The Style Writers
Sight Zilla and Menes One interview graffiti artists and graffiti writers.
The Style Writers
Cre8 Mark 7 interview
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Interview with Graffiti legends King Cre8 and Mark 7
Right here with Create, right here with uh Tony, uh Mr. Cash Only. And uh with uh legendary Mark Seven right here with uh Create on his next episode of Next. Um we're lucky to be blessed with his presence. He's a very busy man. He's a uh he's Mr. Carmen San Diego. Um you can't it's hard to get a grip on him, man. Thank you for having us today. Um Man, we got so much to say, man. Um so much to uh ask you, but we got so little time. So um I want to know, like everybody everybody knows about LTS, LTS that exists today, but you from the original LTS. So what's the difference between the OG LTS and today's LTS?
SPEAKER_04Well, here's the deal. Originally when I was coming up, I I wasn't from the original group, but I was influenced by the original group. And uh it was very interesting, man. Me coming up from the south side of LA. Uh, you know, L2S is a mid-city type group. So me growing up as a writer, it gave me a chance to travel. Because that's what writing was all about for us, man. We traveled around the city on the buses back then. So I was able to get around. Uh, I knew not to just stay locally. I knew in order for me to be official, I had to be able to get out there, put it at work. You know what I'm saying? I had to be able to get out there and see what other writers were doing. The only reason why I was groomed that way was because of the people I came up under. You know, they always taught me, like, hey man, let's go to this yard, let's go to that yard, let's go take photographs, let's go see this and that. So, at that time, 1986-87, there was a particular standard of a signature thumbprint of style that we saw growing up in what we called the hood or the ghettos, and it was very interesting because uh we had a lot of different groups back then. Back in them days, uh there was a lot of black writers back then that was very significant in the in the culture. A lot of them faded away when Gang Banger was real heavy and uh people started hustling real hard. So a lot of people got into that, or they started just becoming uh into other things. People were becoming uh young fathers at that time, people was getting jobs and they said to themselves, man, there's no future in the graph. So I'm making a point to all that. Okay. So when I was coming up, I was one of those people that I was so passionate about it. I kept a strong grip and a strong hold onto what I stood for and what I love to do, which was style writing. Okay. So at that point, at that time, 86-87 is when uh there was a powerful crew in South LA called Doing Everything Fresh. Yeah. And uh I knew of a lot of the great players that was part of the group. And so my mentor, his name is Rish, R-I-S-H. I always gotta spell his name. Okay. R-I-I-S-H. And he he taught a lot of us in the hood off of 50, 40 hoover over there. Okay. And so when we we were 13, 14 years old, so we was coming up, we really looked up to him because he was our standard of quality, of great style. He was a DJ, a writer, and we all wanted to like, he was like a positive figure to us in such a way, or a big brother in a way. And so, by him being part of, originally, he he wasn't even DEF at first. Uh he, I don't know what he was. He might have had his own crew or he was solo. But uh all I know was before Clever passed away, he actually went to Clever House. I remember I had called him up that night, and he said, Man, I just came back from Clever House. He said, Clever put me down with DEF. Okay. So Clever had put him down with doing everything fresh. Now, paying close attention to the writing on the wall, I knew people like Mark Seven was part of L2S and DEF, right? Okay. And so when I was young, I would go to the yard, uh, what they call the RTA yard or Jefferson Yard, and I would take the bus all the way from where I lived at, deep down in South LA, all the way to Jefferson between Le Bray and Los Anagas. They had like the little walls on the back. Yeah. And we would walk the track, and then I would I would go all the way down to the big yard. So when I went to the big yard, I took a look at different pieces, and his name stood out because his name had a number with it as well. Not too many people had numbers with their names back then. Not like the how people might say, I'm Seth you said, uh 121 or whatever, some names like that. Like, like it had like a significance behind the numbers, right? So anyway, that being said, what ended up happening was when I would go to the yard, people like Mark Seven was one of them at the Jefferson Yard as an example. His work stood out. He had good characters, good letters that had flavor to them, good color scheme. I heard about it. I heard the legends. Yeah, definitely. I was, I stepped, excuse me, I stepped in the yard. His tag, he had a real nice style of writing. Okay. That was trash. The characters at that time he would do on the wall. It wasn't like the characters you would see today. They was they were they were cartoon characters, but they had a certain way of how they was presented. Um, that was a certain particular style back then, where they would angle off certain angles at the characters and block them off. And so when I saw that, I was impressed. And I remember literally staying at the yard sometime where even if I wasn't painting, I would I would go stand in front of the wall and just study