SUPER SMACK

The Filipino American rapper reveals the origins of his “spicy confidence.”

Photo by Jay Koala

Super Smack, like any superhero, has an origin story. “An artist friend once said to me, ‘There are three different rap personas. There are the superheroes and villains, and then there's the every-man,’” he recalls. “For me, being an innately optimistic and happy person, that's what I gravitate towards. I decided to have a superhero persona — someone who can bring joy through music. So that's where the ‘Super’ came in, and ‘Smack’ was just something loud, you know? Something undeniable [and] might make some people chuckle — and that's not a bad thing because that means it's also memorable.”

Smack began his music career in 2018, gradually releasing several singles and his first EP Neon Red on music streaming services. Using melodies and soundbites from video games, anime, and other pop culture references, the Phoenix-based rapper is on a mission to raise the spirits of those who are underrepresented or feel like an outsider.

This year, he’s expanding the scope of the Super Smack project with his recently formed “dancer band,” The P.O.P., who made their performance debut at Last Exit Live in Phoenix, Arizona, in early April.

Photo by Joe Maier

That same month, Smack released The Smackrap Mixtape. Featuring songs like “Old Facebook,” “Sandra Bullock,” and “Crazy Rich Freestyle,” Smack is ready to embark on the next phase of his musical journey while smashing stereotypes and spreading good vibes.

Michaela Zee: Tell me about your latest release, The Smackrap Mixtape.

​Super Smack: I’m entering my fourth year making music as Super Smack. The Smackrap Mixtape is like a cross section of each year that I've been making music; I've got some previously unreleased songs on here I wrote very early on — when I had a message and I found the medium [music] — but hadn't yet figured out the package and brand as an artist. It has songs I've released every year since, and then some brand new ones. I cover a few different themes on the mixtape, but I would say the overarching, unifying topic is really a feeling, a big feeling. One that I call spicy confidence [laughs].

​MZ: I love that!

​SS: Yeah. There's this journey that a lot of people go on — Asian Americans, in particular, but a lot of people from different backgrounds can relate to it too; this period in your life where you feel sure about who you are, and then all of a sudden something happens either externally or internally, and you're not as sure anymore. You start to question the path you've taken, the path that you're on. And hopefully, and this was the case for me, you can come out on the other side of that.

​There isn't some award that you win or someone there on the other side who tells you, “This is who you are now!” It's always an internal realization. That confidence has to start from the inside out. And that's really what this mixtape is about. It’s this journey from being unsure to comfortable to confident with who I am, and now finally this extra level of what I call spicy confidence — I can tell you how confident I am in eight different ways through eight different tracks. Some are four-minute pop songs with a bridge. Some are intense, free-for-all raps where I'm just free styling for two minutes straight. Some are 15-second clips of people cheering my name before I walk on stage. It is eight different cross-sections of me telling you, the listener, I'm Super Smack. This is who I am. This is what I stand for.

MZ: Now I can see why you refer to it as a mixtape; there is so much variety in the songs and styles. Before I listened to your mixtape, I listened to Neon Red & Blue. Could you tell me about that project as well?

SS: Neon Red & Blue is a double EP, so I released it in two parts; Neon Red was my debut project and Neon Blue is the follow-up. Those were my first two steps on the moon of Super Smack. Neon Red is like a sunshine drive to the beach, and Neon Blue is like a nighttime road trip or study lounge vibes. The themes for both were friends, family, and identity, and the palette that I used to paint that story was Nintendo and video game music. It's a love letter to a big part of my childhood and the things that have shaped me as an artist.

Photo by Joe Maier

When I first started writing music, I was inspired by artists like Jay-Z and Nas, and I noticed that a lot of their early works were influenced by the neighbor-hoods and communities they grew up in. For me, growing up in the suburbs of Arizona and Southern California and bouncing around a few different places, I didn't have a super strong attachment to anywhere. I couldn’t write something that was really interesting to me about those neighborhoods at that point. But when I think about where my brain space was as a kid, it was in cartoons, video games, and comic books. It was in all these fantastical worlds. Those are the worlds I felt like I grew up in. So I use characters, references, imagery, and sounds from video games to tell a story about what friendship, family, and identity means to me, and how it's going to shape me as an artist moving forward.

MZ: I love the video game sounds in your music; they definitely bring me back to growing up in California and playing Pokémon and Super Smash Bros. with my brother.

​SS: I love that. I've talked to so many Asian American friends who are like, “Oh man, I really got that reference — that’s such a deep cut!”

I think part of that project was also kind of my reconciliation and celebration of the fact that I'm a huge geek, you know? There's this whole subgenre of music called nerdcore hip hop. It’s rappers who like anime and video games; that community has embraced me, and I would consider myself a part of that — it's a whole rabbit hole [laughs]. My music fits into that nerdcore realm a little bit. But I've also branched out into other communities.

“There's this whole subgenre of music called nerdcore hip hop. It's rappers who like anime and video games; that community has embraced me, and I would consider myself a part of that.”

