Interview with Eklips / 7th Letter spotlight
Eklips is known to run some things on the american West coast.
The Seventh Letter’s roots go back nearly 20 years, when the collective’s founder and leader, Eklips, a legendary writer in his own right, started the AWR (Art Work Rebels/Angels Will Rise) and MSK (Mad Society Kings) writing crews while bombing around the Motor Yard in Los Angeles. As Eklips’ fame grew, so did that of those wanting to align with his artists. Sensing an opportunity to take graffiti in a new direction, Eklips merged AWR and MSK under the Seventh Letter umbrella in 1999. By then, AWR/MSK members were well known on the street, and Eklips’ idea was to take graf where it hadn’t gone before, but where lowbrow-art practitioners like Ed “Big Daddy” Roth had previously spun gold: namely, corporate gigs and merchandising. (-LEOPOLD, Shelley. The Rise Of The Seventh Letter, LA Weekly, July 2007.)
The Hip Hop Files
Martha Cooper was a photo-journalist living in New York City when she first began documenting the origins of B-boy (short for break-boys) and hip hop culture. While other New Yorkers at the time saw this movement as a trite, uninspired or even offensive fad, Martha found a new form of expressing art. Through her camera lens we recount the infancy of hip-hop culture, from the alleys and subways of New York to the masses beyond the boroughs.check the video : http://current.com/items/89085250_the_hip_hop_files
BASE G.O.D. Exclusive Interview
BASE speaks on the crushing steel, COPE2 and the history of the infamous G.O.D. crew and his beef with RESKEW in an exclusive interview with BOMBIN’ Magazine available here: http://www.bombinmagazine.com/pdfs/BASE_GOD.pdf
ADER pics. And he answers the question: ARE YOU A RAT?
from : http://www.bombinmagazine.com/blog/?p=3427
We asked ADER: Did you join the army? Are you a snitch? If you are not, why do people hate on you. His answers below - decide for yourself.
THE BLACK ADER SAN IS RIGHT IN HIS SKIN LIKE THE BUDDAH SAYS BE
WITHIN ONESELF.I TOUCHED AFRICAN SOIL FOR OTHER PURPOSES. I’M WHERE
EVER MY HUGE FREQUENT FLYER MILES TAKE ME WHICH IS INTERNATIONAL!!!
ARMY PLEASE.. DEVIL DOG AKA US MARINE!!! NOW WHEN YOU TOYS SEE ME DROP
AND GIVE ME 50!!! AND THAT WILL BE AN AYE SIR!!!
).RAT RODENT INFORMANT WHAT EVER THE FUCK YOU WANT TO CALL I’M NOT.THE
STREETS BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT’S JUICY. FROM WHO GOT KNOCKED TO WHO
CROSSED OUT WHO.IT’S LIKE A BIG WRITERS GOSSIP BENCH AND YOU KNOW WHAT
I’M JUST NOT FOR IT.THIS AINT CHURCH SO CATS DON’T NEEDTO GIVE AN
OPINION ON ALL THE GOSSIP OR FEED INTO IT.ON THE INTERNET IT’S
UNBELIEVABLE THE SHIT I SEE I’M SO FAMOUS MOFUCKERS MAKE MYSPACE PAGES
ABOUT ME THAT’S HOW MUCH I’M LOVEDSO IF YOU CAN DO THAT YOU GOT TO BEA
HUGE FAN…THAT’S OVERBOARD JOCKSTRAP DICKRIDER. INTERNET JOCKS PUNCH
KEYS NEED TO PICK UP A CAN PUT IN WORK THROW IN THE TOWEL AT THE END
OF THE DAY THEN SAY SOMETHING GET MONEY!!!!THIS ONE RUMOR THAT’S
FOLLOWING AROUND IT’S AMAZING CAUSE IF HALF OF YOU KNEW THE FACTS YOU
KNOW I WASN’T EVEN AROUND OF IN THE FUCKING AREA WHEN THEY GOT
BAGGED.IF I WAS THERE I WOULD OF GOTTEN BAGGED AS WELL. FACT FIND THEN
STOP TALIKG BULLSHIT..
.) PEOPLE HATE SOME FOR NO REASON SOME HATE CAUSE THAT’S HOW THEY ARE
. SOME HATE TO JUST BE ONTHE BANDWAGON.IT’S FUNNY CAUSE THE BIGGERS
HATERS ARE USUALLY YOUR BIGGEST FANS.HATERS I GOT NOTHING BUT LOVE
YALL..
Rd interview from Gradient magazine
I picked up a free magazine on the floor of a store one day… thinking it’s just another boring art magazine by the look of it… started to notice it had some real shit in it… The magazine is called http://www.gradientmagazine.com. I took the time out to scan the pages from the RD article…
view article @ http://www.tactiksmag.com
Jon Naar: The Birth Of Graffiti
In 1974, Jon Naar photographed The Faith of Graffiti (aka Watching My Name Go By) with introduction by Norman Mailer, now an iconic landmark in the history of street art. He is author or co-author of the best-selling Design for a Limited Planet, Living in One Room, Your Space, The New Wind Power, Design for a Livable Planet, This Land Is Your Land, and Getting the Picture, a book of his photography from 1955 to 2005.
video conference here
King of What? King of Style!
short interview with graffiti legend Case2 from an old Bobbito tape..
