Graffiti and Hip-Hop Culture

Ground and Walker, bring the train out from 16, Triton. Welcome to the If you're feeling alright and you think you're on, I'm so about that, let me know. Let everybody in the place put a whistle in your face. Scream it out and say, Yo! Hey! You don't stop. I like the rhythm that makes your finger pop. I said I like hip-hop. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Come on, everybody, give me what you got. I'm going to tell you a little story about the Sugar Hill Gang. With a pow-pow boogie and a big bang-bang. They call themselves writers because that's what they do. They write their names, among other things, everywhere. Names they've been given. given or have chosen for themselves. Most of all, they write in and on subway trains, which carry their names from one end of the city to the other. It's called bombing. And it has equally assertive counterparts in rap music and breakdancing. Graffiti writing in New York is a vocation. Its traditions are handed down from one youthful generation to the next. To some, it's art. For most people, however, it is a plague that never ends. A symbol that we've lost control. I'm Detective Bernie Jacobs. I, in conjunction with my partner, Detective Jim McHugh, are the crime prevention coordinators for the New York City Transit Police Department. Graffiti, as the name itself, is not an art. Graffiti is the application of a medium to a surface. I will show you graffiti such as the letters on the end of that car directly in back of me. Is that an art form? I don't know. I'm not an art criminal. critic but I can sure as hell tell you that that's a crime at the grand concourse 149th street station in the Bronx graffiti writers gather at what they call the writers bench They're saying that the kids run the subways, that the system is out of control, that 15 and 16 year old kids are running the system, and that graffiti is a symbol of that. Nah, I ain't running the system. I'm bombing the system. They're trying to make it look like graffiti writers break windows and everything. It ain't even like that. You know who be doing that, man? Niggas who be hard when they come from school is the ones who break the windows. And it's in the graffiti artist's favor to be as cool, calm, and collected about putting his art on the train as he can. You know, he wants to get in and get out without even being noticed, except for the work that's going to come out to the public, you know, that Monday. Man, we got to start to rock some straight niggas. That's what came out of that, right? Yeah, that's the first, that's about the third scheme piece I did. That's the TikTok I did in Gun Hill. What'd you do last night? We did two whole cars. It was me, Dez, and me in three, right? And then the first car is small. small letters that said, What you see is, and then, you know, big, big, you know, black, silver letters that said, crime in the city, right? It just took up the whole mall. Yeah, yeah, it was a whole car and shit. Then it was a, you know, a scroll light, no one knows scrolls. Then in the next car, it was a scheme that had, you know, a cop character and shit, you know, a police nigga with a stick, you know, and a badge. What design did you put around the car? Societies should go down in the subway and lock them all up because they don't have any business down there. It is dangerous down there. People that work down there 25 and 30 years have accidents. But his contention is that he's immortal, I guess, like most 17-year-olds are, immortal. It's a matter of getting a tag on each line and each division. It's called going all-city. People see your tags in Queens, uptown, downtown, all over. I can only laugh to keep from crying because what happens is he really, I don't really think he knows how silly that sounds. He's going all-city. I mean, to what end? And when I ask him, he says to me, well, just so people see it and they know who I am. Everybody knows who he is, and so they see it. No, it's not a matter of so they know who I am. So they see it, and then after they see it, so what? It's a matter of bombing, knowing that I can do it. Every time I get in a train, almost every day I see my name. I say, yeah, you know what, I was there, I bombed it. It's a matter, it's for me, it's not for nobody else to see. I don't care about nobody else seeing it or the fact if they can read it or not. It's for me and other graffiti writers that we can read it. All these other people who don't write, they're excluded. I don't care about them. No, they don't matter to me. It's for us. CC Starbreeze 5. Slow it down. Slow it down. What is it? Tell me. Nice and slow. Nice and slow. This is it! This is it! This is it! This is it! Here we go! Here we go! This is it! This is it! Woo! Give me that pound! Give me that pound! That caddy came out nice. That wire went to the back. Woo! Woo! Woo! P-E-E. Holla! In the 1970s, New York graffiti, rapping and breaking became the prime expressions of a new young people subculture called hip-hop. Graffiti is the written word. There's the spoken word of rap music. And then there's the acrobatic body language of dances like breaking. It started in the Bronx and part of Harlem. It started in Freezes' house. Ah, shut up! It's mom. It's the break. She's all acting. Don't be talking about my mother now. Well, yeah, Billy, go, go, go. Mom, you can just don't talk about my mother. Boy, you acting stupid now. Break is when you don't have nothing to do and, you know, everybody is standing around getting high. It's just for you. Make up your own freezes. And you call them, you got names for them. Like what? Like the baby. The baby. The baby. The baby. A dead freeze like this. What do you call it? A dead freeze like this. Well that's one of the old, old, ancient. It ain't one of the old, cause I was the first one to do it. How ancient can you get? How much longer do you go like this? It's called the hump. It's called the hump. The headache, man. The headache. Where? No, that's the headache. That's the headache. And the other one is the hump. When you got a headache, you go like this. When you're hungry, you go like this. Yo man this place is bombed This is the transit system. They don't like it to be defaced and they will at times try and go to the extreme and try and apprehend you. The subway system is a very old one and I've I personally explored some tunnels and I found rooms where maps that were so old it might have been like the first train line that the New York City had. All of what you want. Just a lot of rock, a lot of steel. Tomb. Dungeon. Under the city. A lot of trains, a lot of fun. A lot of art. Art that's gonna be a part of it. New York City's history forever. Oh, wow. Check it out. A whole car lit. Yo, what? Check it out, man. A statue of a king. Yo! Look at that. Yo. A lot of riders have been down here. You can tell. Video overplayed. Check it out. Years ago, it was pretty much a secret. It was secretly done. People wondered and wished they could do it. Not most people do it. Toys are like home sleeping, cuddling to their pillows. They usually have curfews come down in the wee hours of the night after the workers done their job. Sweepers did the sweeping they had to do. Just take my time and be creative. I think it's something you can never really capture again once you experience it. You have like live third rails and like crazy cops who come and chase you out. Even the smell you get, like when you first smell trains, like in a yard, it's like... It's a good smell to a dedicated graffiti writer, I guess. When you're first against a train, it's like, everything seems so big, like... Wow! It's like you're in a yard of metal giants, and like... It's just like... Everything is so hard and so steel. And you're just there. You're like a little dude. You're in the midst of all this metal. And you're here to produce something. Well, you're here to try to produce something. I've seen comparable graffiti, not necessarily these particular ones. Each of these cost us a million dollars, in a sense, because others went out and tried to copy. Isn't worth it. Well, it is one of the quality of life offenses, and you can't just take one of those quality of life offenses. It's like three-card Monty and pickpocketing and shoplifting and graffiti defacing our... public and private walls. They're all in the same area of destroying our lifestyle and making it difficult to enjoy life, and I think has to be responded to. And so I've told you that the response that I think a repeater, three-time repeater, should get would be five days in jail. Now, obviously, a murderer, if you believe in the death penalty as I do, you want to have the option of executing a murderer, you wouldn't do that to a... graffiti writer. They saw you at work over here. I just want to find out what you're filming. I was making a film on subway graffiti in New York. Why did you take this particular neighborhood here? What's unusual? Is there more graffiti here than other places? I hope not. We're here because one of the best graffiti writers lives around here. Writes seen. What is it? S-E-E-N. That's his name. name yes that's what he or is it a nom de plume you wouldn't tell me it's a real name no why not would he be in get in trouble or wouldn't he be glorified by it I'm a wanderer. Yeah, I'm a wanderer. I roam around, around, around, around. Yeah, I'm a wanderer. I roam around, around, around, around. Yeah, I'm a wanderer. Yeah, I'm a wanderer. I had about four fun almost reasons why I ain't peaked right now. To make a long story short... I'm on what they call a six-month probation. Call it a six-month vacation, never mind probation. Now they got a graffiti squad on this line, which they really was never really. Since they come on the line, it's been harder to peace, and it ain't like the old days when a train used to pull into the yard on a Friday night. That train wouldn't pull out until Monday morning. Now when you go to peace the train, you put an outline on the train, and you can say goodbye, the train pulls out ten minutes later. Well, if you're ready to put an outline, you gotta chase the train halfway down the track to put an outline on the piece. It just ain't the same anymore. They don't know what they're doing no more. Late, as usual. But I'm here. I show up, though. I show up. Let me see. Well, why don't you do this one, this one, on that side of the wall. You know what I'm saying? No, this one. We got plenty of them, believe me. The bottom of the piece? The bottom of the piece, I say about here. Alright, you know you're gonna have to go a little bit below the top, or you're gonna have it on a wave, you know what I mean? It's gonna be big, the legs. So I want you to start from about here. Alright, maybe even here. Start it from here. Listen to me, from here. You understand what I'm saying here? I still think it's too big. Now, your first outline is needed. Always need it. This way you know you're filling in. No matter how good you are, you can't just go in and just start filling in in the air. You gotta have your first outline. Once your first outline is done, then your fill-in, that takes away your first outline, meaning you don't need your first no more because now you got your fill-in. From your fill-in, you put your colors and then your 3D. And if you want background, you put your cloud or whatever. How's this, nigga? I'm throwing a few connections here. I wanna make it look like yours. What do you think? I'll make a few bits. Alright. Huh? Bits, bits. I don't know, a little doodads here and there. Yeah, now it's shaping up. I've got a hundred outlines, but I'm shaping up. Nicky, Nicky, come on! You gonna save me room or what? I didn't do that to yours. Get out of there! You're making a mess in this house. You cannot sit down without... You're not doing graffiti on something. Alright, when you're talking on the phone, and you're talking on the phone, you don't doodle on the paper? I don't doodle. Yes, you do. I do not doodle. You do doodle on the paper. I don't doodle. I don't doodle. I just write my name while I'm talking on the phone. What's that? It just... That's all you're telling me. I'm just writing something. You're telling me that you write your name while you're talking on the phone. In the meantime, you have destroyed your room. You have destroyed your room. Testing out my paint. You have no respect for anything. Don't tell me about testing out your paint. You have no respect for anything anymore. Ain't we putting red, yellow, red, orange, and yellow in here? No, the brown's got to be brown. I ain't putting no browns there. Ain't no way. Red, orange, and yellow. You want it to stand out. Boom. The whole thing, around the whole works, red, orange, and yellow. Remember how I did the man scene with the wall and the coat went all around the thing? The man scene went on the fives, with the walls were falling down, the one I did myself? No. All right, let me explain. Yellow, orange, and a little bit of red. Yellow and orange around the whole