Surprisingly, there’s not a lot of Asians in that space. And I know there's a lot of Asians who like this stuff. A lot of these video games are made in Asia, right? I'm just wondering out loud, but for me, growing up, we got teased a lot. It wasn't cool to be playing my Game Boy at recess all the time, you know? I think some of us try to run away from that part of our identity. So, for me, it was like a homecoming celebration to be like, “No, I'm a geek and I'm cool with that.” That doesn't mean that I feel uncool. These are the things that I like, and I still feel very cool! And I'm gonna show you what geek-cool feels like to me through this mixtape.

MZ: Your song “Battle Up” was especially fun to listen to because of all the Pokémon references. What is your favorite Pokémon and what are some of your favorite video games?

SS: My favorite starter Pokémon is Squirtle. The most legendary episode in the anime is called “Here Comes the Squirtle Squad,” and in it he’s just a badass that leads this little gang, sort of like the Yakuza, but they're just a bunch of cute little turtles. And then, at the end, they choose to be good and become firefighters. It's just the best 20 minutes of television. People think that I sampled Squirtle’s voice in “Battle Up,” but that’s just me doing the Squirtle voice.

One video game that meant a lot to me is Final Fantasy X. Final Fantasy is this long-running Japanese role playing game [RPG] series, and every game is set in a different world with different characters. Final Fantasy X was interesting because, up to that point, most of the games in the RPG genre were either set in medieval Europe, with swords, castles, dragons, and stuff, or they were based on Japanese mythology. There hadn't been any based on Southeast Asia. In Final Fantasy X, they're hopping from island to island, and there's all these island cultures, and I was like, Oh, that's mad Filipino! Or, That's very Hawaiian! So that was really cool to me.

I think I like the Zelda franchise the most, but my favorite video game character is Mario. Talk about representation. He is one of the few leading characters who's a short guy. His princess is twice as tall as he is. As someone who's five foot five and teased for being short my whole life, I'm like, Yeah, let's go Mario! Represent! [laughs]

MZ: One song from your mixtape I particularly enjoyed listening to is your “Crazy Rich Freestyle.” I love the line, “They showed Asian women and they weren't objects. They showed Asian people and they weren't abject.”

SS: I wrote that the night I saw the movie. I saw it with a friend and, as I was leaving the theater, I ran into another friend who was going to watch the next showing, so I watched it again [laughs]. The second time watching, I could zoom out a little bit. These rhymes just started entering my head and I wrote it all out when I went home.

MZ: You clearly have a strong voice and opinion about Asian American representation in the media. Do you feel that Hollywood is finally breaking away from these stereotypes, or what do you still hope to see when it comes to Asian American representation?

SS: Asian American representation is very important to me, as you probably get from my lyrics. And it's fascinating because there's so many aspects to it. What does it even mean to represent the Asian American experience when the Asian American experience is actually super multifaceted and diverse? A lot of people outside the Asian American community haven't shown me that they fully understand that quite yet.

But there's so much progress. I want to give huge shoutouts to all of the actors, actresses, writers, directors, producers, and crews in the entertainment industry. Every one of these projects is a stepping stone, and everything we are achieving now is built on the backs of what people have done before us. So it's important to recognize that there's always more work to do, but have people been doing amazing work? Yes. Is that work starting to get more recognition and more shine? Absolutely. And I'm so thrilled about that.

Photo by Jay Koala

​Where I think there's room to grow is on the business side in Hollywood and in the music industry, where people are always a few steps behind. We're seeing a lot of Asian movies now, like, “Here's an Asian American rom-com; now let's have an Asian superhero movie — which was awesome — and an Asian action movie.”

Hopefully there'll be an Asian horror movie soon, like an Asian Get Out — I'd be there for that [laughs]! But something we haven't really seen yet is the Asian American experience like mine, which is super intersectional. So much of what defines me as an Asian American are my relationships with friends, colleagues, teammates, and collaborators who are Black, white, South Asian, Latinx — all of these relationships between different communities. I would love to see more of that in our media; not just in movies and TV, but also in music.

MZ: Could you tell me a little bit about why you decided to become a rapper?

​SS: I used to be an actor. Musical theater was the first area I spent a lot of time in as a kid. Singing, dancing, and acting have always been what I love to do. My sister [Catherine Ricafort] is also a triple threat and was actually in eight Broadway shows. She’s been a huge inspiration to me pretty much my whole life.

When I graduated college, I decided I wanted to help make the world a better place. I was really good at technology and project management, so I became a product manager and worked in civic technology for six years.

​But I missed the arts. I wanted to test myself and see how good my skills were. So I quit my job, I went for Broadway, and I started auditioning for professional music theater productions in New York. I achieved a lot of my goals — performing in professional productions, regional theater, off-Broadway shows.

​And even as I was landing some of these roles that I wanted, I felt there was still something missing in the material and the types of roles I was being considered for — not just being Asian, but also Filipino. Maybe I didn’t look Asian enough for some Chinese or Japanese shows. And I wasn’t tall enough to play a leading man, even though I had the voice and the acting chops to do it. I was only being considered for comedic roles, which is fine. But I wanted to branch out.