Q&A with graffiti artist GHOST, whose work is in a Seattle gallery
By Jeff Albertson [Via:Seattle Times]
New York City graffiti artist GHOST, or “Cousin Frank” to his friends, is a long way from stumbling through the dark recesses of New York’s subway tunnels looking for an idle train to “bomb.” The veteran graffiti writer, who got his start in the influential and well-documented New York City scene in the 1970s, is now pushing the art form from trains to gallery walls.
GHOST’s show at Seattle’s BLVD Gallery is a collection of highly stylized acrylics on canvas. The bright neon and pastel colors on clean white backdrops recall the “Wild Style” of graffiti art with its blocky letters and flashy colors; the comiclike characters he draws with big dopey eyes and sloppy wet tongues refer back to underground comic artists of the ’60s and ’70s.
GHOST spoke earlier this week by phone about his work and the transition from being a graffiti writer to an artist.
Q: What role have comics played in influencing your work?
A: As a kid I was more into Marvel [Comics], because of where I lived there wasn’t a lot of underground-comic kind of stuff; I wasn’t really in touch with that, but as I got older my friends turned me on to it. I was more into Rick Griffin [the artist who designed many early Grateful Dead posters], I thought his line work was amazing. To this day I think his stuff is incredible. For a long time I was strictly into black ink drawings. I never really liked color.
Q: Tell me about the transition from trains to galleries.
A: For years I was against it. ‘Cause I was just in that mind-set that graf belongs on trains and to this day I still believe that to a strong degree, even though I don’t do it anymore. As the trains got clean and I got older, I still had all this energy to paint and I just had to put it somewhere. I just drew for years after I stopped writing. At the time I never went to school to paint, it was just something I had to learn over time.
Q: Does it surprise you to find out who is buying your work? Not street-level hipsters, but serious middle-age collectors with money?
A: I was rather excited about the BLVD show because it was the first show I almost sold out. A lot of kids that look up to me or like what I do can’t afford it — but do I want to get to a place where I’m only selling to the rich who are gonna throw it in the basement somewhere and not even get seen or just wait for my death? Or is it gonna be like a kid who saves up his money and puts it in his house, cause I appreciate that more?
Q: When was the last time you “bombed a train”?
A: Quite a while [ago]. I only do legal stuff. I’m at that age, I don’t need problems in my life. I’m tryin’ to relax, and I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder every day.
QUICK INTERVIEW WITH KIT 17 OF MISSION GRAFFITI CREW
Great seeing you again, so why don’t you set the record straight. . .
It was 1975 or 76, wait it had to be 75 cuz we were in junior high school. I came up from 198th st in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. The original 6 members of the Mission Graffiti Crew were Mark 198, KIT 17, Hycen, Flip 13, Fuzz One and CB13. We started hitting the New York City buses and then went to the train yards to hit the D’s and the 4’s. We were the king of the 4’s in ‘76 and ‘77. During the Blackout we bombed hard. The 4 yard was under Tracey Towers by the Mosholu Parkway and it was our backyard, know as the Woodlawn Barnyard, biggest work bum shed in the Bronx. We went there just to hang out and have a good time, when we wanted to paint we would rack in Manhattan, Westchester, Queens, New Rochelle, Riverdale, Staten Island, where ever. We would walk to Westchester and back to Bronx if we had to.
Who else was out there at that time. . .there’s alot of people talking shit now. . .
Team Go, Tracy 168, Peanut 2, Cliff 159, Blade, Comet, LSD 3, Shadow, Crime 79, MS 161 (R.I.P.), Nine (R.I.P.), Bot 707, Nick 707, Clyde, Peso 131, Padre Dos (R.I.P.), Bear 167 (R.I.P.), Devil, Mike 170, Billy 167 (R.I.P.) who was a style master who influenced alot of 80’s writers and some others.
How has graf changed?
We weren’t trying to out do each other, we were trying to help each other. This new school shit is popping but all business, no crew, no friends, no family, it far from it’s roots now. Legal Eagles trying to get fame by posting it on their web pages, while there’s heads in jail for the same thing, it’s wrong.
Word on the street is your making a come back and working on some canvas’, is that true?
Yea, check for me this year. . . it’s all dropping in 08.
Check the official history at our my space page
http://www.myspace.com/missiongraffiti
Thanks Bro. . .Check you in the BX
Billy Jam Radio: Annual WFMU Graf Special (online)
Billy Jam Radio: Annual WFMU Graf Special
Listen to it online.
Graffiti Women feat. Lady Pink, Muck, and Toofly + photojournalist Karla Murray