thing, and then we'll put browns and beiges in the 3D. Believe me, I'll show you. Not around the face, fade into the yellow, but a trim of red, a cheap trim, I'll show you after. All right? I'll never steer you wrong, Nick. Rust-oleum, Krylon, Wet Look, epoxy, Red Devil. When you hold a can of a stone in your hand, it's like holding three other shit brands in your hand. It lasts, it covers, and it's not aerosol like Kryolite. It just comes out in a mist. It just comes out like paint. The schools have courses in art. How about the mothers and fathers of this city saying to the kids, that's the wrong thing to do? You listen to them talk, they sound absolutely ridiculous. He's the king of the yackety-yack yard. Who died and left him? King of any art. He owns nothing in the subway, you know? I love robbing paint. I know, you know, everybody knows how you rob it. Like, he gets me souped up, and sometimes I'll go and get 15 cans at a time, you know? Stuffing it in your coat, in your shirt, down the back of your pants. It's mainly with a big coat, and, like, 15 cans, you figure it out, it's like over $50. Going into stores, like, we could go one day and get 100 cans at a time. It's easy, for me anyway. It's, you know, harder on black kids or Spanish kids because, like, everybody thinks a graffiti writer is black and Puerto Rican, and that's, like, you know, it's... wrong, you know. A lot of white people are writing. What you've got is a whole miserable subculture. I was raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I went to a sort of strict prep school in the Bronx, right, Riverdale Country School. In attending that school, I had to walk past the one yard on 242nd Street every day. From where I stood, I'd watch the trains pull in and out. I thought, how could a human being have his name on every car? You know, that these guys must either live in there, be allowed to live in there, or just be, like, allowed to, you know, go off like that, right? They're trespassing it. They're beating the system. They're getting their names up, right? We've drenched the city with our names, right? We're trying our damnedest. With the Super S on his game, we're gonna jump to the front like we got no way. I'm EJ Rock and I can pass the chest, to get down the balance from the east to west. This party please, that party please, I'll funk them all with the greatest of beat. This is EJ Rock with the master beat. People get on the sound that moves the beat. Somebody say, get up, get up. Somebody say, get up, get up. You party good, you throwing it down. You compliment this on the sound. B-b-b-b-b-me up. We caught a freshly painted double R. We spent about three hours in it. That's impossible. No, it's not. We were tagging with unis, then the minis, then the marvis, then the pilots, then the flow pens. And we were doing clouds around the tags and 3Ds on the tags. We just... For the double R's to have a clean car back then like that, it was... We just had an orgasm. Pop, pop, pop, pop me up! 1970. The idea of getting your name up, not just in your neighborhood, but everywhere, was invented by a kid named Taki, who lived on 183rd Street in Washington. Washington Heights. Taki 183. As soon as everybody understood that it was a name, they realized that Taki was famous. Taki 183 was the first guy, even though they say Julia T. O'Farrell started before him, but he was the one that made it famous. Then after him, in them times, was Papa 184. Then came out Junie 161, K-161. They were bombing too. Stitch came out around 1921. He was all 32. Barbara, Eva, 62, they were girls. Everybody was right. That was what everybody was talking in them days. I got into graffiti just like riding the trains when I was younger. You know, looking at old writers' shit, you know. Like a lot of new writers around. Like, you talk to them about a lot of old writers, see, they don't even know what you're talking about. I started in 1973 or 4 during very early years of... Initial bombing, very important years of graffiti bombing because if it wasn't for those years, I don't think we would get where we are today. That was the life back then. That was happening. Everybody was pioneering back then. That's when all your developing happened, your bubble letters, all that kind of stuff, your wild styles. The wild styles. Yeah, you don't have to do straight letters to have style. Anything that comes in your imagination adds on to your own individual style. The arrow. Everybody's got their own arrow. I like that though. various arrows, some guys have on the letter arrow that was their connection some people had different arrows just going right through their pieces The funk is here so you can move We want to make your body move Colors, designs, style, technicals, vests, get loose, cartoons, everything. And when they see you got a vicious style, they be wanting to get loose about it. You know, and that's what keep it going. And that's what sparks graffiti. Right, keep sparking it. You know, I know a lot of good writers, you know, and all the writers that... You know, they used to get up, so they used to tell me, yo, trap, won't you get up? And I started getting up with them, and we started doing pieces. Then I met Des, and then... One day, I came to the bench, and I seen him sitting there looking at the pieces. You could tell a rider, you know, you go to the bench and you see him, as the trains go by, he be going like this. You know, he have ink stains on his clothes. He gave me outlines and stuff like that to practice. I can't let him go for at least five minutes. You know, he'll destroy the piece. You know, I turn around, Jack, what you doing, you know? I want to do my own piece. I said, yeah, but, you know, follow the outline. Russ, Russ. What's up, man? You know, I'm chilling, man. Slick Rick, Slick Rick. And the A's are big. For about two and a half years I was upstate. Something like beginning of 1970 to 72. What's up? Yeah, what's up? Follow me. When I came home, I ain't know nothing about no writing or graffiti because I wasn't about it. All right, all right. You know it. What's up, man? So when I got home, I seen writing on the train. I said, what's this stuff here, you know? Those niggas doing they names big. Said, let me do one at least, you know, cause I was, you know, down with art already. And I did me a piece. Just, you know, for people in general to get to know who I am. I said, ooh, that look alright. I'm gonna go every Sunday now. Next thing I know, I started getting better and better. And as I realized, I knew to get better, I said, oh man. I'm gonna bring out the computer rock and then that's when I really got loose because their niggas are saying yo who's that guy then one day these news reporter people was on the train station they we was going by and we seen them we seen them filming our whole car we went up to them and I remember I said yo who you think probably done that right there you know just to be curious to see what they say and he said I don't know but whoever done it that's remarkable talent you know I ain't never seen nothing like this before I said, if I told you I did it, would you believe me? He said, I don't know, I can't say it, but I believe so, because you'll never know what you can believe these days. So I said, well, I did. And then he said, I don't believe that, you only got one arm. I said, that don't mean nothing. I do things that people don't realize I can do with this, you know, being that I'm like this, you know. And then he said, I hear you then, Sonny. And then I said, well, I ain't no Sonny now. I just was asking questions, so, you know, so that's all I wanted to know, to see how your feelings was about it. So, you need some candy? Huh? You ain't getting nothing? Straight up. Get some candy, man. You ain't got no change? Oh. Hey, Jiggle Out! What's new? Jiggle Out! Where that nigga at, man? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can dig it. What's up, man? Word. Yo, what up, what up, what up? Jiggle Out, what up? The Beastmaster, do you want to swing? Are you willing to take a chance? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Instead of that eyes. Yeah, word. Look at that eagle, word. That's it. Look at the eyes, like it's eyes. Know where he got that from, right? Von Golden, who? Frank Rosetta. Beastmaster. The way the letters is breaking up. Epic adventures of a new kind of hero. That's where we're going to be, the fresh extraterrestrial brothers. You know what I'm saying? Extraterrestrial, knowing we the best. You know what I'm saying? It's a Desi Des and a Casey Case. In these five, we gonna rock the place. And if you're based in the place, you will get disgraced. Because we are the crew. We got the place. Rock, sock it. Rock it in the pocket. Rock, sock it. Rock it in the pocket. Say what you want. That girl front of the train took it to the doctor. So I'm on again. Stabbed that man right in his heart. Game of Triathlon for the brand new star. Can't cut through the park. Cause it's crazy at the park. Keep my hand on my gun cause they got me on the run. I feel like an outlaw. Broke my last pass jaw. Hit them and say you want some more? Living on a seesaw. Broken glass everywhere, people pissin' on the stairs, you know they just don't care. I can't take the smell, can't take the noise, got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice. Rats in the front room, roaches in the back, jump! He's in the alley with the baseball bat. I tried to get away, but I couldn't get far because a man with a touch of repossessed my car. Don't push me because I'm close to the edge. I'm trying not to lose my... I know what's about graffiti, man. Niggas say it played out. Niggas say this. Niggas say that. But it's going to keep going on, you know? Because, look, I might be old and quit, you know, but you coming up, younger niggas that's coming up, is going to keep going and keep going, you know? You're going to be a kid. He's like a son to me in a way, you know? I look out for him. He looks out for me. You know, I won't let nothing happen to him, you know? Don't let nothing happen to me if he can help it. I know from his age, he's 14 now, you know, and I'm 16. By the time he get my age, he'll be like one of the best people out, you know. If he continues to go on in the years, he could be another Picasso. Get fucking in the place. Get funky, yeah Life ain't no more a joke, it's a serious thing When you're dealing with an answer that you can't explain It's the funky beat, and it's the funky beat And it's the funk, the funk, and it's the funky beat Yeah Like a little jelly bean, I'ma The idea of style and competing for the best style is the key to all forms of rocking. For the rap MC, it's rocking the mic. For the B-boys, it's rocking your body and breakdancing. Or for writers, rocking the city with your name on a train. Get funky in the place. Get funky in the place. Right now he's doing the footwork with the original breaking came out. Yeah, he's doing the baby and the turtle. The back bridge. Yeah, did the head spin and then just went up. I got a certain back spin that I made up. Want me to show you it? I started off doing like this. And then I did like that. So then I just decided not to do the freeze and keep on spinning. So it goes like this. I put my arm right here and it's easy and I push with my arm and swing my left leg. My right leg, both of them. Around. Other crews, they're not as good as us, you know, because we have the breaking form, you know, the break... Original style. Yeah, original style, you know. Original. Other crews like Dynamic Rock is, you know, they bite. Usually they bite. Let me tell you about these people. Dynamic Rock. Rock steady against that Island Rockers rock on to the break of dawn. This goes back. When I used to go out to the roller skating in the United States of America, in Queens, right? I used to go over there to break against all of them and take them all out, you know, burn them, make them look stupid. I mean, they had no kind of style at all. They was beginners. I've been breaking way before now. We started doing better routines than they were. they got to a point where they got at us because we was taking them out with our moves and then that started getting out of hand because they had the crowd and we didn't yo whoever ain't in rock steady or dynamic get behind the barriers yo old rock crews can you please listen yo nobody's listening to me we're not gonna start until you move rockies get ready Up-Rod is just like humiliating, you know, doing things in people's face and all that. And Down-Rod is, you know, trying to see who can compete against. Moves on the floor I was looking at the women on the 30th floor All of a sudden there was a knock on my door It was a lot of sand, but we didn't fall Yeah, they blew our whole strength through my door So I went to the back to get the gun I was out to bulletin, only one I shoot the shit, yeah, I shot a man's eye Let us all rock, man. It's so hot. So who won the rocking contest? Rock and roll! Rock