What’s going on man introduce yourself to the people
I’m Jimmy Regular, your friendly neighborhood asshole director.
How was life growing up for you?
Life growing up for me was easy. My father is a general contractor with his development company and my mom is a hair stylist. My dad always wanted me to take over his business, but to me that was a backup plan I wasn’t trying to rely on. My whole life I watched my Dad pave a way for himself to support our family and instead of being handed the keys to his kingdom, I’d way rather apply what I’ve learned from watching what he did to build my own. I was very influenced by rap music at a young age and by the time I was in 4th-5th grade, I already had a budding collection of CDs my mom would have to buy for me. I started studying the culture that came with the music. I remember watching MTV’s Making the Video and pretending to really direct Usher’s Burn video. By the time the Cool Kids emerged from the depths of MySpace it was over. I knew from that era and on that I wanted to do something in music in one way or another.
When did you begin to witness your creative talents?
It was around my Junior year of High School. I started making clothes with a couple of friends in high school which led to me getting my first camera. I was learning how to use Adobe suite with the pictures I was taking the summer before college. There was actually this one time I ended up teaching my Illustrator class three weeks in a row because my teacher wasn’t adapted to the update, I eventually also got removed from the graphic design department because of some faulty cohort clause Columbia had. Within that moment I knew I wasn’t designed to go far with my degree so I made it my every initiative to find a group I could grow with in Chicago’s scene.
How did you work your way into the Chicago scene?
I gave up on clothes going into college and started a guerrilla ass production company called The Regulars, with my friend Kolby Woods. With this company we worked our way into Treated Crew’s circle shooting videos for Mic Terror, Mano and Hollywood Holt. With Treated Crew came a huge introduction to the city for me and my work branched from Complex to MTV within a year. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have been the same person I act today. I really weeded out my strengths and weaknesses with the Regulars and formed PAS (Point And Shoot) with Jake Gaza. PAS was mostly known for catering to Lucki’s trips visual direction around the Body High project. In my opinion, I think that those videos set a match to drug counterculture in Chicago. I still get email notifications for the ongoing drug forum comments on the XAN CAGE video. I feel kinda bad because that whole scene blew up into a whole mess of drugged out hair rappers. We damn near did it first though. From the result of my work with Lucki bridged the gap with Mikey and it was all uphill from there.
When did you reach out to Mikey and develop a relationship with him?
Halloween 2014, I’m bored as hell looking at my phone while supervising a job site for my dad in between classes. I reached out via twitter after noticing that Mikey tweeted about moving back to Chicago (from Miami). He agreed to meet and mentioned that he needed some sort of “creative director” for his next two projects and within that night we figured out a loose release plan that became the Banco follow up albums, Popular & Part 2.
When it comes to getting into the scene, is it about who you know or hard work?
It’s definitely about who you know, no matter what. Even easier if you have money behind you. However, if you have good work, it’s always possible to fit in the scene naturally. Don’t twist it though, the “SCENE” is nothing to live by. In my world, that’s a dead culture. I don’t operate like them.
Last year you talked about quitting music videos. Are you going to be getting back into music videos?
Chasing the idea of being a hot shot video tastemaker turned me into a fucking asshole. Probably the worst version of myself possible. I pushed away some incredible people in my life that, in the end, only wanted to help. I can’t really forgive myself for the things that I neglected but I have found a way to utilize those setbacks/weaknesses into strengths. I severed all of my ties with music videos aside from anything related to The Cool Kids, but I am open to come back to it once they see how I’m coming.
Talk to us about your new show “SHIT SHOW”
That’s my baby. An idea I had after scrapping together the POPULAIR MIXTAPE docu-series for Mikey’s projects. I had no expectations of them being received well but after noticing some of the episodes getting 7-10k views, I made it clear to Mikey that we should run with the idea of making a comedy show. He obviously agreed and then comes SHIT SHOW. There isn’t much else I can say other than I’m at people’s head with this one.
Recently you have been vocal on the creative scene in Chicago. What are your thoughts?
I think the creative scene in Chicago is very flawed. I’ve seen how other places work and Chicago is really big on seeking for validation in numbers and names, not utilizing people for their strengths. I could name name’s but I’ll save that for SHIT SHOW.
Who are three artists you would like to work with?
IF MIGOS DOES COUNT FOR ALL 3 THEN GUCCI MANE, R. KELLY & DESIIGNER
When it’s all said and done how do you want to be remembered?
I want people to get off to the idea of me but wouldn’t mind if they wanted me dead either.
Chicago Creatives 