COMPLEX MAGAZINE

Shot Caller: Rob and Big

The multitude of field producers and video cameras that it takes to shoot a reality show finally vacates Rob and Big’s darkened three-story Hollywood Hills crib, giving Rob Dyrdek, the 33-year-old pro skater/entrepreneur, and Chris “Big Black” Boykin, his 35-year-old best friend/bodyguard, a chance to reflect on the true nature of their friendship and the January premiere of the third season of their MTV buddy show, Rob & Big. By Serena Kim

You two are close enough to shave each other’s backs and appear in thong underwear. Do you ever wonder if viewers suspect a different kind of relationship?

Big Black: Personally, I’ll let them think what they wanna think. If they really wanna see us in our full natural habitat, they gotta come to some parties and check us out. We’re batting from the right side of the plate; there’s no left field going on.

Rob Dyrdek: We’re such normal dudes that it’s like funny to us, the ambiguity that’s inside the show. It’s just the audacity that two guys that are as straight as you could possibly be, getting into some fishy situations.

BB: I was in the navy, so I was naked around 30, 40 guys in my berth. I’ve come to be very comfortable in my sexuality.

RD: You’re an exhibitionist. I’m not in a thong!

BB: I’m the thong guy. And that just comes from playing football and being in locker rooms. Being in a jockstrap was nothing to me. Being in a thong is nothing. I’ll put a thong on right now and do the interview.

RD: Let’s not get crazy. You know how we feel about the thong around the house after hours.

Do you guys ever argue?

BB: He might get angry because I take a dump with the door open.

RD: Believe it or not, this relationship that we have is very pure. Especially at this stage and what it’s become. We both respect it and how special something like this really is.

With MTV’s new Life of Ryan show, do you see skateboarding reality shows as the next wave?

RD: They just sort of come from time to time. Jackass was skate based, which led to Wildboyz and Viva La Bam. We take more of a comic approach, and Ryan’s is more like The Hills with skateboarding attached. A skateboarder is the ultimate rock star, because it’s a mix of being a rock star and an athlete. The stars of our sport have big personalities. They’re characters.

Big, how much did you know about skateboarding before you started working with Rob?

Big Black: I knew a little bit. I used to work security, so I used to throw these guys out. I never really flexed and overexerted myself running after them. I would say, “Yo, step,” and go back in my building. I knew a little bit about it. If I was at 7-11 I’d look at a magazine, see something hot, and be like, Wow.

Rob Dyrdek: No way. Before you met me? No, no.

BB: Yes, I did, dude. I would stand there and look at surf magazines, look at skate mags.

RD: What were you looking for?

BB: Just looking! Checking it out.

RD: I can tell you I never looked at any security mags.

Rob, you just shot the film Righteous Kill salongside Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, which is due out next year. Not too shabby for a debut role!

RD: I am so honored. I actually went in to read for a role that was already cast. Me and [director] Jon Avnet sat and talked about the film, about De Niro and Pacino doing a movie with 50 Cent. I explained to him that in my world it doesn’t get any sicker. We started bouncing ideas around and he offered me to play a punk kid pimping foreign girls. Afterwards, [Avnet] shook my hand and said, “It don’t get any bigger than this.” I said, “You don’t got to tell me!”

Is the mini horse still here?

RD: Got him gelded. Trained him with a mini-horse trainer around the corner. He’s good to go.

What does “gelded” mean?

RD: Neutered. Mini-horse talk.

What happens in the new season?

RD: It’s like constantly more ridiculous things keep flowing and flowing. We took the mini horse to a competition. Got a fourth place ribbon. In the mini-horse world that was really big. Somebody took a dump in the pool as a prank. That’s why I had to get a net gun. Next time we’re going to spot you on the security camera and catch you mid-dump.

Who did it?

RD: We don’t know. We were convinced Drama [Rob's cousin and assistant] did it. We got a lie detector. I’m not even playing with you. We were thinking about getting the thing DNA’ed. [Rob pulls a plastic baggie bearing a dark brown frozen turd from the freezer.]

BB: We keep our doo-doo on ice around here.