and roll! Rock and roll! You all know we took them out, right? Put it this way. We're out of sight and they're biting. They bit my turtle into a hot... Oh, man, I could've cried when I seen it. You know that faggot that was flying around it with his funny legs and shit? Yo, man, so what? That's not even breaking, man. That's all fairy flying. I call that fairy flying. Who goes for Rocksteady? Dynamic Rockets. Hold it, hold it, hold it. It was a tie. It was a tie. I Mike C. Hey, girl. Hey, girl. Pace up. B. L. B. Rockin' it, rockin' it. Yes, he is rockin' it. Tito rockin' it. Yes, he is rockin' it. Mike C. Rockin' it. Yes, he is rockin' it. Pace up. Rockin' it, yes he is, rockin' it We're all rocking it, you should be rocking it Rocking it, rocking it How do you fill up a train like that? You can't do it overnight Do you wait for the same train Coming back into the same station? Nah, you get the park train And you just Oh, you mean you go to the train yard Yeah, like the layup Or the train yard Does your mother wonder why you come home with that all over your face? No, she knows I ride the graffiti I told her, I said, I'm going up on the train So I'm gonna ride some graffiti Do you have a worry you might get a job? Yeah Yeah, she says if the cops call, don't come running to me. Um, I never realized it meant so much to them, you know? I just thought they were writing, just writing anything. But I guess it has a deep meaning. Huh? Um, well, like he said, he's writing his girlfriend's names and... He's Dust, whatever that means. What is Dust supposed to mean? It's just a name, it's a word. See, it's a game. It's like they give you a name and they say, here, take this name and do something with it. Like, he got the name Seen, he can walk around and just say, hey, my name is Seen. And say, yeah, yeah, I see you out there, I see you there. It's a name. It's just like, I'll give you a name and you say, hey, how big could you get this name up? How high? Trains are routinely washed, but because of the graffiti problem, we have to use a graffiti removal solution, which at best is detrimental to the physical makeup of the train itself. This is what I'm applying. The car wash. 8 a.m. is 90 yards. All you know, we spend a lot of money replacing broken and damaged side windows. We cannot use acrylic plastic windows in the train because the same... graffiti removal solution fogs the windows. The problem often is that often it doesn't produce a sparkling clean car, but rather a sort of vomitous color, which is, as some of the graffiti artists argue, less attractive than what they consider to be their artwork. So it's altogether sort of an unsatisfactory result. Watch out, you might get wet. Watch your shoes. It's not the best selling stuff. But so far it hasn't hurt, you know, it hasn't bothered me. Some fellows have bothered me. That's my money that's being diverted from providing me with good, safe, secure, rapid transit. Look at this junk. Graffiti doesn't make your life better. It just makes your neighborhood look worse. You know how I made something out of my life? By using my hands. But only in the rain. Don't use them to mess with the... the walls with graffiti. I practiced all my life to make moves like that. And I worked every day to be a singer. So if you really want to make something out of your life, use your head. Or your voice. But don't waste your time making a mess. Make your mark in society, not on society. This happens to be a poster that is the first in a series that's going to be used in New York City subways and buses. Where we've used Hector Camacho, who's a boxer, North American lightweight champ, and Alex Ramos. Boxer leading middleweight contender. Take it from the champs, graffiti is for chumps. Make your mark in society, not on society. It's really very clever. Put your mark on society in doing something in society. I've scooted up a little bit, but nevertheless you got the message. Realistically, you think it's... Well, you say realistically. I'm hopeful that it will work. Nobody thought that we would be as successful as we were in the campaign against the drought and water conservation. Nevertheless, if that worked, I'm hopeful we will have equal success here. Time will tell. Mr. Mayor, are those posters graffiti proof? Time will tell. What you doing, B? Fresh? Yeah, this is one of my little signature series, don't you see? Word. Noah, son, you gettin' fresh on the nigga, man. That nigga still got the touch, boy. Butch a butch with the tiger skin. I see you did the case with the Cease this time. You know who I am, though, anyway, you know? The king of what? King of style. Shoot, I got styles already that's more complex than nobody know about. I mean, super duty tough work. See, this is just semi, like, what I would call it. But if I really get into it and start camouflaging it, I don't think you'll even be able to read it. Don't go nowhere. Little, little semi-thing here. It wasn't no severely bad accident. It's just that I got burnt by wires. I saw a long time ago electrical wires, and then they rushed me to the hospital, and they just had to amputate because my tissues and muscles was burnt bad. When I was young, I was playing and I wasn't too sure what I was doing. I knew what I was doing, but I just didn't know not should I grab the wire or not. And I don't know if I grabbed it or not, but I know I just got hurt because it had knocked me out, so I didn't remember. But it don't mean nothing in general. I mean, I'm okay. It's just that it was a bad thing to happen at the time. That's why people's amazed about me now because of going through that and then dealing with what I'm dealing with even though it's common Little bull crap in a way, you know people look at a person what you ran on trains are you vandalism wallet? Yeah, I'm vandalism. All right, but still in general. I know what I'm doing I did something to make your eyes open up, right? So why is he talking about it for you know? From here up, nobody goes. It's my labs, definitely. This is a beautiful spot to do pieces on. And ain't hardly no riders know about this place. My spot. Niggas know, believe it. Niggas know. Yo, here, take the cans. I am not a graffiti artist. I'm a graffiti bomber. There's two styles of graffiti that are trying to, you know, coexist with each other. But it ain't gonna work like that. Blood wars, buddy. Blood wars. That's why graffiti's ruined. Like Cap ruined the twos and fives. The twos and fives used to go to the two yard. It would be like a masterpiece art gallery of burners. From all these dudes from the Bronx and Brooklyn with Def Wild styles. Now you go to the two yard, it's all destroyed. This guy named Cap with his Lucio Ball hairdo. All your burners. What's up, Sal? Yo, what's up, man? I've seen your new pieces, man, on the Tuesday 5. They went over that side, man. Yeah, I know. Cap. Cap. I wouldn't mind if you would have went over one of my old cars, you know, but that was fresh. It was a brand new burner. It only ran for two days, you know. He didn't even get a chance to run on the line, just like, Pah! You know, and they went over and I feel, you know, that hurt me, you know. And Sene was with him and PJ. And then I called Sene up and he denied it. I can't afford to get involved. There's a war going on as you should know. So, PJ and Cap, against everybody. He just crossed me out anyway, so I don't know why, but brand new car too he wasted. Let's say this, I stand behind them if they had a good cause for the situation. As far as it is now, they have no cause behind it, they're just doing it for the hell of it. That ain't me because I wouldn't want people to go over my pieces so I wouldn't go over them. He's disrespecting the line, which no other guy was doing that years ago. All he does is silver throw-ups. You got fresh colored pieces full of chocolate. I know you can't get him back. You can't make up for what he did. And he'll just laugh at you. It's just a throw-up. I got a million of them running. So what? He's a jealous toy, that's all. That's all there is to it, though. He can't do a burner and shit. He can't do shit. He can't even do a straight leather. He went over this? Yup, he did a cap throw-up over me and an MPC over this and wrote war next to Fat Albert. Oh shit. You can't ever make up for that. That's never forgive action. If you a toy, it gotta be stopped. And this guy's a toy and he's big and he's still gotta be stopped. You gotta be stopped. You gotta break this. Yo, but how come we waited all this long? How come there's so many writers that he went over their burners and we're not in his neighborhood with crews? Because nobody wants to get united. That's the shit. We gotta get together bro, cause shit. Everybody says, yeah, we're gonna get down. We're gonna get down, right? But nobody comes man. Like what we gotta do is meet everybody in 149th Street at the bench. It's like Grand Concourse. We should forget all the other bullshit worries that we got with each other and unite and get this toy cause he's talking everybody. Everybody. Cap, I don't know, some big white boy. I don't know. I don't know. I don't wanna know. Yeah, that's what he's doing. Trying to get attention. And revenge, because people go over his throbs. You know, people do burners. You see a throb, you're gonna go over it. Who thinks Cap's throbs are worth being on a train? Nobody. What you write, bro? Alright, Mayor, man. Mayor? M-E-A-R? M-A-R-E. Yeah, more. Man, I don't know more than they are, but no seriously, you gotta kill them dudes for doing that. Who's Cap? Cap is right here. People don't know what I look like until now. Until they start going to the movies. They're gonna see my face. Big deal. Anybody tries to screw around with me and my friends, I go over everything they got forever. Everybody from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Everybody. That's the way it is. Especially with me, the object is more. Not the biggest and the beautifulest, but more. Like a little piece on every car is what counts. Not one whole car on every 30 cars that goes by. Once you start going over someone, you can't stop. So I'm going to live. Thus, he started pulling some shit with me. And I'm telling you, he's lucky we didn't catch him by that wall. Because if we would have been there, even if you were shooting the movie, it would have just been boom, boom, boom. That's the way it would have went. It's gonna get crushed off, I guarantee by tomorrow, once they find out it's here. Help me with the 3D, Nicky, come on. The piece has got a lot of colors to go in there yet. But with the color, we can do that, we can do that with no problem. I can do it before it gets dark, That was a beautiful wall. I really like that. People like that, they deserve getting everything they got crossed out forever. For 20 years there really hasn't been anything hot. There have been no movements since pop art. Any retailer, and let's face it, a gallery is indeed a retailer, they're always looking for something hot that they can merchandise and sell to the public. It's almost as though... These pieces were peeled off the train and put onto canvas. So you have the same energy, you have the same coloring, you have the same intensity and the same big piece that you would see on a train. The real subway graffiti that's done on the trains is... Slowly dying out and this is taking its place. The lifespan of an average piece today only lasts a few months. This is something that could last a lifetime. Blondie seems to be an important figure within the graffiti art style. Kane has used her in a very photographic way. Nock shows her expressionistically. Myself, I'm an artist. And it's exciting. The color is exciting. The movement is exciting. It combines all kinds of movement. We had ABC TV. We had CBS here tonight. We're going to be on the news tonight at 11 o'clock. National Public Radio. Do it up, baby. I love it. I'm Ron Powers. I'm a reporter with the Associated Press. How long would it take you to do something like this? On a train? Depends. What your schedule is. I can't let my mother know that I'm going to the train, so I have to be back early. But I did meet a guy here who's an art critic from the news, and he says he gets so goddamn mad every time he sees this that he walked up to one of the artists at the show. show tonight and said, how would you feel if I took a can and wrote on your graffiti? And the artist said to him, I kill you, man. As an investment, I feel so strongly that if you get in on the bottom of anything, it's got to be a good investment. And this is definitely going someplace. But I think that graffiti on the subway cars were a symbol of New York for foreign people and especially French people. and I think it's a little sad if graffiti are going to be only on canvas, not anymore on trains. Forget about the trains. Who wants to be dirty and hot at the same time? That's right. I'm into making money. Yeah, it feels good. You go to school and your teacher says, it's not worth anything. I don't believe