By Amanda Levy
10/29/2019
Jair Murillas-Valdez, 27, is a Miami-based rapper and apparel designer, usually going by Gerb or his stage name Wierdough. His line of apparel, WierdClothes, has become a favorite among those seeking local threads with an underground appeal. In terms of music, on November 1st he released his newest project Post-Mortem.
As an artist, Wierdough is highly influenced by the work of Marilyn Manson; so much so that he acquired one of his brand's most popular designs from Manson’s infamous 'Tainted Love' music video. Drawing from the iconic image of Manson arriving to a house party in a black low-rider, the license plate of which read Goth Thug.
“I appreciate shock value, some people just do it right, sometimes it’s just overdone, like Manson does it in a way that’s so perfect, he does it so well. But yeah shock value plays a big role in a lot of my stuff, it makes it memorable.”
Although Wierdough continues to design apparel on his own, he also works with his rap-collective, Skunk Ape Gang, to create crew-worthy merchandise. Over the years they have devoted much time and effort in refining their screen-printing process (as well as their rhymes).
“Sometimes we do small collections of stuff we would just want to wear ourselves, but we make it in a Skunk Ape way.”
“Right now we’re making our 2nd release as a collective. I feel like we just do better together. When it’s everybody together, there’s no denying that we have something really good going on.”
“Our community is everything. I wouldn’t feel like I was doing anything without them. There was a point in time when I didn’t have that, and now I have fans in other states, even Russia, who tell us to keep doing what we’re doing.”
You can catch a Skunk Ape Gang show right here in Miami, on November 29 2019, Skunk Ape Gang will be performing at Flawda Fest’s Black Friday Jumpoff, with performances starting at 10pm.