RD: It’s fully frozen. We’re trying to get Drama to take a dump in the bag.

BB: And then test it.

BB: Take a dump in the bag, we’re going to check your DNA.

The Eccentric Actor

Surviving his strange childhood primed Shia LaBeouf for the peculiarities of film stardom. By Serena Kim

It’s a classic L.A. moment. High in the Hollywood Hills, 20-year-old Shia LaBeouf sits for a photo shoot at the house of an old Scientologist lady. The woman, who’s hard of hearing, misunderstands his jokes about her religion. Everyone stares at him and his uneasy poses. “I was so fucking awkward today,” he says later. “I feel more comfortable in motion.”

LaBeouf is no stranger to awkward moments. Before the L.A. native started acting professionally, at age 11, he and his hardcore hippie parents sold hot dogs and shaved ice in predominantly Latino Echo Park, dressed as clowns. They called themselves the Snow Cone Family Circus. His father was a Vietnam vet who cultivated Thai sticks and, LaBeouf says, became heavily addicted to PCP, heroin, and cocaine. “I got to watch his downfall,” recalls LaBeouf. “You’d sit there and watch him with his junkie friends and my mom trying to hold down three jobs.” This explains why LaBeouf doesn’t do drugs or party with, say, Lindsay Lohan.

Instead, he hangs out with his mentor Jon Voight, studies the craft of acting, and observes people at the L.A. Zoo. “If you see a weirdo with a visor and a little knapsack taking notes, that’s me,” he says. A massive fan of indie rap label Def Jux, he’s making a documentary about bipolar rapper Cage, one of the original Prozac guinea pigs. “He’s lost, but beautifully lost,” says LaBeouf, who can relate to life left of center. Hoping to have a quality career somewhere between that of Tom Hanks and Gary Oldman, he’s balancing weighty low-budget projects like Bobby and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints with his first action feature, the robot extravaganza Transformers, scheduled for release next summer. “I don’t want a Sean Penn career. He’s an amazing actor, but it wasn’t a joyful career,” LaBeouf says. “You have to start taking shit with a grain of salt and laughing at the whole fucking situation.”

Ice Cube

He was one of the first rappers to go Hollywood. But now that
he’s returned to music, he’s got a scathing political bitchslap for
George Dubya.

Ice Cube doesn’t see anything wrong with a stereotype. For better or
worse, he’s built an empire on creating them, destroying them, and
profiting from them. His career began 20 years ago as the main rapper
for N.W.A. With films like Boyz In The Hood (1991), Friday (1995), and
Barbershop (2002), Cube has toiled continuously in the hip hop cinema
juggernaut. Black and White, his hit reality TV show about an
African-American family and white family who trade places, instigates
heated living room debates nationwide. Like the lyrics on his latest
album Laugh Now Cry Later, Cube’s interview style is laconic and
to-the-point. He takes a long, hard sip of his Cherry Slurpee,
shuffles some papers around his immaculate desk, and stares
unflinchingly as the questions commence.

SK: You came from a working-class family, does that make you resentful
of these rich, white Hollywood types you encounter in the industry who
inherit trust funds and come from wealthy families?

IC: Yeah, I mean, a little bit. You always a little mad at the guy who
had an easier road than you. But I wouldn’t trade what I went through
for nothing in the world, because I think it makes me who I am. My job
is to make sure my kids and my grandkids have a fund to draw from, so
they don’t have to start from scratch like I did.

SK: You’re one of the first rappers to get into acting and now it
seems like every rapper’s on that career track. But not everyone’s
paying the dues you have. Doesn’t it frustrate you that you might get
lumped in with all the others?

IC: Nope, because that tells me that my work needs to stick out above
the crowd. But it’s nothing for me to think about, worry about, or
hate on, or trip on, because early on in Hollywood you had to sing and
dance to even get a job. If you couldn’t do it all you couldn’t ever
act. From Nat King Cole to Sammy Davis Jr. to Frank Sinatra to Elvis,
people have always gone from music to acting so it’s nothing new, it’s
just a different time, a different kinda entertainer comin’ in, but
that’s how it’s always been.