the technique of like the blend. Yeah, the way the lines were so perfect. And then to be honest, I thought maybe at the time they were using cordboards to get straight lines and stuff. So, yeah, so uh as I grew up, oh another impact that really got me was when they did Skip's liquor for 39th of Vermont. Okay. That was around the time when this movie came out called The Fly. Okay. Now, before they even painted that wall, there were some other dudes, I don't know if they were from New York, but they painted that wall too as well. Okay. They just did the word Skip's liquor. Uh they had a little smurf on the wall, and they had like some old school little B-boy characters on the wall with traditional top cameras. And so that was trash. I saw that first, okay. But the night that me and my mother and them came from the movies, we saw that movie caught a fly. And I was always looking at that liquor store every time we would drive by just to look at the old pieces, right? I mean, I looked and all of a sudden I seen this fresh B-boy character that was done with pastel aqua, aqua turquoise, fruit blue, and some other colors, and I said, what the hell is that? He did a you did that fly on the wall, right? That with the wall over there, big guy. You click on the he buffed that fly out. He did the character of a dude. He he got series of them faces of different colors, so he did this face. And that shit with the hat flipped up in the front, and I was like, damn. And then he did a lady next to like a fresh mushroom. It was almost like a Baudet type style, or Von Baudet, or Mark Baudet style lady character, right? Okay. But it was in their own uh way of how they presented it. And man, that shit was off the hood, man. I went back into daytime and saw it again, and I was like, man, I doubt I would love to be part of the essence of what they represented. And when they did the Crunchyrol Wall, that stuff was powerful for us back then growing up in the hood because they was our what what happened with the Crunchyro Wall back then?
SPEAKER_03I mean, like, I I see like you guys uh it's legendary, it's iconic, but did it get finished though?
SPEAKER_04Okay, now you got you gotta remember way before we did it, or what's up there now, 1980 586 roughly. There was the dude named Zoo. He did a little, I don't know if it was illegal what he did, but he did like some little tiny little pieces up there. Yeah. But that dude named Zoo would do pieces on Stalker and LaBrea right there at that little park. And he would do little cities in the building, like like B Street all Mark.
SPEAKER_01Like them little parts. They like they look how they look like well at the top, but like you know how the crunch on wall is? Yeah. I think he was one of the first ones hitting those walls like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he was walled. Yeah, he definitely was, man. It was definitely interesting that he did that in Zoo. You know, but it was two zoos. It was him and then the new zoo where they ran with D-Bs and the other dude. Oh, okay, okay. And so, um, right after that, Snake Doctor gave them permission, well actually gave Clever permission to do the first graph piece on the wall, but the day before he was supposed to paint it, he got murdered. So that was very shocking. And then people like Mark Seven, Abel, or uh Spear, uh uh Sky and all them went and they did a drifting, they did a drifting on the memory. Yeah, they was the first ones that hit it hard, like, like hard. Like hard, hard. Like they whole presentation was flawless. Yeah, all for Danny. Yeah, he he did the catch up clever with the wings, with that clover green, jungle green, aqua turquoise. Yeah. It's almost like his sweater. Oh, yeah. No, the murder? No, no, no, no. No, not that.
SPEAKER_01It's it's rumored speculated that because of the area he came out of, they said he wrote over somebody's stuff. They said it was uh maybe one of the two gangs in the area that might have did it, but that's speculation. The other thing was said that you know he was in a red Nissan truck and maybe they was trying to jack him. Because he had a nice red Nissan truck in the middle. Nissan 720s? The the Square Box 89, like that good one. Yeah, and he was uh they came back from the from Magic Mountain. Yeah, Magic Mountain. They came back from Mountain Mountain. And look, not to divert anything off too far, but if you watch the amount of work that brother put in in those last couple of days before he died, like a new or something? Well, it well he said something that made him it was like something like something forever, like whatever. What's the point that he said half percent? But it was like he could die on the forever. He can live forever and he painted on the like on the 14th or something like that. Yeah, like yeah, and then we mortaline after that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he was doing it down. He actually gave Big Create today and Big Create passed down the week. That's what Big Creator told me because I never got a chance to meet club. So that being said, after they did the first piece like where y'all take burning uh West Coast artist, uh L2 West Came, thinking everybody original came down. No, I'm uh uh Big Creator. Uh his name is Eric, my name is Eric, so Big Eric. Alright, uh I didn't know that man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like our thing, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Like a couple with the little next one. Yeah, that brother took it to the first number two, actually, and then I'll be able to do that.
