.. ..--- n November 2002, NYU's Institute of African American Affairs hosted two days of programming featuring world-renowned I I artists discussing the past, present, and future of Aerosol Art. 'ff Known alternately as writing, artcrime, bombing, tagging, burning, graff, or most commonly to non-practitioners, "Graffiti," the familiar story of this artwork is its simultaneous public dismissal and celebra tion, vilification and critical acclaim. Catalyzed by the publication of Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City (University Press of Mississippi, 2002), pioneering artists, scholars, and film makers convened to showcase and discuss the tradition and scope of Aerosol Art, in what proved to be a successful attempt to complicate an oft-referenced, but seldom understood artistic production.
Recognizing that an all-encompassing representation of this nearly half-century-old form would be as far from possible as it would be valuable, panelists and audience members addressed as many topics and highlighted as many central figures as time would allow. Writers DAZE, FUTURA, LADY PINK, PHASE 2, VULCAN, and LEE, along with Charlie Ahearn (director of Wildstyle) and David Schmidlapp (publisher of the IGTimes), joined an audience full of artists from throughout Aerosol Art's history, participating \ in the introductory panel discussion and the following day of visu- '\ al presentations from both sides of the metaphorical podium, to simultaneously recount, clarify, and augment a historiography of the genre and its social, political, and philosophical relevance.
What follows are selections culled from the proceedings, including Ivor Miller's keynote address, a genealogy of Subway Writing from THE PAST~ PRESENT~ VULCAN, and outtakes from an interview with director, Charlie Ahearn. Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire is proud to feature AND FUTURE OF this small but important slice of the weekend's events, in hopes that more scholarly work covering these and the scores of other key con AEROSOL ART tributors responsible for developing and advancing the genre. SELECTED PROCEEDING S (( ". you know the motto / sta y fluid even in staccato. JJ Mos Def
ike any youth-oriented movement, The impulse to create is so strong that even what has become known as Hip-Hop is those with few resources can create art that L dynamic and full of contradictions. My communicates across languag~ and geogra recent book Aerosol Kingdom documents major phy. While we are taught to think of art as figures in the evolution of early aerosol writ solely occupying the realm of the cultured ing in New York City, an element in the cul elites, aerosol has taught us to think about ture that came ro be known as Hip-Hop. the creative process in new ways. Originating as a recreational activity, Hip By publicly announcing perspectives based Hop became a means of resisting segregation on their own experiences, Hip-Hop artists and social invisibility. These objectives have become heroes in their own communi became obscured as Hip-Hop became pack ties. When VULCAN and SPON painted aged, international, commercial, and subur "Roughneck Reality" with gun-toting chil ban. Although the power and joy in the forms dren, they were articulating things that were originally created by teenagers became lost as real to them. [see image I}. the various elements of Hip-Hop began to be Young people have the ability to create managed by media and other business inter multi-ethnic, -gender, and -racial alliances ests, in fact Hip-Hop remains an expression of that powerfully resist our national inheritance cultural resistance and rebellion. Aerosol of class prejudice, segregation, and xenopho writing may be the first art form created by bia. When WEST, a.k.a. JEW, and ARAB and for youth. One of the artists, SPAR, com painted warfare in Jetusalem with reference mented: "In a world that said, you've got to do to Hebraic, Arabic, and Wild Style writing, it my way, we found a way to do it our way." they demonstrated the power of art to tran The process of research for Aerosol Kingdom scend social conflict. [see image 2}. revealed three major lessons: 1) Poverty is In the early movement, because many writ not a barrier ro artistic creation. 2) Joint ers from around the city could only commu artistic activity without adult supervision nicate through their paintings on the trains, can enable young people to overcome social one writer often had no idea what the other prejudices. 3) The relationship between looked like, nor was it important to know. In young people, urban culture, and advertis fact, the mystique of not knowing became ing is a complicated mix in which one is important. Writers became legendary figures often reflected in the other. to each other, which only contributed to their NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND: HIP - HOP'S INCR EAS ING RELEVANCE IVOR MILLER