it. You don't make any money from graffiti. Yeah, that's right, boy. When was the last time you made $2,000 in a month? For once in a day. Okay, now you failed. All right, the thought has crossed my mind, yeah, if something should happen, yeah, I'll go along with it. But if it doesn't, there's no thing to me because that's not what I'm out here for. I'm out here to bomb, period. That's what I started for. I didn't start writing to go to Paris. I didn't start writing to do canvases. I started writing to bomb, destroy all lines. And that's what I'm doing. How long do you think you'll do it? Until I'm finished. Now that you've heard that, you understand what I'm saying to you when I say that I don't understand him. He's out there to bomb, destroy all lines. What have the lines ever done to him? What have the lines ever done to him? Maybe pay 75 cents. When do you pay 75 cents? Never, but... Well, so I don't even know what you're talking about. We're on the Staten Island Ferry. This is the New York Harbor. This is to signify we're leaving New York with this package of artists. to go out and play places where individually they never would play. It'll be in Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, Iowa City, Detroit, and Toronto. Being professional, what does that mean? Getting paid for what you do. Professional. Having your own style. Yeah. Doing your own moves. Don't let nobody else bite you. Doing it for a long time, knowing what you're doing. Being the best. Special K, Sunshine. Cool. More. Damn. All time, feel the heartbeat, feel the heartbeat. We're the treacherous threes, we got a new heartbeat. Uh, ah, ha, ah, hey, ha, ha, ha. Woo, woo. Yeah. Get loose, get loose, Mosey, get loose. Just rock heartbeat, show them you got dreams. So have fun, have fun, have fun, have fun, have, have, have fun. Party people got a brand new treat. All for well, no tootin', we call it heartbeat. We jack it up, man. We broke it down And came out with a brand new fucking sound Now I can't wait to get this straight Our heartbeat's not on normal rate Cause when we get excited Our adrenaline flows And this is the way our heartbeat goes The hop, skip and the jump But not a plain old bop Butterfuck Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop It's a brand new treat And it sounds so sweet The rap and the music Our new heartbeat So feel the heartbeat So feel the heartbeat We're the Treads of the Street We got a new heartbeat Huh! Because it is the profession. I think it's about time that politicians came to the table. Catch her doing that. What's the sense of pay? 75 cents when you have to ride your 3D train, you know? Gives a terrible impression of the city. And I, if you think the outside is bad, I've been riding them, like I say, for 40 years. The inside is, it's just unbelievable. It's a violation of public property. I think it's disgusting. They should at least get somebody to clean up the damn place. We move three and a half million people a day. They have rights too. The people see the outside of the cars when the trains are going, start pulling to a station, or when they're passing on the express track, and then it's generally a blur. But I don't think the public finds that nearly as intrusive and ugly as they do the inside graffiti. He hates the inside. He hates the inside. Yeah. He said that if any possible way of we giving him some kind of suggestion of how to get rid of the inside, he said there might be a chance of Negotiating with the outside. Negotiating. Something like that. I met with a group of them one day, more out of intellectual curiosity as to who they were and what made them tick. I found them surprisingly articulate. They expressed a strong sense that if their outside paintings were left untouched, that the public would be... Impressed. We came up to him with like a proposal to paint ten cars inside and out and let it run in like the major stations. And let people vote on it, like let's say during the two week period. And after the two week period they'll have, you know, the results in the paper. And I think the MTA will be embarrassed. They thought there was no basis whatsoever in which it was proper for anyone to touch our property in another authorized fashion. They got guys out there that are mugging people in the subways, stabbing people, throwing people into the tracks and all that. And they're wasting the bullshit money trying to get us. With all respect, I think you are close to falling into the sort of trap of the 1960s culture, which says, you know, this society has left these kids with not enough to do. If the kids have energy and want to do something, we'll give them all brooms. Give them all sponges and they can do something that is publicly productive, useful, and that would earn for them the respect and approbation from their fellow citizens. It isn't the energy that is misplaced, it's the value system that is misplaced. I think it's great for the riding public to be up on the station one cold and dreary day and see a nice white shiny car come pulling up to the station. The public has knocked us for so long and we are doing nothing. It couldn't be done. We proved that we'd done it. We painted 409 cars in approximately eight weeks. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and not one day did we miss that production schedule. Our personal pride was hurt. A lot of people have been knocking the transit authority, and we wanted to show them that we could do something. See if the Japanese can do it, we can do it. This stuff is like razor blades, about two inches long, and there's one of these every two inches. There's really not too much protective clothing you can wear to prevent yourself from getting cut. And once you do fall into it, it's so structured that it collapses upon you. And the more you try to move, the worse off you become. Just like, you know, when you see in the movies, like in Apocalypse Now, how they used to protect their lines and their barricades. They want to hold back the enemy from destroying our trains. About three years ago, I... Decided to suggest to Dick Ravitch that they put a dog in the yard to keep the graffiti vandals out. The MTA rejected it and they said, no, that if you put a dog in the yard, the dog would step on the third rail. Now, I don't happen to think that dogs step on the third rail, but I said in response to that, well, if you think the dog will step on the third rail, then build two fences and have... The dog run between the two fences and that will keep people out and protect the dog from stepping on the third rail. And the response was, well, maybe somebody will climb over the fence and the dog will bite them. I said, well, I thought that's what the dog was for. But if you're afraid of having the dog bite such a vandal, and here I called upon my prodigious memory. I said, what you should do then, instead of using a dog, is to use a wolf and have a wolf. run between the two fences because there is no recorded case in history where a wolf has ever attacked human being unless the wolf were rabid mad. Now, as a result of telling that story innumerable times, I embarrassed the MTA into building the fence around the first of 19 yards. And it was so successful, they now claim it as their own idea. And they're building 18 more fences. I think it's stupid. The idea of having all this barbed wire and fences and protection, change is still going to get written on it. They invented the white elephant. It's still got, well, they weren't bombed, but they had little mosquito bites. I mean, call it what you want. They were still written on it. They're still not spotless completely. Dom Koch. Yeah, there you go. That is the highest praise imaginable because obviously I'm getting to them. Last night in one piece. Who's building? There always will be graffiti. It's a part of New York. It'll be there forever. Someone will always want to jump down on a track or while a train's moving and just take out a can of paint or a marker and put up their initial. He still shows me all his things, which I don't even want to see. But we still talk. And he told me just about everything that goes on. Other than that, I wouldn't really be able to tell you so much. And like sometimes, and this is, and knowing all this, right, it just really only makes me that much more fearful for him. I felt that I just had to let her know, you know, like, because sometimes when it's time to go bombing, you know, you got to go late at night, like in the middle of night. You got to leave the house at 2 o'clock just to go bombing so you don't get caught. What? You know, she got to know where I'm going. Can't just say I'm going to a party. No parties don't start at 2 o'clock. Not every kid would tell his mother where to go. Yeah, well, I'd rather let my mother know what's going on, you know, than to keep it in the dark. If I get busted, cops call, excuse me, we have your son for the graffiti. You know, I'd rather, you know, let her know that I was doing it. So, you know, she's prepared to come and get me up. But never getting busted, so don't have to worry about that. I mean, an adult, I just couldn't see an adult ever putting that much energy to something that isn't going to pay or is going to risk their life or have the possibility of them getting arrested. Well, I see myself as eventually growing out of graph and getting married and living the lifestyle, you know, and making good money like that. And when life isn't its best, you don't really want to run around in the trains. I'm sure I'll come back every now and then. Just to let people know I'm still around. Oh no, when I come back I take over and that's it. After that. And after that, after that... You want the Prince of the Sixth? I'm king right here. I'm the Prince of the Sixth. After that. He's later, you know, he's with a has-been. I'm what they call a has-been and he's a wannabe. A wannabe? Do they consider you a king? Put it this way, I am a king. I can say... King of what? I want to tell you, I am a king of bombing. You gotta be able to take over a line with insides, take it over with throw-ups, top to bottoms. You gotta do everything, you know. If you specialize in one thing, you know, you really can't call yourself an all-out king. Who's king? You're looking at him right here, my brother, the original. You know what I'm saying? Kingdom Islam, nation God, for I'm the one that rocks so far, you know what I'm saying? Always rocking the jazz's card debt, you know what I'm saying? The only and the original Magnetic King, and that's the one that's still sitting here doing his thing. My next door, I'm probably for the baby! You know it, tell him we all live, this is the original, old master killer of the Manila Driller right here that you're looking at. The original king and loves to do his thing. Don't shout, don't run, don't hide, don't sky. This is me coming to you natural and live on CB whatever. CB without the mic. Get it funky in your face Get it funky in your face Like a little jelly bean, I'ma sweet like a candy cane Make you get down, this is number one stain On the train, just groove, like a stage Just break it up, yeah, yeah Stage, y'all, like a roller coaster ride Like a Mickey, boom, just grooving with the rhythm Shake it up. You got the rock, rock, and you don't stop. Baby, all you got is that rock, and you don't stop. Just hip-hop today. Say it. Doobie-doo. Yeah, Scooby-Doo. What you want a new crew? Just freak out. Yeah, I'm a bad. Just freak out. Yeah, yeah, baby, drink it up, dear I know, my dear, I can rock you out this atmosphere Like a gangster prankster, number one bank Got a much cast to make it that you rock on This is the break of dawn, break of dawn Keep it on, keep it on, I know ZZ that can rock quick I like the iconoplasts that you're into to stick Just a rock on like the finger lick Finger poppin', hop poppin', don't stop Bunny rock, bunny rock You don't stop. This is the mellow. They pull the rail. Well, the monster with the grill. And that's shocking style. When you shake off, kick the waist up in the morning. Gotta rate it with the grill. Like another one. Rolling. MC quick. Just to make it in the butter. Shock with the grill. The bumble. Number one. Undercover. Break it up. Just shake it up. Rodeo up. Break it up. Just shake it up. Rodeo up. I'm the melody now. With the fork it sounds. Like it makes me a break. With my diamonds to the ground. Just to make it a deal. Like Shade it up, shade it up with the classes Make it on with the serious battle Get the melody quick, yeah, the melody sound How to rock it quick with the number one crowd I can beat up all the groove that make you shake now Cause the beat from the depths of hell make you get down Rock on to the beat Freak it on, freak it on with that kid's unique And just check it out, just check it out I said I broke into a dusting bill, yeah And then I shot a girl's top of howl I went to jail, yeah, break it up No education is a big disgrace And so you might as well work at the sanitation Can you give a trip?