SPEAKER_04My original days of when I first got the name. Oh dug, you probably would put Julian or Little, but I wouldn't put little because then people would know I'm little.
SPEAKER_02I think I have seen the Roman number two on it. But I would put like the actual number two.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I wouldn't do the number Roman number. I would put the actual number two. I had a what we call the continuation style. When I write everything was connected. Boom, boom, boom. I still know what it looked like. The thing was, when he gave me that name, the only reason why I accepted that name was because he ran with a real prolific writer by the name of Mad. And so Mad was like all city. Like when he Mad was up. Mad was the business back then. 80s or what? Like Yeah, just like early 80s, like man, when uh Yeah, that was like he said 84, I'm talking about like 84, 85, when it wasn't really no draft style, like hitting up, it was only a lot of gang writing. And so when we see Mad up, Madd would have the explanation, uh uh quotation marks with the question mark at the heel. And he would write with homemade markers that would write this back. Literally. And would be dripping like smudge. He'd write like smudge, man. Smudge was enough to write him. You know, so it was pretty heavy. So when when Big Create ran with Mad and I figured out what the name said, any way to be associated with Mad it was like a good thing to be connected some kind of way. You know, because Matt went to our junior high school. He was from a crew called Together We Chill. He was from TWC. Yeah. And it was fresh, so he put me down. Is that the same TWC that's around today?
SPEAKER_01You know what? I didn't think so. Somebody when we were out in uh, when we were just out there in Palm Springs, yeah, a brother that's from there. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He is magazine, he says, they are. He's a part of it now. Is that right? Yeah, I didn't think it had nothing to do with him. And he started naming some names. And I said, oh shit, for real. Is that right? We're talking about dragging them, you know, testing TWC. Interesting. I go way back with them. Yeah, that's that's interesting.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a big ass gap.
SPEAKER_03Super big ass gap that he was running with them back in the game. Because the TWCs, they were they were big uh Fairfax. Yeah, uh back in the late 90s.
SPEAKER_01And the new piece of them became the KIL. Okay, you're right. There's two different things that the TWCs. Uh one of there was they were already TWC when I brought them around to meet the RTA when it came LPS. Yeah, yeah. At the time we were doing our recruitment thing. Yeah. And then uh at the process of what we recruited and started uh Sane creating these sub teams to put everybody in to build on their craft. Like K. And then it was like how KOG became at one point. So then we had R2K. Okay. And that's um R2 right to kill. Yeah. So coincidence, uh a faction of the members that work for, like Maine, Deco, um, who knows, like like some of the guys that work down from the TWC thing, yeah, they are like the base Orion and then they are, and recon, they are the base that became the KIL.
SPEAKER_03Sharing names like I know, man, that was before my time, man.
SPEAKER_01You gotta put it on those names.
SPEAKER_04You gotta record it, you know what I'm saying? Because it is what it is. Those names he naming, they the foundation of them dudes. Yeah. If you look at their artwork and they style, it's Rag that's okay. Test of it. If you look at their artwork on the wall, it's it's it's based up off of his style, uh Riot's filling, all right.
SPEAKER_01Meet Senator Riot were the speaking of Ryan, I might have to tell you something about that, but speaking of us, we were like, we were the heads to help develop them. We were gonna be the head mental, because we were the more developed ones. So Saint put us in that position, and then if Delo would have stayed around, him and Mec supposedly were gonna do another thing, but then Mac didn't initially belong to us, yeah, but he was having issues with CBS and West Coast, and so he was gonna join with us, he's hanging with Dello. Delo thing used to be flex, but then they both shot out and they were hanging with DTK, uh, and it eventually became the West Coast Kitties. Yeah, yeah, they ended up West Coast Kitties.
SPEAKER_04West Coast Kitties, yeah, West Coast Kids. Yeah, they had kitties, yeah. West Coast Kitties, West Coast Kitties, West Coast Kitties. West Coast Kitties were like the younger generations of uh up-and-coming, the up-and-coming people that had style, but it wasn't fully developed like like uh like Rise and Whiskey.
