Andrey Douthard on Paramita, House Shoes, and Detroit Records | Living for the City Full Interview

Andrey Douthard is the founder of Paramita Sound, the Detroit record shop and collective that opened in 2014 and became a meeting place for the city's hip hop, electronic, and jazz artists. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.

Douthard came up as a teenager in Detroit's post-8 Mile hip hop scene, brought in by an Inkster group called Street Justice. He remembers Hex Murda running rooms at the Shelter, Danny Brown walking in wearing zebra pants and a blue blouse, and a scene so protective of quality that shows sometimes turned into rappers rapping to rappers. He talks about what gatekeeping protects, what it keeps out, and why he wanted Paramita to be a place for the misfits and outsiders.

He also tells the story of the shop itself. He spent the first three years in a house at 1417 Van Dyke that he treated like a sandbox, selling records from Kyle Hall, Jay Daniel, and Theo Parrish's students, and he explains why records have been his way of building relationships with Detroit's elders. He recalls the night House Shoes was booked for a couple of hours and played for 10, the July 2015 Beat Profile party that drew 500 people, and what it felt like to hear that House Shoes left Detroit knowing Douthard would still be here.

CHAPTERS

00:20 - Full Sail, Music Business, and Why He Came Back to Detroit

01:01 - Street Justice and the Doors They Opened

02:39 - Post-8 Mile Detroit: Dilla, Proof, the Shelter, and the End of a Golden Era

09:08 - Gatekeeping: Quality Control vs. Keeping People Out

12:27 - Opening Paramita in 2014 and Why Records Are the Vehicle

16:21 - The House on Van Dyke: A Sandbox for Kids and OGs

21:39 - Vessels for Community: The Beat Profile and Booking by Relationship

29:22 - Carrying On After Dilla, Proof, and a Wave of Grief