Rapper Needed a Suit to Play Venice Boardwalk

On Saturday afternoon, Paul Suppa became a Venice Beach performer, joining other musicians filling the boardwalk with eclectic rhythms.

All it had taken was a federal lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles.

“I’m very proud to be an American on this day,” Suppa said. “The U.S. Constitution works. I feel vindicated.”

Suppa, a real estate investment lawyer and rapper, said he had originally tried performing slightly off the boardwalk in June 2001, but had been confronted by Los Angeles police officers. In his lawsuit, Suppa claims the officers threatened to arrest him on conspiracy to incite a riot and asked that he apply for a permit.

Suppa, 30, said he had done as he was told but the Department of Parks and Recreation had rejected his application.

“They violated Paul’s constitutional rights,” said a friend and musician, Matt Goldstein, 23. “It reminded me of the Doors, when the cops arrested Jim Morrison for indecent exposure.”

The city has said the incident was a misunderstanding.

Nearly two years and a $7,000 out-of-court settlement later, Suppa finally hooked up his keyboard and rapped to an audience of roller-bladers, beachgoers and friends.

While the sun shimmered on his perspiring face, the San Fernando Valley native hunched over the instrument, twisting knobs and pounding out chords. He rapped politically charged lyrics, praising the deaths of Uday and Qusai Hussein and criticizing the LAPD.

“He’s a white rapper who’s not trying to be black,” said friend Jimmy Finks, 30. “He’s a Valley boy, he talks like a Valley boy and he raps like a Valley boy.”

Suppa, who has studied piano since he was 4, begins most of his songs with piano melodies before incorporating a steady bass sequence. He said hip-hop has the perfect driving rhythms for the music he writes.

“I just love the cultural roots of hip-hop,” he said.

Eric Moses, a spokesman with the city attorney’s office, said the misunderstanding between Suppa and the recreation department had stemmed from the type of permit he applied for.

Moses said Suppa’s permit application had described the event as a CD release party. To obtain a permit for that type of event he would have needed to include a diagram of the event, to describe security arrangements and to estimate how many people would attend -- none of which he had done.

“It was unclear by the permit application what the event was,” Moses said. “It was a misunderstanding at the time, based on the vagueness of the permit application.”

Suppa and the city settled in May. As part of the agreement, the city helped him with the application process, Moses said.