'. emerging from multi-ethnic urban settings. that carnival has played in many Caribbean self-esteem. As they met and formed In the process, it has created an aesthetic societies: communal interaction among the crews, style innovation became their reflecting that communication. Early jazz descendants of Africa, Europe, Asia and main focus and aspiration, enabling innovators Jelly Roll Morton and Sidney Native America, through the vehicle of them to organize talented artists from Bechet told how their music helped bring a rhythm, call and response, and visual artistry. diverse backgrounds. As many told me diverse group of people closer together: The emotional possibilities of jazz-its for repeatedly, race and gender were not mat of individual expression within a group determining factors; talent mattered. "We had all nations in New Orleans, " said Jelly made it meaningful to communities in all Artists like Mos Def not only Roll; "But with the music we could creep in close to nations and of all creeds who no'Y make jazz, embody the multi-ethnic dimensions of other people;" adds Dr. Bechet " .. .Jazz was the blending it to suit their diverse needs and our society to which urban art for~s are hybrid of hybrids and so it appealed to a nation of realities. a response, but also are knowledgeable I. Design by VULCAN, characters by SPON."Roughneck lonely immigrants. In a divided world struggling In the same spirit, the present generation is and proud of them. In the context of Reality;' 1993. Mural at the Graffiti Hall of Fame, New York City. blindly toward unity, it became a cosmopolitan using Hip-Hop. Reports from Senegal hold quoting Sly Stone, the work chant from Spray-paint on concrete wall. The top panel reads VULCAN. The mural refers to the accessibility of guns to youth in urban cen musical argot" (Lomax 1973: 100). that young Muslims are currently creating the "Wizard of Oz," and a police radio ters around the globe. 90% of the local Hip-Hop music. In Cuba, alert, Mos Def ("Rock n Roll") raps: contacted, have described to me their Indian Various ethnic groups in New Orleans were the form has been used to express ancestral able to interact in positive ways because they traditions from Yoruba-derived religion "My grandmomma was raised on a reservation / ancestry. In every North American Indian tribe shared a common reference point: syncopated (Orishas 2000). Its genius is a simplicity my great grand momma was from a plantation / they whose history I have researched in the Great rhythm as well as call and response interac allowing innovators to draw from earlier gen sang songs for inspiration / they sang songs for Lakes Region and eastern North America, I tion. The musical blending that created jazz res, fusing them and Signifying upon them relaxation / they sang songs to take the minds off all have found evidence of blacks living amongst answered in part to the need for community while making their own statement, not unlike that fucked up situation / I am, yes I am the descen them in the eighteenth and early nineteenth among immigrants. This is precisely the role a historian who cites earlier works in a schol dant / of those folks whose / backs got broke who / century" (for more, cf. Tanner. 1995: 54-55). ~ arlyargument. fell down inside the gun smoke (Black people!) / Many Hip-Hop artists are very aware of The internationalization of chains on their ankles and feet/ I am descendants / their own history, and the history of marginal aerosol art has allowed its leading of the builders of your streets / tenders to your cot ized urban people; and they recognize the artists the recognition as profes ton-money / I am Hip-Hop." importance of that history as a basis for inter preting and understanding the brutal realities sionals often denied them at home. The greatest public Mos Def insists on Hip-Hop as a form of of lower class urban life. Making connections response to exhibitions in recent multi-ethnic cultural resistance tied to a long between the past and the present is a first step years has been among European history. By referring to one ancestor on a reser in raising social consciousness. museums