Interview by Cameron Cook
Photography by Leonard Greco
Adam Radakovich, a.k.a. Cunty Crawford LaDosha, isn’t wearing any pants. Instead, the six-foot-eleven (seven-foot-four in heels) rapper is sporting an XXXL T-shirt, a ponytail under his holographic NY Yankees fitted cap and thigh-high patent leather boots, which he bought on an emporium footwear website for strippers (they carry his size). Adam is one-half of Brooklyn, NY electronic crunk duo House of LaDosha. Elsewhere in their Bushwick apartment Antonio Blair—alias Dosha Devastation (and leader of the House of Ladosha)—is snugly fitted into his electric blue fleece onesie, posing for our photographer’s lens, silently channeling every diva that ever flicked her hair from the ’80s onward. This is House of LaDosha. This is real.
More than just a group, House of LaDosha is a collective, like all the legendary gay voguing houses that populated NYC in the ’80s and ’90s. You don’t have to be a musician, or even an artist, to join. By virtue of being accepted into the clan, you are a child of LaDosha for life. Although Antonio and Adam are the core of the group, there are countless members peppered amongst their circle of friends. They have a specific way of dressing (both Adam and Antonio graduated from Parsons School of Design in Manhattan with degrees in fashion), and even their own lexicon, but musically is where they really shine. ‘SUP realized this when we saw them perform for a small crowd at a club around the corner from this writer’s apartment last winter. LaDosha take their influences from female rappers such as Lil’ Kim, Trina and Khia, as well as Southern rap collectives like Three 6 Mafia and Crime Mob, in addition to a smattering of early-’90s house and club jams. Their live show is a high-octane sprint of a performance, Adam and Antonio blasting through their set in a flurry of heels and ponytails. They write songs on the fly on their laptop, prolific as they want to be, jotting down their lyrics in a jargon all their own. “Pussy”, for example, isn’t female genitalia but an attitude, what it means to own yourself completely and be fierce and original. In “Summer Baby” their wordplay is at its best: “Dosha got that heavy flow/You know they call me Tampax […] Lookin’ for that pot o’ gold/Nigga, taste the rainbow”. As well as being both genuinely amusing and totally serious, their songs also flawlessly illustrate an aesthetic they’ve obviously taken a lifetime to perfect.
We briefly considered including a glossary in this interview because LaDosha’s world is so self-referential it’s almost fictional (but illusional rather than delusional). Instead, we highly recommend as a companion piece to this article that you watch the monumentally influential 1990 documentary Paris is Burning by Jennie Livingston for more information on balls, legendary children, house mothers, Dorian Corey and gay subculture in general. If you’ve already seen the film (most likely again, and again, and again), then you and House of LaDosha are already on the same page.
For the uninitiated, what is a house and how do you go about creating one?
Antonio: For me, a house is just people that you chill with who are your friends. It’s when friends become family. We all moved here when we were in college, from Tennessee, Ohio, North Carolina. We all met up and formed the house. A house is just family.
Adam: People who you get along with really well. People you’re on the same level with who have the same way of thinking.
Antonio: And it’s creative. Everyone’s nourishing everyone else’s brain.
You guys make music, but are also very stylish and fashionable. Who and what inspire your sense of style?
Antonio: My gosh, so much. We study people. We both went to Parsons and graduated with fashion degrees.
Adam: Ain’t got no jobs though!
Antonio: (laughing) Yeah, no jobs.
We’re in a recession, y’all!
Antonio: Exactly. Fashion-wise, I live for the ’90s. I like, love Naomi Campbell.
Adam: She’s his mother. And Beyoncé’s his sister.
Antonio: I live for those two bitches (laughs). Grace Jones. I love Cleopatra Jones. I love anything that’s like—
Adam: ‘Work!’
Antonio: (laughs) Like, I love Barbie. I just love being this six-foot-four woman with a big ponytail.
Adam: Wicked beauty. It’s all about wicked beauty!
Antonio: It’s all about being the only bitch that can wear it. ‘That bitch wore that shit.’ All of our friends got their own style.
Adam: I think for me, I’m obsessed with really strong women, with a much more androgynous look. Darker women as well. I’m obsessed with Siouxsie. Her looks always blow my mind. (To Antonio) I dunno, who else do I flip over?
Antonio: (pauses) Brigitte Nielsen.
(Laughing) I was just about to say that!
Adam: I don’t even try to be like her, it’s just that I’m so tall and used to have white-blond hair (laughs)! I would slick it back and people would be like: ‘You look like fucking Brigitte Nielsen!’
Antonio: But it was working!
Adam: No, it worked, and I loved her then. Now she’s like, this horrible mess. Actually no, I’m kind of obsessed with her now, too.
There was that awful Surreal Life /Strange Love /Flavor Flav period though.
Adam: But I’m obsessed with like, sloppy women too. Like, Carol Channing’s crazy to me, but I think she’s hilarious.
Antonio: And you love Joan Crawford.
Adam: (pointing to Joan Crawford print on his bedroom wall) Oh I mean, hello. That’s where I got my middle name from. So yeah, all those bad bitches. Crazy bitches.
To read on go to http://blog.supmag.com/?p=3233
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