SK: Do the Grammy’s and Oscars mean anything?
IC: Not to us it shouldn’t. I remember when we wasn’t accepted by
anybody, like the radio, the video shows, Grammy’s, American Music
Awards- so now that they’re kinda embracing the music not because they
really want to, but because it’s the most popular music of the day.
It’s cool to go up there and get ‘em, but to define yourself—like,
Three 6 Mafia won an Oscar, but do you think they a better group for
that? I like some of their songs that didn’t win an Oscar better than
the one that did, so to me that shouldn’t define us at all. If you get
caught up in winning awards, I don’t think you could really create
your best work comin’ from that angle. You tryin’ to impress the wrong
people.

SK: Has a white person ever called you the N-word? Like out of hate?

IC: Let me think…not to my face, nah.

SK: When you wrote “Black Korea” did you realize that a lot of Koreans
do get shot and robbed by black people in the ghetto, and their
suspicion might be a reaction to that reality?

IC: Yeah, I realize that happens a lot. I’m not Korean, I can only
speak from my point of view and be accurate about it. But I’ll produce
any Korean rapper that wanna spit on it, speak about niggas comin’ in
they shop stealin’ and shit.

SK: You mention George W. Bush a lot on your new album. Why is that?

IC: Because he needs to be on people’s minds with what he’s doin’ with
his administration. When I came out with Death Certificate in ‘91, I
talked about his father a lot. Every time one of these Republican cats
gets into office, the economy’s messed up, gas prices go up.
Everybody’s more paranoid. The Christian Right goes crazy. It does
make the hip hop better, oppressed people have the best art. People
need to pay attention to my album Laugh Now, Cry Later because people
are into partying and bullshittin’ and not really into what’s
happening with their rights.

SK: Don’t you think that the people on Black and White basically
fulfill stereotypes—the white guy is a racist, the white lady is mad
guilty, and the black kid is trying to be all ignorant?

IC: But see, when we picked these guys, we didn’t think they was none
of that. Here’s the three things we picked: people who were
economically in the same bracket, people who felt like they were
mainstream and color blind, like they thought they didn’t have a
racist bone in their body, and the third thing was could they fit the
makeup. We wanted people who knew how to deal with each other, we
didn’t want the typical white racists with the typical Black Power
family. These mainstream, middle-class people gave us a better picture
of the society we live in. People who didn’t think they’re racist, but
by them living in a racist country, layers stack on top of them. Our
show was to pull back the layers one by one. Stereotypes are not a bad
thing. There’s some truth in stereotypes. I’m not a person who runs
from stereotypes because I think people just should be themselves. If
we eating chicken is a stereotype, and I like chicken, I’m gonna have
me some damn chicken. I’m not gonna worry about who’s watching me and
am I fulfilling the stereotypes.

SK: Do you think your music is still relevant for the 106 & Park crowd?

IC: I don’t know. I don’t live for the 106 & Park crowd. I got older fans.

SK: What do you think your average fan is like?

IC: Ten years older than me, ten years younger than me.

SK: And you’re…

IC: 36.

SK: How many times have you seen Friday? What is your favorite part?

IC: I’ve probably seen Friday fifteen times. There’s a lotta good
parts in that. That’s a hard one. The whole movie!

SK: Three Kings was one of the first films about the Gulf War. What
was it like shooting in the desert? Is it true that you get so dry you
can’t even pee?
IC: Nah, not on a movie set. We shot it in Phoenix, not Iraq. What you
thought we shot out there? Hell nah! In the desert with thirty pounds
of shit on you. I’m not gonna say I had a lot of fun making that movie
because I like to do movies in the city with people around.

SK: Are you thinking of doing any films on the current Iraq War?
IC We’re talking about it. But in Hollywood, ain’t nothing real until
somebody signs a check.

SK: How would you compare your XXX performance to Vin Diesel’s?

IC: Mine was just better. Look better, act better. I don’t know what
he could do as good as me.

SK: He could play an Italian.

IC: Maybe that.

THE KING AND I
Kanye West and T.I. get their sartorial discourse on.