SPEAKER_01So, matter of fact, if you look at that as far as the West Coast kitties, it's not to say that Whisk was under the kitties aspect, but you got Mech, Dello, Sir, and then you got Sir and Whisk. All that came up together. So not that like whisk, once again, he had a lot more history. But just to say that when Dello and Mech started really going hard, you had the work that they were doing. I remember those things. And Sir was getting in with the three with eating. But then Wisk and Sir went crazy off as a duo, as a team, as a team.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So they got they got uh a lot of people have been telling me that they get shocked when uh I tell them graffiti heals, graffiti's benefits the community. From your perspective and your words, how does graffiti help the community and make the community better?
SPEAKER_04I'm one of those people who actually I can testify with testimonies because I'm part of that healing process through the art. Somehow, man, throughout my journey, I've been able to become a teacher and help people because people help me, so I've been giving back as well because I've been helping. Also, flip side to that, I've been rejected by a few people that I looked up to as I was coming up that told me they wasn't gonna show me nothing. Now, truth be told, they had the right to say yes or no to me. They didn't have to say, yeah, I'll teach you. Because back then everything was sacred. Like you wasn't just gonna say, oh come on man, let me give you some stuff. You had to be worthy of passing down south to another dude. Because some dudes they ain't wanna show you their books. Like that they wasn't like so freely like now. Like, oh, here's my book. Back then you say, Can I see your book? They they'll be looking at you up and down. You know what I'm saying? I had people do me like that, a few people. And if you looked at their book too long, they'll take their book back because they don't know if you bite. And you having photographic memory. So that'd be serious. It's serious. Yeah, that's how serious it was. Like, like you could look at a dude. If you stand at their page too long, depending on their characteristics, they might say, hey man, like turn that page, or they analyze that heavy. You know, so I used to be like looking with my mind to be like, dang, did you ever study any artists like from Europe? Like uh there, like some of the you talking like graph writers or regular artists? Back then we didn't have no access to knowing about none of that. We the first graph magazine we ever got a hold of was uh make you watch this. We're gonna get this off tape. It was yellow art, can't control, but this way before colors, when it they would come to a place like Walgreens back then when it was uh like uh uh uh 50s, something like that. Yeah, they go copy machine, take 11 by 17 sheet of paper, and just fold it. And they would take photos, the originals, and stick it to the paper and then run it, and then they have somebody with a typewriter type it up, take it in there, run it, and mass produce it and sell it. I actually got that stuff. He needs that the bad part is his storage.
SPEAKER_01That's the bad part, but I got it. Don't they have a couple of pictures of them in the back of History of LA? That's a good question. I would have to look. I think they have um those covered, like, because those were like the leaflets that What's the name used to make, right? The first one. Uh Charlie. Charlie was making the first way before power, right? Because me and me and me and KMC. Me and KMC got on one, and then the RTA, I mean the LTS uh Happy Unhappy New Year, we was on another one of them.
SPEAKER_04See, and that's where it got to me. When I seen that one uh ghetto art, and he was on the front, and it was the bust and lose he did for Eve Wee and he and G, him and KMC did on the Crunch Raw Wall, that let me know it was hope for us in South Central to get it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was that was a platform. It was it was by graffiti artist, but it was a platform that the work you put in was getting recognized.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. When I saw his name get on the camera, I was like, if he can make it, that's cool. I'm gonna make it one day. I'm gonna get it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was dope. You know what I'm saying? And it was good because we were we were we weren't stripping for that. That was just uh something that came after putting in the work. Yeah. So that was that was another work.
SPEAKER_04Also, the good part about it was you had real true writers that respected when they saw us a good writing piece. Yeah, they wasn't like Biden's like I ain't taking a picture of big words. He he ain't part of this group. Um, no, it was the work that did.