Scream it out and say, Yo! Hey! You don't stop. I like the rhythm that makes your finger pop. I said I like hip-hop.

Thank you. Thanks a lot. Come on, everybody, give me what you got.

I'm going to tell you a little story about the Sugar Hill Gang. With a pow-pow boogie and a big bang-bang. They call themselves writers because that's what they do. They write their names, among other things, everywhere.

Names they've been given. given or have chosen for themselves. Most of all, they write in and on subway trains, which carry their names from one end of the city to the other. It's called bombing. And it has equally assertive counterparts in rap music and breakdancing.

Graffiti writing in New York is a vocation. Its traditions are handed down from one youthful generation to the next. To some, it's art.

For most people, however, it is a plague that never ends. A symbol that we've lost control. I'm Detective Bernie Jacobs. I, in conjunction with my partner, Detective Jim McHugh, are the crime prevention coordinators for the New York City Transit Police Department.

Graffiti, as the name itself, is not an art. Graffiti is the application of a medium to a surface. I will show you graffiti such as the letters on the end of that car directly in back of me. Is that an art form? I don't know.

I'm not an art criminal. critic but I can sure as hell tell you that that's a crime at the grand concourse 149th street station in the Bronx graffiti writers gather at what they call the writers bench They're saying that the kids run the subways, that the system is out of control, that 15 and 16 year old kids are running the system, and that graffiti is a symbol of that. Nah, I ain't running the system.

I'm bombing the system. They're trying to make it look like graffiti writers break windows and everything. It ain't even like that. You know who be doing that, man?

Niggas who be hard when they come from school is the ones who break the windows. And it's in the graffiti artist's favor to be as cool, calm, and collected about putting his art on the train as he can. You know, he wants to get in and get out without even being noticed, except for the work that's going to come out to the public, you know, that Monday.

Man, we got to start to rock some straight niggas. That's what came out of that, right? Yeah, that's the first, that's about the third scheme piece I did.

That's the TikTok I did in Gun Hill. What'd you do last night? We did two whole cars. It was me, Dez, and me in three, right? And then the first car is small.

small letters that said, What you see is, and then, you know, big, big, you know, black, silver letters that said, crime in the city, right? It just took up the whole mall. Yeah, yeah, it was a whole car and shit.

Then it was a, you know, a scroll light, no one knows scrolls. Then in the next car, it was a scheme that had, you know, a cop character and shit, you know, a police nigga with a stick, you know, and a badge. What design did you put around the car? Societies should go down in the subway and lock them all up because they don't have any business down there. It is dangerous down there.

People that work down there 25 and 30 years have accidents. But his contention is that he's immortal, I guess, like most 17-year-olds are, immortal. It's a matter of getting a tag on each line and each division. It's called going all-city.

People see your tags in Queens, uptown, downtown, all over. I can only laugh to keep from crying because what happens is he really, I don't really think he knows how silly that sounds. He's going all-city.

I mean, to what end? And when I ask him, he says to me, well, just so people see it and they know who I am. Everybody knows who he is, and so they see it. No, it's not a matter of so they know who I am. So they see it, and then after they see it, so what?

It's a matter of bombing, knowing that I can do it. Every time I get in a train, almost every day I see my name. I say, yeah, you know what, I was there, I bombed it.

It's a matter, it's for me, it's not for nobody else to see. I don't care about nobody else seeing it or the fact if they can read it or not. It's for me and other graffiti writers that we can read it.

All these other people who don't write, they're excluded. I don't care about them. No, they don't matter to me.

It's for us. CC Starbreeze 5. Slow it down. Slow it down. What is it?

Tell me. Nice and slow. Nice and slow. This is it!

This is it! This is it! This is it!

Here we go! Here we go! This is it!

This is it! Woo! Give me that pound! Give me that pound!

That caddy came out nice. That wire went to the back. Woo! Woo!

Woo! P-E-E. Holla! In the 1970s, New York graffiti, rapping and breaking became the prime expressions of a new young people subculture called hip-hop. Graffiti is the written word.

There's the spoken word of rap music. And then there's the acrobatic body language of dances like breaking. It started in the Bronx and part of Harlem. It started in Freezes' house.

Ah, shut up! It's mom. It's the break. She's all acting.

Don't be talking about my mother now. Well, yeah, Billy, go, go, go. Mom, you can just don't talk about my mother.

Boy, you acting stupid now. Break is when you don't have nothing to do and, you know, everybody is standing around getting high. It's just for you. Make up your own freezes. And you call them, you got names for them.

Like what? Like the baby. The baby. The baby. The baby.

A dead freeze like this. What do you call it? A dead freeze like this. Well that's one of the old, old, ancient.

It ain't one of the old, cause I was the first one to do it. How ancient can you get? How much longer do you go like this? It's called the hump. It's called the hump.

The headache, man. The headache. Where? No, that's the headache.

That's the headache. And the other one is the hump. When you got a headache, you go like this. When you're hungry, you go like this.

Yo man this place is bombed This is the transit system. They don't like it to be defaced and they will at times try and go to the extreme and try and apprehend you. The subway system is a very old one and I've I personally explored some tunnels and I found rooms where maps that were so old it might have been like the first train line that the New York City had.

All of what you want. Just a lot of rock, a lot of steel. Tomb. Dungeon.

Under the city. A lot of trains, a lot of fun. A lot of art.

Art that's gonna be a part of it. New York City's history forever. Oh, wow. Check it out. A whole car lit.

Yo, what? Check it out, man. A statue of a king.

Yo! Look at that. Yo.

A lot of riders have been down here. You can tell. Video overplayed. Check it out.

Years ago, it was pretty much a secret. It was secretly done. People wondered and wished they could do it.

Not most people do it. Toys are like home sleeping, cuddling to their pillows. They usually have curfews come down in the wee hours of the night after the workers done their job. Sweepers did the sweeping they had to do.

Just take my time and be creative. I think it's something you can never really capture again once you experience it. You have like live third rails and like crazy cops who come and chase you out.

Even the smell you get, like when you first smell trains, like in a yard, it's like... It's a good smell to a dedicated graffiti writer, I guess. When you're first against a train, it's like, everything seems so big, like...

Wow! It's like you're in a yard of metal giants, and like... It's just like...

Everything is so hard and so steel. And you're just there. You're like a little dude. You're in the midst of all this metal.

And you're here to produce something. Well, you're here to try to produce something. I've seen comparable graffiti, not necessarily these particular ones.

Each of these cost us a million dollars, in a sense, because others went out and tried to copy. Isn't worth it. Well, it is one of the quality of life offenses, and you can't just take one of those quality of life offenses. It's like three-card Monty and pickpocketing and shoplifting and graffiti defacing our... public and private walls.

They're all in the same area of destroying our lifestyle and making it difficult to enjoy life, and I think has to be responded to. And so I've told you that the response that I think a repeater, three-time repeater, should get would be five days in jail. Now, obviously, a murderer, if you believe in the death penalty as I do, you want to have the option of executing a murderer, you wouldn't do that to a...

graffiti writer. They saw you at work over here. I just want to find out what you're filming.

I was making a film on subway graffiti in New York. Why did you take this particular neighborhood here? What's unusual?

Is there more graffiti here than other places? I hope not. We're here because one of the best graffiti writers lives around here. Writes seen. What is it?

S-E-E-N. That's his name. name yes that's what he or is it a nom de plume you wouldn't tell me it's a real name no why not would he be in get in trouble or wouldn't he be glorified by it I'm a wanderer.

Yeah, I'm a wanderer. I roam around, around, around, around. Yeah, I'm a wanderer.

I roam around, around, around, around. Yeah, I'm a wanderer. Yeah, I'm a wanderer. I had about four fun almost reasons why I ain't peaked right now.

To make a long story short... I'm on what they call a six-month probation. Call it a six-month vacation, never mind probation.

Now they got a graffiti squad on this line, which they really was never really. Since they come on the line, it's been harder to peace, and it ain't like the old days when a train used to pull into the yard on a Friday night. That train wouldn't pull out until Monday morning. Now when you go to peace the train, you put an outline on the train, and you can say goodbye, the train pulls out ten minutes later. Well, if you're ready to put an outline, you gotta chase the train halfway down the track to put an outline on the piece.

It just ain't the same anymore. They don't know what they're doing no more. Late, as usual. But I'm here.

I show up, though. I show up. Let me see.

Well, why don't you do this one, this one, on that side of the wall. You know what I'm saying? No, this one.

We got plenty of them, believe me. The bottom of the piece? The bottom of the piece, I say about here. Alright, you know you're gonna have to go a little bit below the top, or you're gonna have it on a wave, you know what I mean?

It's gonna be big, the legs. So I want you to start from about here. Alright, maybe even here.

Start it from here. Listen to me, from here. You understand what I'm saying here?

I still think it's too big. Now, your first outline is needed. Always need it.

This way you know you're filling in. No matter how good you are, you can't just go in and just start filling in in the air. You gotta have your first outline.

Once your first outline is done, then your fill-in, that takes away your first outline, meaning you don't need your first no more because now you got your fill-in. From your fill-in, you put your colors and then your 3D. And if you want background, you put your cloud or whatever. How's this, nigga? I'm throwing a few connections here.

I wanna make it look like yours. What do you think? I'll make a few bits.

Alright. Huh? Bits, bits. I don't know, a little doodads here and there.

Yeah, now it's shaping up. I've got a hundred outlines, but I'm shaping up. Nicky, Nicky, come on! You gonna save me room or what?

I didn't do that to yours. Get out of there! You're making a mess in this house.

You cannot sit down without... You're not doing graffiti on something. Alright, when you're talking on the phone, and you're talking on the phone, you don't doodle on the paper?

I don't doodle. Yes, you do. I do not doodle.

You do doodle on the paper. I don't doodle. I don't doodle. I just write my name while I'm talking on the phone.

What's that? It just... That's all you're telling me.

I'm just writing something. You're telling me that you write your name while you're talking on the phone. In the meantime, you have destroyed your room.

You have destroyed your room. Testing out my paint. You have no respect for anything. Don't tell me about testing out your paint. You have no respect for anything anymore.

Ain't we putting red, yellow, red, orange, and yellow in here? No, the brown's got to be brown. I ain't putting no browns there.

Ain't no way. Red, orange, and yellow. You want it to stand out.

Boom. The whole thing, around the whole works, red, orange, and yellow. Remember how I did the man scene with the wall and the coat went all around the thing?

The man scene went on the fives, with the walls were falling down, the one I did myself? No. All right, let me explain.

Yellow, orange, and a little bit of red. Yellow and orange around the whole thing, and then we'll put browns and beiges in the 3D. Believe me, I'll show you.

Not around the face, fade into the yellow, but a trim of red, a cheap trim, I'll show you after. All right? I'll never steer you wrong, Nick.

Rust-oleum, Krylon, Wet Look, epoxy, Red Devil. When you hold a can of a stone in your hand, it's like holding three other shit brands in your hand. It lasts, it covers, and it's not aerosol like Kryolite. It just comes out in a mist.

