Spaghetti Boys Know They've Always Been the Black Sheep

On this week’s episode of HYPEBEAST Radio, we schlepped our equipment up into the underbelly of Milk Studios‘ Jamroom to visit Kerwin Frost and Ray Martinez of the Spaghetti Boys. The two had recently taken to redecorating the Jamroom and turning it into a base of operations for the brand. Tucked underground, there’s no way of telling what time of day (or night) it is in the Jamroom. Kerwin says he thrives in these kinds of conditions. Frost and Martinez met in one of Harlem’s public housing developments. Martinez had just moved to New York from Kansas in search of graphic design work, using a laptop that his roommate stole for him. The two became friends at a local skate-spot. “We didn’t know what the direction was, but we just knew we were into a lot of the same shit,” says co-founder Ray Martinez, before adding: “but from entire different worlds.” “We’ve always been the black sheep of this whole industry ‘thing,’” Kerwin says using air-quotes. Kerwin credits his girlfriend, Erin Yogasundram, for much of the brand’s operational development. “We were fucking terrible with money,” says Kerwin. Whenever the brand would make money from one of their projects, Kerwin recalls, they’d go out and spend it on obsessive splurges: $300 USD vintage Björk tees, old tapes and lavish meals. Nowadays, the guys are interviewing accountants and scheduling DJ gigs overseas. Then there’s the Spaghetti Boys roster: a rotating and seemingly ever-growing collective of creatives, artists and tro