SPEAKER_03It was not good at all. Yeah, we got a lot of that right now. We got a lot of that right now. We got a lot of that in there. Oh, yeah, no, it's a lot of like the tourism. Yeah,
SPEAKER_04Was fresh, they look. I was going to Charlie Fogos at his house. He had a picture of one of my old pieces at the jerk and Core way in the back in silver red. Where I did the inspector gadget dog. What was the name of that dog? Brain? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did that dog uh Brain with the collar on his neck, and he was looking at my piece. Uh and that's when KRS made that song, uh, My Philosophy. So I put the bubble by his head, so I think very deep. Yeah, I pushed that and he was in silver. I got a flick of the album. Hey, I just hit that song. So what's his name? Gascad. Yeah. Man, I did that at the yard way in the back. I was going through the flicks and stuff, and I was like, oh shit. I'm surprised Charlie took a picture in that man. Cause I didn't think at that time, to be honest, I was fresh on paper, but I wasn't good on the wall. I was I was so so I was mediocre. Okay. But um for Charlie, for a person like Charlie, he was high caliber. For a person like him to take a picture of my work back then, that, and I went through his flicks, I was like, it, that touched my heart, man. Cause most of the time people would look at me be like, oh, look at the little kid back there, painting little kids. Like that's what they were telling us. Hey, little homie, how old are you, man? They thought probably was like nine years old. I'm like, man, I'm 14. They looking at me like, what? And then one day, they saw me at the motor yard painting on top of my dad's shoulders. So there are some people that remember them days. Like I would take my dad to the yard. Literally, like, man, my dad would take me to uh Standalbrand's paint. He would take me to Crown Paint on Pico, and we would go get the paint. And next thing you know, man, my dad is at the yard, he chilling, smoking his cigarette, got a little beer, we he chilling. I'm like, hey dad, I sketched the letters out. He said, What you want me to do? I said, fill that in silver. Because I was doing silvers back then, because the paint was expensive. I didn't rack. So you know, I don't I don't ever be ashamed. I just didn't rack. But my boys racked, so I was I'm a little I'm a little young hustler dude, so I had a little money. Every time they go rack, I just give them a little money for their pocket and they'll give me whatever I needed. So that being said, uh what you call it? Uh that being said, when I was when I was rolling like that, man, that was powerful. My dad would take me to almost, he'd take my dad take me to the Belmont tunnel. He'd drive me in his Mustang, park his car. He'd be having my back. My dad was smoking a cigarette again, lean up against the car. Anybody was tripping, he'd set the record straight. Even at the Jeff CR one day, I did a piece for my mom. It was like a, I was trying to do a chrome style, but I didn't know how to do it yet. I just did a dark blue fade to a light blue, right? Trying to do the chrome style. And uh, that shit was funny. And my dad, I remember some dude came in there, he was from the hood over there. And he, the homeboy tried to actually sweat me from my paint right in front of my dad. My dad said, hey, homie, he was like, That's my son. And the dude was like, That's your son. And he was letting your son paint on the wall? My dad said, Yeah. And my dad said, What's wrong? Everything good? The dude said, Yeah, man, I'm from such and such good. My dad said, Okay. And then all of a sudden the dude ended up sitting down smoking cigarettes, and we was good. And the dude shook my hand, he said, man, I'm such and such, such and such. I said, Alright, man, and I kept on painting. He said, Hit me up when you do. Hey, I didn't want to hit him up, but I was like, alright man. What's up, bro? You know what I'm saying? But yeah, those are like fun testimonies, man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, man, we got like, okay, so we see uh we see an evolution of uh women that do graffiti nowadays. And uh the more and more women doing graffiti, and as more women starting to do graffiti, like I know there's a few women that are starting to do graffiti in their 40s, in their late 30s. Like 40 years old. 40 years old, they start and do graffiti. They starting on a journey. So, what's your perspective of women that do graffiti? And what what what advice do you have for them? For the women that are just getting into the game, that want to get into the game, and the women are in it. That's a good question.