showing works by vation, another on a plantation, Mos Def In some ways unique and contemporary, the major aerosol artists. alludes to Native American and African story told in Aerosol Kingdom is also related to Among the extraordinary American mixed communities common in the themes in twentieth century American histo achievements of this community past. Dr. Helen Tanner (p.c. October 2002) ry: popular resistance to racial and economic segregation; inadequate schools; struggles for of urban artists is to have created estimates that 90% of U.S. blacks have native 2. By DOC &WEST ONE,TC5. JEW, 1993. Detail ofa mural on 161st a space for themselves in leading American ancestry. She told me that "after 40 economic justice, freedom of expression, and Street at Yankee Stadium, The Bronx. 15' x 40'. Spray-paint on brick wall. The aliases ARAB and JEW writ in "wild-style" lettering are super international galleries and muse years of research, all black Americans-whose identity and representation in social spheres. imposed on Hebraic lettering and the message "a'salaam a'iekum" ums; influenced malOstream ancestors lived in the USA in the eighteenth The evolution of Hip-Hop resembles that (Peace be with you) in Arabic, pointing to "wild style" lettering as a cog nate of earlier forms. artists like Keith Haring, Frank and early nineteenth centuries-that I have of jazz: it too is a means of communication
tENAISSANCE lUI NOIRE LACK III RENAISSU IVOR M ILLER NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND : HIP - HOP'S INCR E ASING RELEVANCE
'. of the empty content of advertising that ments (as in MICO's "Hang Nixon", or LEE's Vietnam War. To "bomb the system" was to promises to fulfill desires. In their rebel "Stop the Bomb"), are challenged by the saturate MTA subway cars with one's signa lion, early writers used stylistic ideas multi-layered letter structures that seem to tures. In the 1980s, certain writers were iden from advertising but inserted their own camouflage more than they reveal. tified as "bombers," because they had mas content; they used advertising spaces to Unreadable names and messages with bril- tered all disciplines of the form: insides, realize their work, sometimes even re throw-ups, window-downs, top-to-bot facing (painting over) advertisements. toms, whole-cars, and wild-style burners, As styles became more complex and they were "bombing the system" through intense competition for style with their skills. mastery, the relationship to advertising Since the 1980s, there has been recipro remained. MITCH, for example, used its cal activity through advertising campaigns surfaces and riffed on its designs, while writers call "corporate bombing." Multi erasing it. [see image 5} PHASE 2 took national corporations now bomb moving 3. "Free Puerto Rico." Harlem, 1990s. a further step by using a billboard over vehicles, covering entire buses and train the Williamsburg Bridge to contain his cars with their ads. [see image 8} Stella, James Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein; work, as ifhe were advertising. [see image 6} Some idealists-disturbed by the created a global aesthetic movement trans One writer who found success in a leading art emergence of Hip-Hop as a commercial forming the very look of many cities; and gallery attempted to outdo Madison Avenue product -have said that Hip-Hop has 5. MITCH ad image ("MITCH 77", NYC I 977). inspiring the emergence of a multi-billion by inserting his style and identity in the become irrelevant. Perhaps the commer dollar music and fashion industry. same contexts as corporate America. liance of style and color affirm the success of cial product has become so; but from other The careers of the original artists indicate CRASH designed an illuminated sign of his writers in establishing a public persona sources emerge new paintings, dances, or that the relationship between young people, name that was blazoned above Times Square impenetrable to criminological forces that sound tracks that knock us off our feet. Like a urban culture and advertising is a complicated in 1982. [see image 7} would define, contain, and evaluate them as a repeatedly rising phoenix, Hip-Hop has a way mix in which one is often reflected in the If urban rebel style (in dress, speech, writ- sociological problem. of remaking itself: when one tries to pin it other. Tagging refers The affront to authority that the visual art down, or dismiss it, it becomes something represents has been met harshly by the gov other than what we thought. Part