“I used to take the little one and draw a mixer on it and then I took the other books and drew turntables on them, and I used to sit in class in 7th grade and pretend like I was DJing. Everybody looked at me like I was an alien…”
Mr. Peter Parker is no alien but he’s definitely a different breed. After being introduced to Hip-Hop this obvious Spider Man fanatic went on to become a radio host and mixtape tycoon.
In part 1 of our interview, this Shadyville DJ tells HipHopWired about how his early beginnings led him to a career in radio, when he got his first taste of Hip-Hop and how he hooked up with DJ Whoo Kid.
Origin: Lawrence, Massachusets
Current Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Top Ten Playlist:
1. Drake-Over
2. Donnis-Gone
3, Superstar LT ft. Kardinall Official & Red Cafe-I love my City
4. Wiz Khalifa-This Plane
5. Young Money ft. Gucci Mane-Steady Mobbin
6. Joell Ortiz- Lemonade Freestyle
7. Red Cafe feat. Fabolous- I’m Ill
8. Masspike Miles- Nasty
9. Juelz Santana ft. Yelawolf-Mixin’ up the Medicine
10. Jay Electronica- Exhibit C
HipHopWired: First of all, the name, Peter Parker, why the Spiderman reference?
Mr. Peter Parker: It’s kind of crazy, because when I was really young, when I first started DJing I couldn’t really think of a name, I had a lot of corny first names I won’t mention. Truthfully, as a child, as a very, very young probably one year-old, I was a Spiderman fanatic. I collected comic books, I had my picture in the paper when I was 1-year-old dressed up as Spiderman for Halloween, I was totally infatuated with it. My real name is Peter and just always had the connection, when I was really young I was the only person I knew who had the name Peter and I used to watch the show and I was like, “His name is and my name is Peter”, I had this connection as a little kid, and my grandmother’s name was Mary Jane. I was always kind of a misfit character growing up and I just connected to the whole thing. I wanted to change it, but the movie came out, and I was stuck with it by then. I was probably in college when the movie came out and it was too late, I couldn’t change it.
HipHopWired: You said you started when you were 14, so tell me more about that. What really made you want to get into it?
Mr. Peter Parker: Well, it’s funny, hip hop hit me like a tidal wave like out of nowhere. It went from elementary school to junior high school and it was a big cultural difference. My parents had me like hidden away in this small community, really sheltered community, and when I went to junior high school I was around kids from other towns and it was probably ’89 and I was exposed to kids who were into hip hop. It blew me away, I used to go to these dances, these little junior high school dances and stuff, and I used to stand there in the back and watch the DJ and thinking “Wow.” After awhile of getting into the culture I literally went head first into it and I remember watching the DJ and thinking to myself, “He doesn’t know what the kids want to hear”, he was playing these ridiculous records and I just knew what my friends wanted to listen to and that’s when I started. I used to see the crates on Yo! MTV Raps and think how cool the setup looked, and think how the flight cases were the best looking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
I used to take the books, like this is crazy Shyte, they were wrapped in paper bags, like you wrapped your school books in bags, and I used to take the little one and draw a mixer on it and then I took the other books and drew turntables on them, and I used to sit in class in 7th grade and pretend like I was DJing. Everybody looked at me like I was an alien. I started DJing and at the time I was playing the guitar and playing instruments. I had already been in the school band, and then my mother sold my electric guitar, she pawned it and got me turntables when I was like 15 or 16. But at 14 I was making pause tapes and warm up tapes for the basketball games,DJing parties and stuff, I was always really crazy.
HipHopWired: So you said you heard these hip hop artists and these dances, so who were the first ones?
Mr. Peter Parker: The first artists that really, really kind of blew my mind were Public Enemy, Ice Cube’s first couple of albums, and all the stuff from the early 90’s, like Nice & Smooth, Gang Starr, Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep was crazy, Naughty By Nature’s first album was amazing. I can remember Naughty By Nature’s first album changing the game, being a kid and being so into it, “Yoke the Joker” and all these album cuts blew my mind. I was early, the music that first I was like this I wanted, liked and what I’m into was “He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper” Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff. The b-sides, the cuts, the beatbox joints, I used to mow the lawn and listen to that. I was a Fawked up kid, I was blown away by it.
HipHopWired: So how did you go from a kid djing all these parties at like 14 to where you are now, going and doing radio?
Mr. Peter Parker: I started a little company when I was in high school. Me and my buddy we bought, I couldn’t afford speakers, so I bought one speaker and he bought another speaker and we started doing like 8th grade graduation parties and the high school dances. This was in high school and we started doing like anything we could do, any sort of party, houseparties, basement joints. Like I was so opinionated I wouldn’t take requests, like I refused to play reggae, we were just hip hop heads, it was so stupid. I started doing all that and I also played basketball real competitively, I was kind of like a late bloomer and I put a lot of effort into basketball. I went to college and I tried to pursue that pretty competitively and at the same time I djed. I went to Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts, I did a post graduate year of high school trying to play basketball and that was kind of like (foghorn sound) and I don’t know, it was just really super competitive and so I ended up playing Division III basketball.
So I went to Curry. I was looking up school and Curry was like my last choice school, but because I could play ball and they had a radio station on campus, that’s why I went there, because they had a radio station. I had grown up listening to 88.9 at night from Emerson College in the Boston area. They used to have this show called, like every night it was the flavor of the city, like every night they had a different character on and they would play underground, like real greats like “Lordz of the Underground”, like all this amazing stuff from that 90’s era. Being really heavily influenced by growing up listening to that, listening to radio, I just wanted to try to do radio. Once I got on it I remember just thinking, “I want to do this”. It was weird though, I don’t know, kind of like how I said I was a late bloomer, I had ambitions to be something but my talent took awhile to develop.
Inside of me I knew I could do it, but it just took awhile to really press and get better. I dedicated myself to it just like the basketball and was like I’m going to do this. I just fell in love with it and then I got into the 90’s scene, like the late 90’s scene out in Boston with all the underground groups, and started going to those shows and that opened up a lot for me. It’s a long story on how I got to where I’m at. We used to throw shows in college, me and my boy from high school got together and started throwing shows. I got internships in college, I used to work at like 3 or 4 different radio stations in Boston, yeah like it’s a long road of being dedicated, internships, self-promotion, lot of Shyte you know?
HipHopWired: You still do your whole radio thing, but how did you manage to hook up with Whoo Kid to be with Shadyville?
Mr. Peter Parker: It was funny, it was relationship stuff, somebody that I knew was interning at G-Unit and had relationships and had mentioned my name. It had gone back and forth for a little while and I linked up with Kea Watts and some people over there at Shadyville, they saw what I was doing in Minneapolis on the radio, it was like a mutual respect thing. They’ve been great, helped with me some promotion, it’s a great little crew. Whoo Kid is definitely one of the leaders in the industry when it comes to branding, his brand game is great, his humor is great, he’s a great all around DJ performer type.