SPEAKER_04When we was coming up, it wasn't really no girls into graph. Because most girls wanted to be pretty, they didn't want to get paint on their hands. They just like to look at it if we did their names and gave it to them. They was more impressed with that. So at that point in time, there was a young lady from South LA, her name was Candy. She would write up and down Normandy near Exposition. She was a black writer, and she didn't really go far with lasting for a long time. It was very uh short with her career, but um people like Mad Nim knew her. Moving forward, in today's time, for the young ladies who get involved. I think it's cool. Uh we need female writers in the culture. I don't give them no passes because they females, like, oh, everything they do is beautiful. I could care less about, you know what I'm saying. Hey, if you fresh, you fresh. If you whack, they still gonna be whack. You know what I'm saying? I don't care what what age they are. I mean, you know, sometimes you just gotta give people their time to grow. Yeah. But we do need more female riders, you know, but we don't want to give them a pass because they females, whatever they do, we gotta accept it. You know, but also as men, let's not take advantage of them. Like, hey, you know, I mean, we always see the women out there that we like, but then at the same time, like most girls get into crews because they they become groupies and people embrace them. Like, man, any girl that got down with us, which was real slim, we had a couple of girls in high school that was trying to be down with us, but they didn't really put in the work. They just wanted to be affiliated. So at one point, if we had girlfriends, we was like oh, that's Miss So-and-so, that's Miss So-and-so, and they really wasn't connected like that. You know, then at one point, there was crews that had the queens and the kings. Just because they had that, them girls, man, they was just into stealing. Yeah. Truth be told, they wasn't really into the culture. They was that was back in the late 80s. They was into stealing, bus mobbing. That was part of the culture, the bus mobbing and the stealing, but they glamorized that part so much that they forgot the essence of what the foundation is. And so I used to try to tell a few of them, like, hey man, this ain't what this is all about. They said, you think you better than everybody. You think you all that. I come from, see, even though I was around them, not them per se, but even though I was around that time period, that don't mean I was part of that bracket of people. I come from a generation way before they even stepped to the plate. The dudes that I ran with, our state of mind was different. The way we, the dudes who introduced me to the coaching, you know what I'm saying, they they was very crucial. I always say this in all interviews. The dudes that came at me, they wasn't like no sucker state of mind type dudes. Like, like the way they handle themselves, the way they dress, the way they talk, the way they wrote. Everything had to have flavor and stuff. Oh, sorry about that. Everything had to have flavor and style to it. If my tag was whack, my voice would tell me. That shit is garbage, man. What do you define as whack and fresh? That's a good question. Well, because you got you got anti-style now. Yeah, anti-style, yes.
SPEAKER_03You got anti-style now, so like you can't read. No, you can't.
SPEAKER_04Okay, okay, okay. That's a good question. That's a good question. Anti-style, that's a good question. Yeah, okay. So watch this. I I got an answer for that. I got an answer for that. Here's my answer. In every art form, music, food, dancing, yeah, we could get loose and do whatever we want, true indeed. Watch this. But a person who is really truly dedicated and committed and know the essence, you could get on Orthodox and do so many different freestyle type things. But watch this. If that was the case, everybody would have been good when they first started and we would have been as a high caliber. But there's a status of the pros versus the amateurs. Yeah. You can't get on the basketball court like I've said before and double dribble. Because we still aiming for the court to shoot the ball, but you can't run with it like a football, you gotta play by the rules. Within this culture, we gotta play by the rules of style. We can't just do some old S and say it's an S to shit it like another letter. Uh Post 2 said this to one of his students. Post 2 from uh uh the homie Post 2, Max Moses. I was teaching a class at his uh school one day. Now, even though I was there teaching, we outside painting. He told one of his students this. One of his students did a letter. His student said, What you think about this? I'm minding my business, but I'm listening and observing. He said, Man, always make sure your letter holds the integrity of what it is. And I was looking like, damn, what the hell he talking about, right? Now, and I'm into style. He was telling his student that you can't do a letter and then you claim it that exists, but then it looks like something else. So it has to hold the integrity of what it is, but you can still get loose and funky with it to make it have a certain look. Now, anti-style of people just accepting everything, to me that's unacceptable. If I'm making spaghetti on the stove, I need the right ingredients, but I still got room to explore. I ain't gonna put no jelly in there, I ain't gonna put no peanut butter in there, even though it's edible, but it's gonna be not tasteful. But we can eat it, but it's not gonna be tasteful. Same thing with the style. You you could you could paint with all this that up, but it ain't gonna really hold up. A martial artist, they doing karate, they they know the like when we kids, we watched the Kung Fu Saturday movies and stuff like that. A lot of us didn't know about the fundamentals of martial art. So we just be punching, kicking, dropping people to the floor based upon this regular fight. A true martial artist is gonna tell you about structure, form, how each move executes to the next move, and the purpose for each move has a purpose. So when we do our graph, same thing with that. Our style got purpose, meaning, foundation behind it that gives it a significance of strength. So all that anti-style that these people give away because they got can control, that's unacceptable.
SPEAKER_02What do you where's your vein on Basquiat? Because Basquiat was very like, you know, kind of like the anti-style, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_04That's a good question. Well, Basquiat is not a style writer. Basquiat is an expressionist person like a street artist. And the street artist in the sense of using spray paint and mixed media. You know, a style writer, we specialize in the art form and letter structure. Okay. Where our stuff is very unique and different, and we specialize in typography and taking it to many metamorphoses and different levels of executing style. And that's the difference between street art and confiding art, yeah. Yeah, okay. You know, I always like to make sure the people know the difference. Because see, people can get it mixed up. They'd clump us all at one because we use the same material. Yeah. But just because we use the same material don't mean we executing the same moves. Like all martial art styles are different.