of this abil to abbreviated signa- -=:;;:;:;: ity is related to its nature as a communal tures usually spray- ~-: ~~~~~:;;:::====~=~~~~~~~~ .1 ernment of New York City. Instead of work ing with the creative energies of the leading expression; if one artist lacks commitment, painted on public sur- vo :[ painters, city authorities viewed them as another will come up with fresh ideas. faces, most often build- ~ ings, buses, trains, sub- J invading vandals who were arrested and incar Responding to the ubiquitous use of their way stations and high cerated. Their criminalization encouraged ideas and techniques by advertising agencies, way embankments. even greater acts of rebellion in an epic battle many of the artists have organized. After of Third World artists against corporate learning that school trained designers hired by COCO explained that 4. Untitled by MiCa, early I 970s. Note the artist's use of the Puerto Rican and "tagging" emerged in Garveyite flags America. advertising and fashion companies were using the late 1960s from politically motivated ing, movement) is an attempt to triumph over Early writers coined the term "bomb" to their ideas, even copying their work outright, paintings insisting "Buy Black," and "Free dehumanization, one can grasp how unread describe their activities. Bomb: To go "all and that companies would not hire them Puerto Rico." [see images 3 and 4} able, artistic subway paintings are inherently out" while painting in order to acquire fame; because they lacked art school degrees, many This is a marked contrast to James political acts. Those disappointed that many synonymous with "damage." LEE associated are creating their own companies to control Baldwin's observation in "Nothing Personal" "graffiti" messages aren't direct political state- the term with "saturation bombing," from the their own products. Although Gap and Levi
K mI RENAl NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND: HIP-HaP ' S INCREASING RELEVANCE IVOR M I LLER
-. you walkin' off with all the gold / the bureaucratic the moral climate of America; reassurIng Strauss & Co. are manufacturing office sends you merry-go-rounding / while the to feel that the enemy sent the assassin Hip-Hop fashions without involving KKK police the streets by blood hounding /interest from far away, and that we, ourselves, their creators, many artists like on the credit card just keeps compounding / but the could never have nourished so monstrous a FUTURA, WAYNE, and WEST FCC can never shut this pirate sound down." personality or be in any way whatever have created their own companies, responsible for such a cowardly and bloody where they are designing and mar .,1' . , .... '-. "'-" f .•... Recordings like these show that Hip-Hop act. Well. The America of my experience keting their own clothing lines. .- ... - ~ '. -: .. :' . is still able to speak to the realities of urban has worshipped and nourished violence for Recordings by the Last Poets m - _ -t -- . - ' life and offer ~nterpretations of history rarely as long as I have been on earth." Like the early 1970s were foundational to heard in the media. Baldwin, artists like Abiodun express the emergence of socially conscio.us With this aim, Abiodun Oyewole is pro their own convictions based on their per Hip-Hop music. In a recent record ( ducing and distributing his own recordings, sonal experiences. ing by this group, Abiodun Oyewole 6. PHASE 2. (Untitled: Billboard). 1989. Brooklyn. New York. most recently ami Tutu (Fresh Water 2002). Many tracks on Omi Tutu , including the (1997) declared: Spray-paint on canvas. Courtesy of IGTimes. By painting in the context of a rented. thus legitimate billboard. PHASE 2 provoca By avoiding binding contracts wi th large above quoted history lesson, "Reign of tively displays his work as public art. companies, some artists control the content We can no longer wait and contemplate Terror," work to provide information about of their work. For example, Abiodun's About the fate of our state officials, but perspectives from below are our contemporary predicaments and how to response to post-9Ill events will not be It's time to take what we make rarely heard. Current Hip-Hop music confront them intelligently. As a method of played on commercial airwaves: Everything we create for our sake attempts to fill that gap, or at least keep the communication used to comment upon issue of information censorship alive. For unhappy social realities, Hip-Hop maintains Since advertisers co-opted their styles, and example, a