, but people may get mad at me if I
wear it.” “I Ain’t Got No Quarrel With Them“ is an anti-war shirt,
people just aren’t ready to step out and represent that yet; and even
though I think they should, if they feel that way, I do understand,
some people it takes a little bit more time to come out of the shell
and just say what they’re feeling. But with the Mario Kart stuff, I
feel like it’s a shirt people can wear and say “Yo, I just like the
Mario whatever,” but if they want to dig deeper the message is there.
It’s affirmative action in Mario Kart. There’s no Black characters in
Mario. Those games are made by Asian, people and there’s no Asian
people either in Mario; they’re all Caucasian. I remember when I first
went to Taiwan when I was in like fifth or sixth grade, and I was like,
“Yo, these games have Asian people in them, this is crazy.” It was just
dope to see someone like me in a game.AllHipHop.com: In
terms of the company, is it a one many army, what’s your staff like?
Tell me from the time you get these ideas, to the time they’re actually
executed, to the time there are hanging on a rack in the store.Edwyn
Huang: In December, I went back to the lab; I went to my parents’
house in Florida over Christmas break and I was there with my brother
Evan Huang and my art director Ning Juang. I came up with all these
images and then Evan would help me research the content. On every one
of these shirts Ning does most of the vectoring and all the touch up
for the screen printing and gets everything ready and she directs the
other artists. Another artist from Michigan, Leo Li, he actually did
the illustrations for the Mario Kart series of the characters, but then
Ning illustrated the mushrooms and words and all that stuff, a lot of
the backgrounds. Because Leo was good at characters but Ning was
really good at doing backgrounds and fonts and things like that, and
live tracings. They work as a team those two are kind of like my main
illustrators, and Ning does quality control.AllHipHop.com: I may have misheard you in the beginning but you said you have a store that you’re at right now?Edwyn
Huang: Yeah, it’s the most ghetto thing ever. I’m broke as hell, but I
got this apartment in the East Village. Me and my boy Steven Lau, we
open the store up every Saturday for three hours. We hit up
Craigslist; we hit up ISS. We got like on any given weekend 100 to 200
pairs of sneakers and people come through here, they buy shirts, kicks,
etc. I’m not really selling shirts out of the apartment anymore ’cause
I got retail stores, but the kicks are always moving here. We have a
list serve; it’s rotten.bananas.inc@gmail.comSteve is also
really involved with the t-shirts, selling them, reaching out to
stores, coming up with designs, etc. This s**t does not happen without
him. AllHipHop.com: When did all of this start?Edwyn
Huang: This started actually in October. Oh this is what we didn’t
answer yet, is that name Hoodman. The reason why I use that name is
because I targeted mainstream fashion. Bergdorf Goodman, they call
themselves a fashion house, and they carry all the big fashion
companies, you know, Gucci, Prada, whatever, Fendi. Hoodman is
the contrast to that; I want to provide clothing for people who are
forgotten in that normal marketing scheme. There’s a good book called No Brow,
and it talks about how right now because there’s so much market
research available, people aren’t catering to that fringe culture.
They can concentrate their efforts on the majority of people who follow
a certain look. So the hood is the converse to that whole
Madison Avenue s**t. We take what they got and flip it on ’em. The
kind statement is basically that people have been taking style and
things from Hip-Hop and co-opting it for so long, and I said its about
time we strike back, like The Return of the Jedi and the colors are
kind of from there too. AllHipHop.com: You got the t-shirt
thing going really well, its hard to make a belt political. Do you see
yourself expanding beyond t-shirts in the future?Edwyn Huang:
Yeah, you know this is what I thought, I said, “Whenever I do
something, I have to responsible,” and a belt is hard to make
political. But maybe you can use material from like a local place that
you know you wanna put money in their pocket, there’s ways to do that.
But I think that the main way I would do that is if I do ever get into
lifestyle products I don’t want somebody walking down the street with
all Hoodman, you know I like people showing love to different
companies. I don’t know if I want to outfit someone entirely in
Hoodman. Even though it sounds stupid, most people want to market
their brand and have people covered in it. But it’s mad stupid to have
someone totally Bape’d out. You just look like a walking billboard. I
don’t want them all Hoodman’ed out, not that they would ever be; my
customer base isn’t even that big yet. But if I ever did accessories
and stuff I would definitely give a percentage of profits to charities.