SPEAKER_02You don't consider him a graffiti artist?
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_03He's a uh artist. What about Baxi though? You think it's a Baxi uh graffiti artist?
SPEAKER_04No, I don't consider him a black part of it. Yeah, people might say, well, he's doing the thing, it's illegal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. Well, well, yeah, well, that's where they kind of give their little energy and to create like a street rep. Yeah. Whether it's a natural or rather they chase. Yeah, right? Like some heard others did it. Like, I guess the way dude, when you're talking about your brainwash, right? Yeah, yeah. He seemed like he did the same thing. He seemed like he kind of jumped on it, but Shepard Perry kind of was getting it. But he was still doing it, like, because there are those that are like, I guess there's more street artists, because they're not style letters, and they're not that. They're like wheat pasters, they're like different expressionists. They're graffiti on a different level.
SPEAKER_02So they're street, that's a street art, right? Yeah, yeah. Graffiti artists, like letters, we're what? We're called what? Uh style writers.
SPEAKER_04Style writers style writers. That's the original terminology. Now they don't do what we do, and we don't do what they do. Now, now that don't take away from them. It don't make them greater than, nor do it make it less than. It just makes it what it is. But they can't take away from the foundations of the essence of what we represent because we've graduated to many levels of taking the can, mastering blends and techniques from basic fundamentals all the way to what we see today. But remember, we didn't have access to the internet, so we couldn't see what Europe was doing. The only way we had access to people internationally and even in other states was if we created a bond traveling, or uh uh uh people would get, we would somehow, I don't know how we would all connect, but people would start trading flicks through the mail. Right, right, right. And we would put stuff in big yellow envelopes. Hey man, I'm gonna send you 20, you send me 20. And people had extra flicks and then send it. Real talk. That's how we was doing back then. And this was way before we had internet, so it created more of a bond and a uh uh an alliance with other people that we really didn't know. But like Reefer actually was doing that for with me a long time ago, sir. Uh where Reefer was sending me stuff. I didn't really know Reefer that well back then. But he was sending me stuff, I was sending him stuff, but it wasn't uh often. Uh-huh. Uh uh uh Mother Saber actually did that with me way back in the day. Saber's, you know, but I seen him in person at the yard. Yeah. Um man, those are some good questions, man. This is heavy stuff because you know, people need to know this, man. Like a lot of people might say, I don't agree with you. But okay. I tell you what, the proof is in the putting whether you agree or not. The proof is in the pudding.
SPEAKER_02I I agree with you and that all right. Yeah, yeah. Because you're separating it. It's like you're graffiti style writers. Like, yeah, you could do multiple styles, like we could really rock you, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, you got Jiu Jitsu, Kung Fu, karate, and mixed martial art. Yeah, we're like and they're just kind of like uh, you know, kind of like a actual artist with like media, like they're like judo, man. Yeah, they're like a like more like it's a contemporary.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and you know what? I see some good street art that made me think, like, oh that's shit. That's powerful. I seen some stuff, man, I was really impressed with creatively. Style-wise, with what we do, I ain't impressed.
SPEAKER_03On that level. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel you. Because I walk in, my me and my girl go to the museum, and she likes to see the art, and we walking around the thing, and she like, you like this art? I'm like, man, I'm not impressed. I don't see no graffiti up in here. I'm not impressed at all. I'm not. And she's like, but I like it. I'm like, that's cool, you know, that's your cup of tea. But I don't, I'm not impressed by any of this. You know, so but this is uh, you know, I'm gonna wrap this up. Thank you, create. For me, nothing. I like that. I wanna do some fucking ass shit. I ain't gonna lie. I gotta go pick up the kids, man. But you wanna give a shout out to anybody, any crews, any any special people out there?
SPEAKER_04I want to give a shout out to the foundation of the forefathers in LA who created the the platform for me, as who for who I am, for making an impact directly and indirectly into what I do. Because if it wasn't for a lot of them, excuse me, I wouldn't be the person because when I paint, in my mind, while I'm painting, I'm looking at my foundation of the people who set the bar for me. That sounds a little bit unbelievable, because like people might say, Well, what the hell you was looking at to make you who you are? Oh, believe me, I'ma say it like this. It's like how the ancient forefathers of ancient Kimmy built those pyramids. It's that same wonders of how my forefathers of what I represent in the writing style writing culture did stuff that people haven't ever seen in photographs that that will blow their mind, that'll take out a lot of stuff today, as far as what we see around here locally, from illegal to legal.