​Fortunately, I ended up in this collaborative writing and performance project with Daveed Diggs from the original cast of Hamilton and Rafael Casal, who’s now the showrunner on Blindspotting on Starz. Both of them are amazing writer-performer-multi-hyphenates, and they exposed me to this idea that if you are a performer and you can write, you should combine those things together and write your own rules. So that's when I started songwriting. I wasn't hitting these dream roles I wanted, so I started to write my own material instead.

“Going back to these nerdy things that influenced me, it became easier to think of songs when I was writing from the perspective of this superhero character.”

Going back to these nerdy things that influenced me, it became easier to think of songs when I was writing from the perspective of this superhero character. I came up with the name, the costume, and the aesthetic behind it. And it became this vessel for me to put my hopes and dreams for the types of stories and representation that I would like to see.

MZ: And what message or style do you want to convey with your Super Smack persona?

SS: The big things that I want to convey with Super Smack are comfort, control, and confidence. I felt like an outsider for so much of my life. Classic Asian American thing, right? We're never American enough for America, but we're not Asian enough for Asia. So what does that make us? And a lot of people can relate to this, Asian or not. So I think realizing that everyone feels like an outsider and talking about it openly can make people feel more comfortable.

​One of the tracks on the mixtape is a clip of me doing “Crazy Rich Freestyle.” At the end of the song, I go, “Yellow caged birdie, I know why it sings. I'm not a crazy rich Asian, but I'm two of those things.” And the crowd goes crazy — and that crowd was mostly people from other back-grounds. People relate to this a lot, and sharing my specific experience can actually make it more relatable. Being comfortable with who you are and realizing that the journey to get there is something that you control — like, how attractive you are is a question that only you can answer, right? That's one of the wisest pieces of advice that anyone ever gave me. It's not a question that a magazine or a casting director or your partner can answer — only you can. So realizing that you are in control of your journey is a big thing. And I think all of that sort of culminates into just being confident in who you are and the journey that you're taking.

MZ: What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in the music industry? And have you learned any lessons from those challenges?

​SS: I used the phrase “multi-hyphenate” earlier, which is someone like me who's an actor-slash-rapper-slash — and now with my dance group — I'm a dancer and choreographer, too. I always have the most fun when I get to combine different things. But a challenge I'm having now is this realization that, a lot of times, people don't really grasp that complexity. If something is complicated, it's harder to understand, by definition. So I’m trying to walk this line between all of these different facets of me, but also be very consciously aware that my music is a product that people consume, and a product needs to be pretty simple to hook people in. So that's been a challenge for me: how do I distill myself into something simple?

Photo by Joe Maier

It manifests in different ways, too. Sometimes, when people find out that you're not only a singer or rapper, they automatically assume that you're not as good at any of those things. You’re like a "Jack of all trades, master of none" — which is a fallacy. Just because you do two different things doesn't mean you can't be a master of both of those things. The fact that you do both means that you are actually extra skilled in a special way that differentiates you. So I think people like us have to work harder to prove that to people. Like Childish Gambino, Lil Dicky, Awkwafina — these people actually have to work harder in some ways to prove that they are a good actor or a good musician. So that's a big challenge I'm working on now as I’m reaching new audiences.

MZ: You mentioned you're a choreographer for your new dance group, The P.O.P.; could you explain how you formed that group?

​SS: I was actually a dancer before I got into singing, so that's like my native language. Having done a lot of theater, I know that dance can be a powerful storytelling medium. I've been dreaming of bringing dance into Super Smack for a long time. And I finally got to realize it this year. I moved to Phoenix and decided I'm going to do it. So I put out an audition call, a bunch of dancers answered, and we put together the group. I've seen pop artists with backup dancers, and that's cool, but not what I wanted to do. When people think of backup dancers, the artist needs to have all the attention. I wanted to have a cast of characters that people could relate to. We’ll all move in sync, but everyone will do it in their own way. And to me, that's a lot more visually interesting. So I call it a dancer band because it's a lot more like a singer performing with a jazz quartet. Or like Prince or Bruce Springsteen performing together with their bands.

I've actually gotten a lot of inspiration from K-pop recently. Dance is not an afterthought when they're writing the songs. They actually think about what choreography will go well with this lyric or melody or instrument. That's so fascinating to me, and I'm starting to do that when I'm writing songs now, too.

“This summer, it's going to be like season one of Super Smack and The P.O.P. — you'll see the pilot, then season one will start, and then it'll kick off.”

MZ: Will you and The P.O.P. be touring in the near future?

SS: I would love that. We’re aiming to perform around Arizona and eventually tour towards the end of the year. Right now, we're shooting and filming all this content. I'm treating it more like a TV show schedule than a music schedule. This summer, it's going to be like season one of Super Smack and The P.O.P. — you'll see the pilot, then season one will start, and then it'll kick off. And once we can launch that and build excitement and grow the fan base, then we get to tour it around. That's my master plan.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. All images courtesy of Super Smack.