recent recording by Michael Franti America is a terrorist its relevance. Counteracting the Hip-Hop the mainstream media has censored perspec- deals with the issue of capital punishment, Killing the natives of the land produced by big business with its negative using the fictitious case of a black woman Killing and stealing stereotypes, promotion of violence, racism, executed for manslaughter, who is later Has always been America's Master Plan ... degradation of women, and the worship of proved innocent. Franti protests capital Giving blankets punishment, as well as the content of the Contaminated with small pox news media. In one track, a pirate radio To the natives who were here station announcer whose location is The beginning of germ warfare unknown questions the ability of our The beginning of White Fear, news media to provide the information No respect for the land we need to understand the issues of our The trees or the air we breathe day. Using a funky horn-section and a And Christianity was an excuse latin tinge of timbales, Franti chants: To bring others to their knees .. . 7. Crash above Times Square. 1982. "Live and direct we come and never prerecorded Regarding the tendency tives that reflect their experience, Hip-Hop / With information that will never be reported / dis In national politics to 8. Sony advertisement on CTA train. Chicago. 2002. artists attempt to control the material and regard the mainstream, media distorted / we comin' blame foreigners for acts of content of their products. listener supported . .. terrorism, Baldwin (1985: 387) wrote: "it is money, artist controlled productions are giv reassuring to feel that the evil came from Owned by a few wealthy companies, the It's the same recorded message you've been ing highly personal and intelligent mes- news media gives us official views, or views of singing all along/ keep handing us the bible while without and is in no way connected with sages. Here, individual achievement is cele- IVOR MILLER The ~. f3iif~rg New: brated within group solidarity, and the ulti Hip-Hop has already proven its relevance and the GeneSis of Hip-Hop mate goal is education as a tool for liberation. through longevity. Now into its third decade, OUTTAKES FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH FILMMAKER, CHARLIE AHEARN Hip-Hop is transformative ritual, but it the guidance of its leaders becomes increas cannot be relegated to the Department of ingly meaningful as youth seek to understand Religion. Rappers today are praising their the issues of our day as well as express their ancestors in the form of sampling earlier creative gifts. musicians; they pay homage to African and Native American deities. They refer to great works of literature, for example, in SOURCES his composition "Hip-Hop," Mos Def men Abiodun Oyewole & Don 'Babatunde' Eaton. 2002. tions the novels of Ralph Ellison' ("Invisible "Reign of Terror." Omi Tutu. New York: Fresh Water man got the whole world watchin''') and Productions. 110 Morningside Drive, Apt. 41. NY, Richard Wright ("Native son, speaking in NY 10027. Baldwin, James. 1985. "Nothing Personal." ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS THA T SIGNALED THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING NEW HAPPEN the native tongue"). They offer political The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948- ING IN NEW YORK WAS THE RISE OF GRAFFITI, WHICH GREW OUT OF GANG CUL TURE, YET IN 1985. New York: St. Martin's/Marek. Pp. 382- analysis and critique the race and class A WA Y MARKED SOMETHING IN OPPOSITION TO IT. GRAFFITI STARTED OUT AS A WA Y FOR 393. structures of our society, as well as affirm COCO 144. 2000. Tape recorded interview. GANGS TO MARK TERRITORY: IF THIS WAS YOUR BLOCK YOU WOULD PUT THE NAME OF YOUR the humanity of those who, being the Fairlawn, NJ. November. Revised and authorized by GANG IN THE BIGGEST LETTERS ON THA T BLOCK AND NO ONE COULD COME INTO THA T BLOCK, SO GRAFFITI WAS A WA Y TO TELL OTHER PEOPLE TO STA Y OUT. descendants of slaves, continue to live at COCO, February, 2001. KRS-ONE. 2002. "Preserve the Kulture." The the economic bottom of our society. In Mix Tape. Koch Records. KOC-CD 8458. But when individuals started writing graffiti, it corrupted that system absolutelv and in a sense led short, they have created a culture, and are The Last Poets. 