SPEAKER_02I got one last question for you create. Um would you ever consider, like, I know your artists high in demand, right? So, like big artists nowadays, they have like factories where other artists kind of help them keep up with the demand. Uh-huh. Are you ever gonna do that like in the future where like I know you got Mark 7 and other people that are still on the come up? Uh-huh. Would you ever have them have like an art factory or to like what is your opinion on other people that's a good question? Kind of um because you know artists do that nowadays. Like, what is your opinion on that? On them having other people kind of start their art and then you finish it off, and it's still your idea, right?
SPEAKER_03You got people up under him, and then he he co-signs for it. He takes the credit for it. Interesting. My philosophy is like we want to do something like that.
SPEAKER_04Oh wow. I didn't know Dr. Dre was doing that until you just said there, wow.
SPEAKER_01Well, like people like him and Quincy, well, yeah, Quincy probably has a whole different range, but they're like uh they're more like orchestrators. Interesting. So what they do is uh like okay, give you an example. You know one of the artists that Sano works with? Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04He's that's what came to my mind. Right. Well, so that's kind of I guess they're more like saying, like, yeah, we're doing that, right?
SPEAKER_02I didn't know Dre and uh producers that produce um Scott Storage. Scott Storage. Uh Scott Storage.
SPEAKER_04I ain't even knowing that it is. I'm like, wow, see, okay, wow, that's a good question.
SPEAKER_01Wow, okay. But um, I don't know because give me an example. Does Risky when he puts out mass production?
SPEAKER_04He got people helping him. So Chapter Ferry do too. I mean, hey, so wow, that's a good one right there. Now, man, will I ever do that? Sometimes I do have apprentices, but here's the thing with me, I train my apprentices to become great so that they can be who they are without being under these my umbrella. Because my umbrella is totally I'm I'm very uh multidimensional in the sense of sometimes I I don't just be doing canvases. Sometimes I'm a teacher. Sometimes I could paint uh uh canvases that are very direct, but then I'm in a series right now, I'm doing contemporary abstract work that that's more spiritual that comes up out of me. That's not something that a person could help me on because I do it. Yeah, it's coming out of my soul. I'm like boom, bam, bam, boom, boom, boom. And I'm bad. It's like spur of the moment. Spur the moment being channeled to the end. You know what? You know what?
SPEAKER_02That makes sense.
SPEAKER_01It would open it, it would open up. It would probably where it would serve is if you were doing, you know how Coke does those throw-ups? It would almost cover if somebody was painting a bunch of canvas bases for you, and then you did your signature on it.
SPEAKER_04Now, on that level, I got more people helping me on murals more than anything. Like, as far as canvases, I got certain techniques that they not like nothing new that nobody else can't do. But they don't like there's certain things I just don't show people, you know what I mean? I do that, I do that. There's certain techniques that I may do that I don't need the world to be like, dang, that's what he did. So I do that in like my own spare time, but on the wall, like I might do a wall the size of that right there, and I might say boop boop, sketch it all out, and say you bust this, bust that. But I got the vision on paper, so I know the ultimate outcome should look like that. You kinda been doing that for a minute in different capacities. Yeah, even like the Chuco's wall. Chuco's, other mirrors I've done. Well, Ox actually helped me in East LA at a wall where I had the layout, my daughter helped. That was crazy. I had my daughter helping, and I had, I say, okay, bust this. But at the grand finale, I'll finesse it and then bring it to life that they don't have in their mind. But I'm always open, they might say, Hey, Kate, how about if you do this? So that's an overkill. I say, you know what, you're right. Because it's always good to get the input from other people because you know, sometimes we cook it and they might say it's too much salt in there, man. Take a little of that salt out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, we're gonna wrap this up.
SPEAKER_04Gotta get going. When you wanna do another one? We'll do another one soon, man. We do another one soon. We'll do part two, man. These conversations is good, man. These are some good conversations. I'm gonna give you some more heat, man, when we do another one. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03Like, like come out with some more. We're gonna come, we gon' we got part two coming up. We thank you guys for joining us on this uh nice sunny day in California, man, in Los Angeles.