It just comes out like paint. The schools have courses in art. How about the mothers and fathers of this city saying to the kids, that's the wrong thing to do? You listen to them talk, they sound absolutely ridiculous. He's the king of the yackety-yack yard.

Who died and left him? King of any art. He owns nothing in the subway, you know? I love robbing paint. I know, you know, everybody knows how you rob it.

Like, he gets me souped up, and sometimes I'll go and get 15 cans at a time, you know? Stuffing it in your coat, in your shirt, down the back of your pants. It's mainly with a big coat, and, like, 15 cans, you figure it out, it's like over $50.

Going into stores, like, we could go one day and get 100 cans at a time. It's easy, for me anyway. It's, you know, harder on black kids or Spanish kids because, like, everybody thinks a graffiti writer is black and Puerto Rican, and that's, like, you know, it's...

wrong, you know. A lot of white people are writing. What you've got is a whole miserable subculture. I was raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I went to a sort of strict prep school in the Bronx, right, Riverdale Country School.

In attending that school, I had to walk past the one yard on 242nd Street every day. From where I stood, I'd watch the trains pull in and out. I thought, how could a human being have his name on every car?

You know, that these guys must either live in there, be allowed to live in there, or just be, like, allowed to, you know, go off like that, right? They're trespassing it. They're beating the system. They're getting their names up, right? We've drenched the city with our names, right?

We're trying our damnedest. With the Super S on his game, we're gonna jump to the front like we got no way. I'm EJ Rock and I can pass the chest, to get down the balance from the east to west. This party please, that party please, I'll funk them all with the greatest of beat.

This is EJ Rock with the master beat. People get on the sound that moves the beat. Somebody say, get up, get up. Somebody say, get up, get up.

You party good, you throwing it down. You compliment this on the sound. B-b-b-b-b-me up.

We caught a freshly painted double R. We spent about three hours in it. That's impossible. No, it's not.

We were tagging with unis, then the minis, then the marvis, then the pilots, then the flow pens. And we were doing clouds around the tags and 3Ds on the tags. We just...

For the double R's to have a clean car back then like that, it was... We just had an orgasm. Pop, pop, pop, pop me up! 1970. The idea of getting your name up, not just in your neighborhood, but everywhere, was invented by a kid named Taki, who lived on 183rd Street in Washington. Washington Heights.

Taki 183. As soon as everybody understood that it was a name, they realized that Taki was famous. Taki 183 was the first guy, even though they say Julia T. O'Farrell started before him, but he was the one that made it famous. Then after him, in them times, was Papa 184. Then came out Junie 161, K-161.

They were bombing too. Stitch came out around 1921. He was all 32. Barbara, Eva, 62, they were girls. Everybody was right.

That was what everybody was talking in them days. I got into graffiti just like riding the trains when I was younger. You know, looking at old writers' shit, you know. Like a lot of new writers around. Like, you talk to them about a lot of old writers, see, they don't even know what you're talking about.

I started in 1973 or 4 during very early years of... Initial bombing, very important years of graffiti bombing because if it wasn't for those years, I don't think we would get where we are today. That was the life back then.

That was happening. Everybody was pioneering back then. That's when all your developing happened, your bubble letters, all that kind of stuff, your wild styles. The wild styles.

Yeah, you don't have to do straight letters to have style. Anything that comes in your imagination adds on to your own individual style. The arrow.

Everybody's got their own arrow. I like that though. various arrows, some guys have on the letter arrow that was their connection some people had different arrows just going right through their pieces The funk is here so you can move We want to make your body move Colors, designs, style, technicals, vests, get loose, cartoons, everything.

And when they see you got a vicious style, they be wanting to get loose about it. You know, and that's what keep it going. And that's what sparks graffiti. Right, keep sparking it. You know, I know a lot of good writers, you know, and all the writers that...

You know, they used to get up, so they used to tell me, yo, trap, won't you get up? And I started getting up with them, and we started doing pieces. Then I met Des, and then...

One day, I came to the bench, and I seen him sitting there looking at the pieces. You could tell a rider, you know, you go to the bench and you see him, as the trains go by, he be going like this. You know, he have ink stains on his clothes.

He gave me outlines and stuff like that to practice. I can't let him go for at least five minutes. You know, he'll destroy the piece.

You know, I turn around, Jack, what you doing, you know? I want to do my own piece. I said, yeah, but, you know, follow the outline. Russ, Russ.

What's up, man? You know, I'm chilling, man. Slick Rick, Slick Rick.

And the A's are big. For about two and a half years I was upstate. Something like beginning of 1970 to 72. What's up? Yeah, what's up?

Follow me. When I came home, I ain't know nothing about no writing or graffiti because I wasn't about it. All right, all right.

You know it. What's up, man? So when I got home, I seen writing on the train. I said, what's this stuff here, you know? Those niggas doing they names big.

Said, let me do one at least, you know, cause I was, you know, down with art already. And I did me a piece. Just, you know, for people in general to get to know who I am.

I said, ooh, that look alright. I'm gonna go every Sunday now. Next thing I know, I started getting better and better. And as I realized, I knew to get better, I said, oh man. I'm gonna bring out the computer rock and then that's when I really got loose because their niggas are saying yo who's that guy then one day these news reporter people was on the train station they we was going by and we seen them we seen them filming our whole car we went up to them and I remember I said yo who you think probably done that right there you know just to be curious to see what they say and he said I don't know but whoever done it that's remarkable talent you know I ain't never seen nothing like this before I said, if I told you I did it, would you believe me?

He said, I don't know, I can't say it, but I believe so, because you'll never know what you can believe these days. So I said, well, I did. And then he said, I don't believe that, you only got one arm.

I said, that don't mean nothing. I do things that people don't realize I can do with this, you know, being that I'm like this, you know. And then he said, I hear you then, Sonny. And then I said, well, I ain't no Sonny now. I just was asking questions, so, you know, so that's all I wanted to know, to see how your feelings was about it.

So, you need some candy? Huh? You ain't getting nothing?

Straight up. Get some candy, man. You ain't got no change? Oh.

Hey, Jiggle Out! What's new? Jiggle Out!

Where that nigga at, man? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can dig it. What's up, man? Word.

Yo, what up, what up, what up? Jiggle Out, what up? The Beastmaster, do you want to swing?

Are you willing to take a chance? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Instead of that eyes.

Yeah, word. Look at that eagle, word. That's it. Look at the eyes, like it's eyes.

Know where he got that from, right? Von Golden, who? Frank Rosetta. Beastmaster.

The way the letters is breaking up. Epic adventures of a new kind of hero. That's where we're going to be, the fresh extraterrestrial brothers.

You know what I'm saying? Extraterrestrial, knowing we the best. You know what I'm saying? It's a Desi Des and a Casey Case.

In these five, we gonna rock the place. And if you're based in the place, you will get disgraced. Because we are the crew. We got the place. Rock, sock it.

Rock it in the pocket. Rock, sock it. Rock it in the pocket. Say what you want.

That girl front of the train took it to the doctor. So I'm on again. Stabbed that man right in his heart.

Game of Triathlon for the brand new star. Can't cut through the park. Cause it's crazy at the park.

Keep my hand on my gun cause they got me on the run. I feel like an outlaw. Broke my last pass jaw. Hit them and say you want some more?

Living on a seesaw. Broken glass everywhere, people pissin' on the stairs, you know they just don't care. I can't take the smell, can't take the noise, got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice.

Rats in the front room, roaches in the back, jump! He's in the alley with the baseball bat. I tried to get away, but I couldn't get far because a man with a touch of repossessed my car.

Don't push me because I'm close to the edge. I'm trying not to lose my... I know what's about graffiti, man.

Niggas say it played out. Niggas say this. Niggas say that. But it's going to keep going on, you know?

Because, look, I might be old and quit, you know, but you coming up, younger niggas that's coming up, is going to keep going and keep going, you know? You're going to be a kid. He's like a son to me in a way, you know?

I look out for him. He looks out for me. You know, I won't let nothing happen to him, you know?

Don't let nothing happen to me if he can help it. I know from his age, he's 14 now, you know, and I'm 16. By the time he get my age, he'll be like one of the best people out, you know. If he continues to go on in the years, he could be another Picasso.

Get fucking in the place. Get funky, yeah Life ain't no more a joke, it's a serious thing When you're dealing with an answer that you can't explain It's the funky beat, and it's the funky beat And it's the funk, the funk, and it's the funky beat Yeah Like a little jelly bean, I'ma The idea of style and competing for the best style is the key to all forms of rocking. For the rap MC, it's rocking the mic. For the B-boys, it's rocking your body and breakdancing.

Or for writers, rocking the city with your name on a train. Get funky in the place. Get funky in the place.

Right now he's doing the footwork with the original breaking came out. Yeah, he's doing the baby and the turtle. The back bridge. Yeah, did the head spin and then just went up. I got a certain back spin that I made up.

Want me to show you it? I started off doing like this. And then I did like that.

So then I just decided not to do the freeze and keep on spinning. So it goes like this. I put my arm right here and it's easy and I push with my arm and swing my left leg.

My right leg, both of them. Around. Other crews, they're not as good as us, you know, because we have the breaking form, you know, the break...

Original style. Yeah, original style, you know. Original.

Other crews like Dynamic Rock is, you know, they bite. Usually they bite. Let me tell you about these people.

Dynamic Rock. Rock steady against that Island Rockers rock on to the break of dawn. This goes back. When I used to go out to the roller skating in the United States of America, in Queens, right? I used to go over there to break against all of them and take them all out, you know, burn them, make them look stupid.

I mean, they had no kind of style at all. They was beginners. I've been breaking way before now.

We started doing better routines than they were. they got to a point where they got at us because we was taking them out with our moves and then that started getting out of hand because they had the crowd and we didn't yo whoever ain't in rock steady or dynamic get behind the barriers yo old rock crews can you please listen yo nobody's listening to me we're not gonna start until you move rockies get ready Up-Rod is just like humiliating, you know, doing things in people's face and all that. And Down-Rod is, you know, trying to see who can compete against. Moves on the floor I was looking at the women on the 30th floor All of a sudden there was a knock on my door It was a lot of sand, but we didn't fall Yeah, they blew our whole strength through my door So I went to the back to get the gun I was out to bulletin, only one I shoot the shit, yeah, I shot a man's eye Let us all rock, man.

It's so hot. So who won the rocking contest? Rock and roll! Rock and roll!

Rock and roll! You all know we took them out, right? Put it this way.

We're out of sight and they're biting. They bit my turtle into a hot... Oh, man, I could've cried when I seen it. You know that faggot that was flying around it with his funny legs and shit? Yo, man, so what?

That's not even breaking, man. That's all fairy flying. I call that fairy flying.

