Purveyr Seven with Bambu

We try to cover all facets of the culture, and one big part of it is the people behind it. This is why we decided to make a new series-segment where we talk to names around the community and have them for a capsule interview. We aim to inspire and inform through these series, through the various people we will talk to. The series-segment is called Purveyr Seven, which consists of uniform seven questions all throughout the series. The first one on our list is Bambu, familiarize yourself with him below.

Bambu is a Fil-American hip-hop artist and community organizer in Los Angeles, California. He recently visited our country last weekend and rocked B-Side in The Collective, Makati for the Manila leg of The Rent Money Tour. Purveyr met him right after he arrived from the airport (talk about tireless!) and fired the seven questions to let us know more about him. See the capsule interview after the break.  

What do you do? 

               

First I'm a dad. Then I'm a community organizer and a performing artist.               

When and how did you start?

As a career, I started making music as a livelihood, meaning I stopped doing a day job, in 2006. I just worked on nothing but music. But I think I started rapping since I was eight years old.

What inspires you?

The people, I do a lot of community work. Just being on the ground, talking to the youth that are going through things. You know, going to the Philippines, going to Tondo and seeing what the conditions are there. Just building the community from the ground even in the hip-hop community. Those are the things that inspire me, real life stuff like the struggle of the people.

Top three people that influence you?

Ice Cube circa 1992. Andre 3000 from Outkast specifically on Aquemeni. I guess number three would probably be Geologic and Kiwi. Those are the guys that really inspire me a lot.

Top three things that you don't have yet, but want to get?

An iPad, I don't have that, I want an iPad. I want a new pair of Chucks, some Converse that I don't have. And a new laptop, specifically just to record music.

Where do you spend the most of your day?

At home with my son. Majority of my time is spent with my five year old, all day. He's my only son, I'm with him all day. I've got a video, Rent Money, and he's with me on that one.

What's your main dream and aspiration?

I just want to continue being a community organizer. After all these rap stuff, I wanna be able to educate youth through media and show them that the power of media is in our hands. With YouTube, thinks like that, we can make our own videos and tell our own stories. We don't need to have somebody else tell our stories for us.

Before we end this article, the Purveyr Team would like to give a huge shoutout to Rye of Renegade Collective and Music Colony for helping us on this one. Also check out some more about Bambu in this feature from Caution Clothing. And to wrap this thing up, we asked him for his last words for the community and those who look up to him.

"My message would always be to think critically. To be critical about the music you listen to, about the things you see on TV and to eventually go out and organize the community. I always say that we always look at our leaders to help us. We always look at our presidents. What people don't realize is that the change that we want doesn't happen from our leaders, it doesn't start from the top. It always starts from the bottom. If the problem's in Pasay City, only the community in Pasay's gonna be the one to fix it. There's no politician, there's nobody that's gonna come and save you. So ultimately, I hope we all get out of it." 

Photos by Oleg De Leon