We all know about T.I.’s personality conflict, thanks to his latest
banger, T.I. vs. T.I.P. And just like the man can flip from the street
hustle to the corporate takeover, he’s liable to go from flip-flops
and socks to some mean suits. Peep him in the latter while he talks
to ‘Ye about the former. That’s big things (and collars) poppin’.
–Serena Kim

Kanye West: I wanted to come and interview you on some fashion shit
because you got the crown, you killin’ shit. What do you think of the
whole allover-print hoodie craze?
T.I.: I think when properly applied, it’s effective, but you got to do
it in moderation. Anything where there’s too much logo and too much of
a pattern, too overly done, it can get oversaturated. If you do one,
it better be the best one out.

K.W.: I seen a lot of bootleg Bape shit…
T.I.: Yeah, like bootleg BBC.

K.W.: Yeah, and the dollar signs be a completely different shape and
the diamonds…
T.I.: Ha, yeah.

K.W.: What designers do you fuck with?
T.I.: I’m classic American–Purple Label, Brooks Brothers. If I really
want to step out, I do some Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, of
course, Gucci. Ferragamo do their thing, Paul Smith, you know, I could
range from here to there, man. It depends on my mood.

K.W.: Do you believe in wearing sandals on vacation?
T.I.: I wear flip-flops with socks all the time. That’s my airport
apparel: Louis flip-flops, fresh pair of socks, and sweatpants. I
don’t oppose sandals on vacation, I just do it my way.

K.W.: I just came back from the Bahamas, and I went ahead and wore
Jordans every day. What are your favorite colors right now?
T.I.: I’ve never had a favorite color. I can work with anything. I
like black. I like white. I like yellow, orange, red, green. I’ve done
lavender, turquoise, I’ve done peach.

K.W.: I can’t ’cause I’m dark skinned; there’s a certain green I can’t
fuck with, and a certain burgundy.
T.I.: Yeah, burgundy, green, I do all that, I do lima-bean green, neon
green, any color. It just gotta be the right ensemble, you know, you
can’t force a color into a situation and expect it just to turn out
okay.

K.W.: Do you have a specific stylist that you request? I seen you with
the gray Louis Vuitton T-shirt with the white LVs on it—
T.I.: That was just me, fresh off the plane and out of bed. That
wasn’t even the stylist that did that.

K.W.: What do you wear to award shows?
T.I.: It depends on the awards and on what I’ve done in recent history
and what other people have done in recent history. Like, I can’t plan
to wear all white to an event ’cause I know for sure I saw Akon in all
white.

K.W.: Black motherfuckers love some all white to parties.
T.I.: I just did all black for the Grammys, the triple-black tuxedo.

K.W.: I love gray. I kill the gray American Apparel T-shirt. I wear
that more than like a white tee now.
T.I.: White tees are one thing but that natural gray, that’s another nice color.

K.W.: What percentage of the free shit do you wear?
T.I.: If you send me a bunch of shit that look like I’m a walk outside
and see three, four people with the same thing on—if I get a LRG box,
they know not to send me their most popular pieces because I’m not
gonna wear it. They send me something ahead of their release schedule,
so it’ll give me about a month and a half to rock it before it start
being all over the place. But I try not to take clothes that I don’t
wear.

K.W.: How much money do you spend on clothes a year?
T.I.: Geesh, probably about a half a million dollars. I don’t want to
overshoot it and say a cool ticket, but it could very well be a half,
without embellishment.

K.W.: Complex got a stupid question at the end of this list they gave
me that they probably thought sounded like a question I would have
asked. What’s your policy on diamonds? Is your jewelry conflict-free?
T.I.: It’s free of conflict upon me receiving it. Where they would
distribute it from, I don’t know, I know they came from Turkey. My
jeweler’s Turkish, and that’s about all I know. If you’d like to
holler at Fezzy, Fezzy could tell you if they’re conflict-free. I
could call him for you.

K.W.: Man, that ain’t my question.

* Later, T.I.’s rep confirmed that Fezzy’s diamonds are conflict-free.