Who goes for Rocksteady? Dynamic Rockets. Hold it, hold it, hold it.

It was a tie. It was a tie. I Mike C. Hey, girl. Hey, girl. Pace up.

B. L. B. Rockin' it, rockin' it. Yes, he is rockin' it.

Tito rockin' it. Yes, he is rockin' it. Mike C. Rockin' it.

Yes, he is rockin' it. Pace up. Rockin' it, yes he is, rockin' it We're all rocking it, you should be rocking it Rocking it, rocking it How do you fill up a train like that? You can't do it overnight Do you wait for the same train Coming back into the same station?

Nah, you get the park train And you just Oh, you mean you go to the train yard Yeah, like the layup Or the train yard Does your mother wonder why you come home with that all over your face? No, she knows I ride the graffiti I told her, I said, I'm going up on the train So I'm gonna ride some graffiti Do you have a worry you might get a job? Yeah Yeah, she says if the cops call, don't come running to me.

Um, I never realized it meant so much to them, you know? I just thought they were writing, just writing anything. But I guess it has a deep meaning.

Huh? Um, well, like he said, he's writing his girlfriend's names and... He's Dust, whatever that means.

What is Dust supposed to mean? It's just a name, it's a word. See, it's a game.

It's like they give you a name and they say, here, take this name and do something with it. Like, he got the name Seen, he can walk around and just say, hey, my name is Seen. And say, yeah, yeah, I see you out there, I see you there. It's a name.

It's just like, I'll give you a name and you say, hey, how big could you get this name up? How high? Trains are routinely washed, but because of the graffiti problem, we have to use a graffiti removal solution, which at best is detrimental to the physical makeup of the train itself. This is what I'm applying. The car wash. 8 a.m.

is 90 yards. All you know, we spend a lot of money replacing broken and damaged side windows. We cannot use acrylic plastic windows in the train because the same... graffiti removal solution fogs the windows.

The problem often is that often it doesn't produce a sparkling clean car, but rather a sort of vomitous color, which is, as some of the graffiti artists argue, less attractive than what they consider to be their artwork. So it's altogether sort of an unsatisfactory result. Watch out, you might get wet.

Watch your shoes. It's not the best selling stuff. But so far it hasn't hurt, you know, it hasn't bothered me. Some fellows have bothered me. That's my money that's being diverted from providing me with good, safe, secure, rapid transit.

Look at this junk. Graffiti doesn't make your life better. It just makes your neighborhood look worse.

You know how I made something out of my life? By using my hands. But only in the rain. Don't use them to mess with the...

the walls with graffiti. I practiced all my life to make moves like that. And I worked every day to be a singer.

So if you really want to make something out of your life, use your head. Or your voice. But don't waste your time making a mess.

Make your mark in society, not on society. This happens to be a poster that is the first in a series that's going to be used in New York City subways and buses. Where we've used Hector Camacho, who's a boxer, North American lightweight champ, and Alex Ramos.

Boxer leading middleweight contender. Take it from the champs, graffiti is for chumps. Make your mark in society, not on society. It's really very clever.

Put your mark on society in doing something in society. I've scooted up a little bit, but nevertheless you got the message. Realistically, you think it's...

Well, you say realistically. I'm hopeful that it will work. Nobody thought that we would be as successful as we were in the campaign against the drought and water conservation. Nevertheless, if that worked, I'm hopeful we will have equal success here. Time will tell.

Mr. Mayor, are those posters graffiti proof? Time will tell. What you doing, B?

Fresh? Yeah, this is one of my little signature series, don't you see? Word.

Noah, son, you gettin' fresh on the nigga, man. That nigga still got the touch, boy. Butch a butch with the tiger skin.

I see you did the case with the Cease this time. You know who I am, though, anyway, you know? The king of what?

King of style. Shoot, I got styles already that's more complex than nobody know about. I mean, super duty tough work. See, this is just semi, like, what I would call it.

But if I really get into it and start camouflaging it, I don't think you'll even be able to read it. Don't go nowhere. Little, little semi-thing here.

It wasn't no severely bad accident. It's just that I got burnt by wires. I saw a long time ago electrical wires, and then they rushed me to the hospital, and they just had to amputate because my tissues and muscles was burnt bad. When I was young, I was playing and I wasn't too sure what I was doing.

I knew what I was doing, but I just didn't know not should I grab the wire or not. And I don't know if I grabbed it or not, but I know I just got hurt because it had knocked me out, so I didn't remember. But it don't mean nothing in general. I mean, I'm okay.

It's just that it was a bad thing to happen at the time. That's why people's amazed about me now because of going through that and then dealing with what I'm dealing with even though it's common Little bull crap in a way, you know people look at a person what you ran on trains are you vandalism wallet? Yeah, I'm vandalism.

All right, but still in general. I know what I'm doing I did something to make your eyes open up, right? So why is he talking about it for you know? From here up, nobody goes.

It's my labs, definitely. This is a beautiful spot to do pieces on. And ain't hardly no riders know about this place. My spot. Niggas know, believe it.

Niggas know. Yo, here, take the cans. I am not a graffiti artist.

I'm a graffiti bomber. There's two styles of graffiti that are trying to, you know, coexist with each other. But it ain't gonna work like that. Blood wars, buddy.

Blood wars. That's why graffiti's ruined. Like Cap ruined the twos and fives. The twos and fives used to go to the two yard. It would be like a masterpiece art gallery of burners.

From all these dudes from the Bronx and Brooklyn with Def Wild styles. Now you go to the two yard, it's all destroyed. This guy named Cap with his Lucio Ball hairdo.

All your burners. What's up, Sal? Yo, what's up, man?

I've seen your new pieces, man, on the Tuesday 5. They went over that side, man. Yeah, I know. Cap. Cap. I wouldn't mind if you would have went over one of my old cars, you know, but that was fresh.

It was a brand new burner. It only ran for two days, you know. He didn't even get a chance to run on the line, just like, Pah! You know, and they went over and I feel, you know, that hurt me, you know. And Sene was with him and PJ.

And then I called Sene up and he denied it. I can't afford to get involved. There's a war going on as you should know.

So, PJ and Cap, against everybody. He just crossed me out anyway, so I don't know why, but brand new car too he wasted. Let's say this, I stand behind them if they had a good cause for the situation.

As far as it is now, they have no cause behind it, they're just doing it for the hell of it. That ain't me because I wouldn't want people to go over my pieces so I wouldn't go over them. He's disrespecting the line, which no other guy was doing that years ago.

All he does is silver throw-ups. You got fresh colored pieces full of chocolate. I know you can't get him back.

You can't make up for what he did. And he'll just laugh at you. It's just a throw-up.

I got a million of them running. So what? He's a jealous toy, that's all.

That's all there is to it, though. He can't do a burner and shit. He can't do shit.

He can't even do a straight leather. He went over this? Yup, he did a cap throw-up over me and an MPC over this and wrote war next to Fat Albert.

Oh shit. You can't ever make up for that. That's never forgive action.

If you a toy, it gotta be stopped. And this guy's a toy and he's big and he's still gotta be stopped. You gotta be stopped.

You gotta break this. Yo, but how come we waited all this long? How come there's so many writers that he went over their burners and we're not in his neighborhood with crews?

Because nobody wants to get united. That's the shit. We gotta get together bro, cause shit. Everybody says, yeah, we're gonna get down.

We're gonna get down, right? But nobody comes man. Like what we gotta do is meet everybody in 149th Street at the bench.

It's like Grand Concourse. We should forget all the other bullshit worries that we got with each other and unite and get this toy cause he's talking everybody. Everybody. Cap, I don't know, some big white boy. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't wanna know. Yeah, that's what he's doing. Trying to get attention.

And revenge, because people go over his throbs. You know, people do burners. You see a throb, you're gonna go over it.

Who thinks Cap's throbs are worth being on a train? Nobody. What you write, bro?

Alright, Mayor, man. Mayor? M-E-A-R? M-A-R-E.

Yeah, more. Man, I don't know more than they are, but no seriously, you gotta kill them dudes for doing that. Who's Cap? Cap is right here. People don't know what I look like until now.

Until they start going to the movies. They're gonna see my face. Big deal.

Anybody tries to screw around with me and my friends, I go over everything they got forever. Everybody from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Everybody. That's the way it is.

Especially with me, the object is more. Not the biggest and the beautifulest, but more. Like a little piece on every car is what counts. Not one whole car on every 30 cars that goes by.

Once you start going over someone, you can't stop. So I'm going to live. Thus, he started pulling some shit with me.

And I'm telling you, he's lucky we didn't catch him by that wall. Because if we would have been there, even if you were shooting the movie, it would have just been boom, boom, boom. That's the way it would have went. It's gonna get crushed off, I guarantee by tomorrow, once they find out it's here. Help me with the 3D, Nicky, come on.

The piece has got a lot of colors to go in there yet. But with the color, we can do that, we can do that with no problem. I can do it before it gets dark, That was a beautiful wall.

I really like that. People like that, they deserve getting everything they got crossed out forever. For 20 years there really hasn't been anything hot. There have been no movements since pop art. Any retailer, and let's face it, a gallery is indeed a retailer, they're always looking for something hot that they can merchandise and sell to the public.

It's almost as though... These pieces were peeled off the train and put onto canvas. So you have the same energy, you have the same coloring, you have the same intensity and the same big piece that you would see on a train. The real subway graffiti that's done on the trains is...

Slowly dying out and this is taking its place. The lifespan of an average piece today only lasts a few months. This is something that could last a lifetime.

Blondie seems to be an important figure within the graffiti art style. Kane has used her in a very photographic way. Nock shows her expressionistically. Myself, I'm an artist. And it's exciting.

The color is exciting. The movement is exciting. It combines all kinds of movement. We had ABC TV.

We had CBS here tonight. We're going to be on the news tonight at 11 o'clock. National Public Radio.

Do it up, baby. I love it. I'm Ron Powers.

I'm a reporter with the Associated Press. How long would it take you to do something like this? On a train?

Depends. What your schedule is. I can't let my mother know that I'm going to the train, so I have to be back early. But I did meet a guy here who's an art critic from the news, and he says he gets so goddamn mad every time he sees this that he walked up to one of the artists at the show.

show tonight and said, how would you feel if I took a can and wrote on your graffiti? And the artist said to him, I kill you, man. As an investment, I feel so strongly that if you get in on the bottom of anything, it's got to be a good investment. And this is definitely going someplace. But I think that graffiti on the subway cars were a symbol of New York for foreign people and especially French people.

and I think it's a little sad if graffiti are going to be only on canvas, not anymore on trains. Forget about the trains. Who wants to be dirty and hot at the same time? That's right. I'm into making money.