1997. "Down to Now." By Piper, Hassan, Oyewole, Chuck D . Time Has Come. Mouth to the downfall of gang-culture. II you wanted to become a well-known graffiti artist in NY in the earlv committed to preserving it. Almighty/Mercury Records. USA 314-534-467- seventies, it's not interesting to stay on your block. whars interesting is to go "all citv," meaning that From the "Temple of Hip-Hop" in New 2AD CD. YOU would ride the subways and make your mark everywhere in the city, so that that no maner where York City, KRS-ONE (2002) spoke about the Lomax, Alan. 1973. Mister Jelly Roll: The someone would go they would see your name. And the very concept of "all citv" is in complete oppo- Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and discipline and morals of hip-hop and its future: sition to the concept of gangs, which is an insular block defensive mentalitv. And people who were "Inventor of Jazz." (original 1953) Berkeley: U of used to gang culture would be amazed at how people involved with graffiti were fearless and that California Press. someone from the Bronx would dare go to Brooklvn and hang out with people in Brooklvn. "This is Hip-Hop's spiritual base, and as a spiri Michael Franti & Spearhead. 2001. "Listener Supported." Stay Human. Six Degrees 657036 tual base, we look to guide the youth in that disci 1048-2. !PeOPle like B b pline. No culture is a culture unless it has princi Mos Def. 1999. "Hip-Hop"; "Rock n Roll." Black m . I am aataa are examples oj how H ' H . USlca forms. It also means that someone fi IP- op can. express African-ness in Wa s . ples, unless it has morals, unless we are unified, in On Both Sides. New York: Rawkus Records. what Orishas: A 10 Cubano. 2000. Miami: Universal mto. theY're trying to do with th .rom japan can Identify with this music ~ tha~ absorb and Incorporate other some sort of principle, something we are not willing Music Latino. Afr~can-derived culture can contribut e musIC and can add to the musical herita e ~~ . can I~corporate this African-ness to step beyond, something that defines us .. . think SPAR. 1988. 2000. Tape recorded interview. New oj dif(erent cultures around the worl: !Ioba/~y. Cu/~ure is global today, it's no;~bo s mclusIVe, and it means that this York, NY. December. Revised and authorized by about your role in Hip-Hop. Think about what you the kmd oj repetition. It's not to sa ' ut HIP-Hop IS a kind ojgift oj African- ut subgrou~s. There are different as ects SPAR, January, 2001. do everyday in Hip-Hop, this is not about right Tanner, Helen Hornbeck. 1995. "Chained to the verbal aspects oj the way Irish peopk ~;:t th;e are~'t aspects oj Irish Culture in ::;~:; worldWide cu:ture. It has to do ~ith that's a long discussion: is Blues AW;; s, Z;hlch .have gone through Our culture theres undoubtedly certain now, it's about twenty years from now ... the tapes Colonies: Africans and Indians in Louisiana, 1768- Blu~s; inoP~/ause 1800." In The Settling of North America: The Atlas Ajrlcan folk traditions) I like t th' k r[fi .can. Or IS Blues is a kind or[comb' . fir[ k songs and that contributed to are rolling, the notes are being taken, this is the and d" . 0 mOlt as . l. . matlon 0 a Eu lh fil.'L of the Great Migrations into North America from the roote In ItS African-ness. an inC USlve culture that's global rOrean 0 Fe traditions with type of thinking we have to get into if this is going Ice Age to the Present. Helen H . Tanner, Ed. New York: MacMillan. p. 54-55. to survive. Hip-Hop appreciation week is a time of 2002, p.c. Senior Research Fellow, The Ii ip-Hop is about reorganization. Hip-Hop artists freely borrow from others and reinvent the form by borrowing. Rock and self-reflection; a time for Hip-Hoppers to ask "what Newberry Library in Chicago. October, personal com Roll always did that; Jazz was always about borrowing ideas from other things; but Hip-Hop is a radical form, whether you're lift munication. talking about the DJs or graffiti, you're talking about people who things from other sources and make new things out of am I doing to preserve the culture)" ~m by re-combining things in new ways. In other words, you're radically stripping things down to certain aspects of the cul that you want to focus on, whether it's music, MQng, or graffiti. Musically it's stripping away the melody to find the per CUssive element underneath; if it is graffiti it's stripping the whole process of visual creativity to a word or a name, and re- bUilding things Up from that essence, so you're building a whole culture around a word, or you're building a whole music around a percussive element. It's a refocusing of the culture, and re-fashioning around a certain simplified element. LACK IBI RENAISSUC