So that even though you’re buying this belt that looks dope and there’s
no statement in the belt, your money is making a statement. I’m a big
believer that the way that you purchase, your consumer habits, is
making a statement about who you are. AllHipHop.com: What’s the hardest part about what you do?Edwyn
Huang: Uh, the hardest part about what I do? You know what; the hardest
part is staying myself. I really think that is the hardest part;
because a lot of people come to you with a lot of suggestions. One guy
really made me upset, he saw the shirt and said, “Why did you use DMX,
he’s not really that popular anymore. Why don’t you use somebody more
popular? Like T.I. or Young Jeezy, who’s really popular right now?” and
I was like, “Are you serious?” The point of it’s not to be popular. I
use DMX because his whole persona was just off the wall and his image
attracted a lot of negative attention. The Mario Kart line was trying
to deal with negative identity issues and diffuse them through using a
child-like video game motif. Plus, he was the first one to be poppin’
wheelies with the three-wheelers and the Ruff Ryders always had crazy
motorcycles and s**t in the videos. I’m not even try’na diss T.I. and
Young Jeezy; they’re both dope. T.I., his flow is sick and
unbelievable, him and Ludacris got the South on lock, but DMX was the
one I felt best fit the them of the shirt. But definitely
staying yourself is very hard. And then people come out of the
woodworks tryna make money on you, it’s weird. I don’t want to get
into that, but people have made some ridiculous business offers. I want
to make sure im doing what I want to do, not what somebody else wants
me to do. It’s definitely hard to keep your vision. Because so many
people come with ideas and I’m an open-minded guy so I try to see what
they’re wanting me to do, and a lot of times it’s taking me in a
direction that I don’t want to go. AllHipHop.com: As November
of ’08 approaches do you see yourself really turning the stove on? Do
you see yourself taking the line and throwing it at this election?Edwyn
Huang: Yeah sure, definitely, definitely I would. I want to make sure
readers know; I am definitely not trying to present myself as the most
conscious or knowledgable person, I’m just trying to talk about what I
know. I’m a kid that over the last five to six years really sees a
problem, and I’m just very passionate about it. AllHipHop.com:
In terms of who you are as a man right now, what is on album, Hip-Hop
or not, and one book that brought you to were you are at, that you want
to put people on to?Edwyn Huang: There’s four books I always tell people to read. Howard Zinn’s The People’s History of the United States of America. The book got big-up’d by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting.
He walked into Robin Williams’ office and says, “These are all crappy
books, if you want a book read, Howard Zinn.” Howard Zinn is wild. A Modest Proposal [by] Jonathon Swift, like I told you. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [by] Mark Twain; he was ahead of his time with equal rights and things like that. And the last one is Julius Caesar
by [William] Shakespeare. It’s not Shakespeare’s greatest work, it’s a
very Hip-Hop type book, it’s a lot about loyalty, it’s a lot about code
of the street type things among men. Even though it’s obviously in
Rome back in the day, a lot of what I would call hood rules, you see
them; you see it in Julius Caesar, a lot of it is coming from Brutus talking ‘bout what an honorable man does. So I would definitely recommend Julius Caesar.
And speaking of Shakespeare, the dude that really really taught me how
to read Shakespeare was Doc O’Sullivan at Rollins College, so I gotta
give him props too.AllHipHop.com: And as far as the music?Edwyn Huang: Music? I always say my two favorite albums are, Illmatic [by Nas] and Paid in Full [by Eric B. & Rakim] but ATLiens [by OutKast] and Enter the 36 Chambers [by
Wu-Tang Clan] are right there. I have to fully admit, full disclosure,
dude in Philly, his name Graham Gullo, he schooled me on Hip-Hop. When
I came up, I was a retarded kid from the South, listening to garbage
Hip-Hop. I didn’t even hear the full Illmatic album till 2000. I bought It Was Written, I bought I Am, I bought Nastradamus.
I bought all that s**t, but I was just so caught up buying the new
s**t, that I didn’t get the old s**t. So we were all listening to Nas’
new s**t and my boy was like, “You didn’t hear Illmatic…. the
f**k is wrong with you?” And we used to cut hair when we were at The
University in Pittsburgh. We just set up shop on the Tower C floor and
I would fade people up. He threw in Illmatic while I was fading people up, and that was that. So Illmatic, that’s my s**t.