Yeah, it feels good. You go to school and your teacher says, it's not worth anything. I don't believe it. You don't make any money from graffiti. Yeah, that's right, boy.

When was the last time you made $2,000 in a month? For once in a day. Okay, now you failed.

All right, the thought has crossed my mind, yeah, if something should happen, yeah, I'll go along with it. But if it doesn't, there's no thing to me because that's not what I'm out here for. I'm out here to bomb, period.

That's what I started for. I didn't start writing to go to Paris. I didn't start writing to do canvases. I started writing to bomb, destroy all lines. And that's what I'm doing.

How long do you think you'll do it? Until I'm finished. Now that you've heard that, you understand what I'm saying to you when I say that I don't understand him.

He's out there to bomb, destroy all lines. What have the lines ever done to him? What have the lines ever done to him? Maybe pay 75 cents. When do you pay 75 cents?

Never, but... Well, so I don't even know what you're talking about. We're on the Staten Island Ferry.

This is the New York Harbor. This is to signify we're leaving New York with this package of artists. to go out and play places where individually they never would play.

It'll be in Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, Iowa City, Detroit, and Toronto. Being professional, what does that mean? Getting paid for what you do. Professional.

Having your own style. Yeah. Doing your own moves. Don't let nobody else bite you. Doing it for a long time, knowing what you're doing.

Being the best. Special K, Sunshine. Cool. More.

Damn. All time, feel the heartbeat, feel the heartbeat. We're the treacherous threes, we got a new heartbeat.

Uh, ah, ha, ah, hey, ha, ha, ha. Woo, woo. Yeah.

Get loose, get loose, Mosey, get loose. Just rock heartbeat, show them you got dreams. So have fun, have fun, have fun, have fun, have, have, have fun. Party people got a brand new treat. All for well, no tootin', we call it heartbeat.

We jack it up, man. We broke it down And came out with a brand new fucking sound Now I can't wait to get this straight Our heartbeat's not on normal rate Cause when we get excited Our adrenaline flows And this is the way our heartbeat goes The hop, skip and the jump But not a plain old bop Butterfuck Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop It's a brand new treat And it sounds so sweet The rap and the music Our new heartbeat So feel the heartbeat So feel the heartbeat We're the Treads of the Street We got a new heartbeat Huh! Because it is the profession.

I think it's about time that politicians came to the table. Catch her doing that. What's the sense of pay? 75 cents when you have to ride your 3D train, you know?

Gives a terrible impression of the city. And I, if you think the outside is bad, I've been riding them, like I say, for 40 years. The inside is, it's just unbelievable.

It's a violation of public property. I think it's disgusting. They should at least get somebody to clean up the damn place.

We move three and a half million people a day. They have rights too. The people see the outside of the cars when the trains are going, start pulling to a station, or when they're passing on the express track, and then it's generally a blur. But I don't think the public finds that nearly as intrusive and ugly as they do the inside graffiti.

He hates the inside. He hates the inside. Yeah. He said that if any possible way of we giving him some kind of suggestion of how to get rid of the inside, he said there might be a chance of Negotiating with the outside. Negotiating.

Something like that. I met with a group of them one day, more out of intellectual curiosity as to who they were and what made them tick. I found them surprisingly articulate.

They expressed a strong sense that if their outside paintings were left untouched, that the public would be... Impressed. We came up to him with like a proposal to paint ten cars inside and out and let it run in like the major stations.

And let people vote on it, like let's say during the two week period. And after the two week period they'll have, you know, the results in the paper. And I think the MTA will be embarrassed. They thought there was no basis whatsoever in which it was proper for anyone to touch our property in another authorized fashion. They got guys out there that are mugging people in the subways, stabbing people, throwing people into the tracks and all that.

And they're wasting the bullshit money trying to get us. With all respect, I think you are close to falling into the sort of trap of the 1960s culture, which says, you know, this society has left these kids with not enough to do. If the kids have energy and want to do something, we'll give them all brooms. Give them all sponges and they can do something that is publicly productive, useful, and that would earn for them the respect and approbation from their fellow citizens. It isn't the energy that is misplaced, it's the value system that is misplaced.

I think it's great for the riding public to be up on the station one cold and dreary day and see a nice white shiny car come pulling up to the station. The public has knocked us for so long and we are doing nothing. It couldn't be done.

We proved that we'd done it. We painted 409 cars in approximately eight weeks. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and not one day did we miss that production schedule. Our personal pride was hurt. A lot of people have been knocking the transit authority, and we wanted to show them that we could do something.

See if the Japanese can do it, we can do it. This stuff is like razor blades, about two inches long, and there's one of these every two inches. There's really not too much protective clothing you can wear to prevent yourself from getting cut.

And once you do fall into it, it's so structured that it collapses upon you. And the more you try to move, the worse off you become. Just like, you know, when you see in the movies, like in Apocalypse Now, how they used to protect their lines and their barricades.

They want to hold back the enemy from destroying our trains. About three years ago, I... Decided to suggest to Dick Ravitch that they put a dog in the yard to keep the graffiti vandals out.

The MTA rejected it and they said, no, that if you put a dog in the yard, the dog would step on the third rail. Now, I don't happen to think that dogs step on the third rail, but I said in response to that, well, if you think the dog will step on the third rail, then build two fences and have... The dog run between the two fences and that will keep people out and protect the dog from stepping on the third rail. And the response was, well, maybe somebody will climb over the fence and the dog will bite them. I said, well, I thought that's what the dog was for.

But if you're afraid of having the dog bite such a vandal, and here I called upon my prodigious memory. I said, what you should do then, instead of using a dog, is to use a wolf and have a wolf. run between the two fences because there is no recorded case in history where a wolf has ever attacked human being unless the wolf were rabid mad. Now, as a result of telling that story innumerable times, I embarrassed the MTA into building the fence around the first of 19 yards. And it was so successful, they now claim it as their own idea.

And they're building 18 more fences. I think it's stupid. The idea of having all this barbed wire and fences and protection, change is still going to get written on it. They invented the white elephant.

It's still got, well, they weren't bombed, but they had little mosquito bites. I mean, call it what you want. They were still written on it.

They're still not spotless completely. Dom Koch. Yeah, there you go.

That is the highest praise imaginable because obviously I'm getting to them. Last night in one piece. Who's building?

There always will be graffiti. It's a part of New York. It'll be there forever. Someone will always want to jump down on a track or while a train's moving and just take out a can of paint or a marker and put up their initial.

He still shows me all his things, which I don't even want to see. But we still talk. And he told me just about everything that goes on. Other than that, I wouldn't really be able to tell you so much.

And like sometimes, and this is, and knowing all this, right, it just really only makes me that much more fearful for him. I felt that I just had to let her know, you know, like, because sometimes when it's time to go bombing, you know, you got to go late at night, like in the middle of night. You got to leave the house at 2 o'clock just to go bombing so you don't get caught.

What? You know, she got to know where I'm going. Can't just say I'm going to a party.

No parties don't start at 2 o'clock. Not every kid would tell his mother where to go. Yeah, well, I'd rather let my mother know what's going on, you know, than to keep it in the dark.

If I get busted, cops call, excuse me, we have your son for the graffiti. You know, I'd rather, you know, let her know that I was doing it. So, you know, she's prepared to come and get me up.

But never getting busted, so don't have to worry about that. I mean, an adult, I just couldn't see an adult ever putting that much energy to something that isn't going to pay or is going to risk their life or have the possibility of them getting arrested. Well, I see myself as eventually growing out of graph and getting married and living the lifestyle, you know, and making good money like that. And when life isn't its best, you don't really want to run around in the trains. I'm sure I'll come back every now and then.

Just to let people know I'm still around. Oh no, when I come back I take over and that's it. After that.

And after that, after that... You want the Prince of the Sixth? I'm king right here. I'm the Prince of the Sixth. After that.

He's later, you know, he's with a has-been. I'm what they call a has-been and he's a wannabe. A wannabe? Do they consider you a king?

Put it this way, I am a king. I can say... King of what? I want to tell you, I am a king of bombing.

You gotta be able to take over a line with insides, take it over with throw-ups, top to bottoms. You gotta do everything, you know. If you specialize in one thing, you know, you really can't call yourself an all-out king.

Who's king? You're looking at him right here, my brother, the original. You know what I'm saying? Kingdom Islam, nation God, for I'm the one that rocks so far, you know what I'm saying?

Always rocking the jazz's card debt, you know what I'm saying? The only and the original Magnetic King, and that's the one that's still sitting here doing his thing. My next door, I'm probably for the baby!

You know it, tell him we all live, this is the original, old master killer of the Manila Driller right here that you're looking at. The original king and loves to do his thing. Don't shout, don't run, don't hide, don't sky. This is me coming to you natural and live on CB whatever.

CB without the mic. Get it funky in your face Get it funky in your face Like a little jelly bean, I'ma sweet like a candy cane Make you get down, this is number one stain On the train, just groove, like a stage Just break it up, yeah, yeah Stage, y'all, like a roller coaster ride Like a Mickey, boom, just grooving with the rhythm Shake it up. You got the rock, rock, and you don't stop.

Baby, all you got is that rock, and you don't stop. Just hip-hop today. Say it. Doobie-doo. Yeah, Scooby-Doo.

What you want a new crew? Just freak out. Yeah, I'm a bad. Just freak out.

Yeah, yeah, baby, drink it up, dear I know, my dear, I can rock you out this atmosphere Like a gangster prankster, number one bank Got a much cast to make it that you rock on This is the break of dawn, break of dawn Keep it on, keep it on, I know ZZ that can rock quick I like the iconoplasts that you're into to stick Just a rock on like the finger lick Finger poppin', hop poppin', don't stop Bunny rock, bunny rock You don't stop. This is the mellow. They pull the rail.

Well, the monster with the grill. And that's shocking style. When you shake off, kick the waist up in the morning. Gotta rate it with the grill.

Like another one. Rolling. MC quick. Just to make it in the butter. Shock with the grill.

The bumble. Number one. Undercover.

Break it up. Just shake it up. Rodeo up. Break it up. Just shake it up.

Rodeo up. I'm the melody now. With the fork it sounds. Like it makes me a break. With my diamonds to the ground.

Just to make it a deal. Like Shade it up, shade it up with the classes Make it on with the serious battle Get the melody quick, yeah, the melody sound How to rock it quick with the number one crowd I can beat up all the groove that make you shake now Cause the beat from the depths of hell make you get down Rock on to the beat Freak it on, freak it on with that kid's unique And just check it out, just check it out I said I broke into a dusting bill, yeah And then I shot a girl's top of howl I went to jail, yeah, break it up No education is a big disgrace And so you might as well work at the sanitation Can you give a trip?

Transcript for:Graffiti and Hip-Hop Culture

Transcript for:
Graffiti and Hip-Hop Culture