The Style Writers
Sight Zilla and Menes One interview graffiti artists and graffiti writers.
The Style Writers
Merge Uti interview
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Interviewing the legend from Los Angeles, Merge One, the founder of the IWU graffiti crew.
Okay, so we back. Saizilla right here. Another interview. Um got a legend here, y'all, y'all don't know about. But if you grew up in South Central, y'all know about this legend. Now for me, um, Merge is the first black graffiti artist that I met. I met him before I met Search. So I didn't even know uh black people did graffiti till I met Merge. Now this dude been doing graffiti since he was 10 years old. Corruptable, breakdancer, uh veteran in the game. And if you don't know him, you about to get to know him. So much respect to Merge. Merge, what crew you rapping right now, man? How you doing?
SPEAKER_05I'm merge, M-E-R-G-E. I represent UTI, Rapid Transit, District Killers, R T D K. The Hardcore, THC.
SPEAKER_04I mean, there's been like there's been a lot of different merges out there. But uh merge is the OG merge. Um, don't get it twisted, it's only one merge, West Coast merge. Um, this is the only merge I ever known. And if there's any other merges out there, they gotta uh they can't coexist. But um right now, like where you see, where you how you feel about defiti right now, where it's at right now.
SPEAKER_05Shit. If these laws was in our time, we would have been in wreck shit and not have to suffer penalties in jail. Yeah, they made it easy, man. It just now it's just a movie now. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? It's just a movie. That's all it is. Back then it, I mean, back then it was the thrill of not getting caught. Yeah. Now they just took the thrill away. Cause they don't care. You're not getting arrested for it. So, you know, and then it made it so easy where everybody just spot jock and just get up now. There's no individual space unless you go on high or doing something unique.
SPEAKER_04I mean, graffiti is different now. I don't think it's what as as respected as it used to be. I mean, we watching the NBA Youngboy make a video about the name graffiti, but don't talk about no graffiti, but they're using the word to make it make the song or sound hard or sound, add more credibility, or more street or more hood. Same thing they do with the street art shit. But um, because graffiti is the original street art, it is the only street art. There's nothing street art about street art. Um, but uh, I mean, nowadays you got you got more females doing graffiti than ever. Which is good. And how you feel about the females doing graffiti right now?
SPEAKER_05That's great. Yeah. You need to be diverse men and females, you see what I'm saying? And it's crazy because a lot of females is really stepping out and showing, expressing themselves, you know? Yeah. They're not trying to become somebody twice. They they're doing their own shit. You see what I'm saying? And which is where we reflect back to NBA Youngboy. And the reason why I think the name of the song is graffiti is because graffiti is a form of expression. Yeah. In the art form. You understand what I'm saying? That's like, that's our First Amendment right expression. So graffiti is an expression. You see what I'm saying? So that's why I think he titled that as because uh, you know, what he's expressing on how he feels about life or uh, you know, some shit like that. You don't think he's doing it for clickbait? Like, I don't think so. Um I would wonder if he was a graffiti artist, but I don't see it. It just he might just express it, you know, because graffiti is a form of expression.
SPEAKER_04I mean, you got like shit like uh American graffiti. You got a restaurant on the East Coast called uh graffiti something. But is it the graffiti theme or graffiti base? Nah, is it is they got graffiti art in there, but they they using the, you know, they exploiting it. They I feel like they kind of like they kind of like uh taking away from the people to actually sacrifice their lives to do the graffiti and really take it seriously. They taking it to make a profit. It's not like they're giving back to graffiti artists. They're not by using the gotta think about it.
SPEAKER_05Anything that's made, anything that's invented, anything that's built, will be copied in due time. You see what I'm saying? Graffiti was back then like having a tattoo on your face trying to get a job. It wasn't happening. Now, it's been accepted and more in the world than it ever will be. And as far as like how it is graffiti being so easy in downtown or LA, the reason why is because pay people is not paying attention. And what's gonna happen is they're gonna let you do so much graffiti until it brings the value down on the properties. Oh yeah. And then what's gonna happen is they're gonna regentrify. And once they regentrify, the laws are gonna be a little bit different, extremely different, I should say, than what you think it's gonna be. So pretty much have fun doing it while you can because after they did regentrify the city, it's gonna be a whole different ball game.
SPEAKER_04Well, they did it, they did it once before. When uh when downtown LA was a whole different look. Yeah, they started regentrifying and and hamsters and stuff started moving down.
SPEAKER_05Now you got people walking their dogs at two o'clock in the morning. It's safe though. That's the crazy part. Downtown is one of the safest places in LA. Yeah. Even if you have smokers down there or or anything. You know, you could do so much crime down there, but nobody's really getting hurt. Nobody's getting robbed. You don't hear about people getting robbed in downtown like that. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Because it's being regentrified. Same thing happened in Oakland.
SPEAKER_04It's happening everywhere in New York. Everywhere. It's being regentified. They like pick the areas that they want to let go, let go the dirt, probably value drop.
SPEAKER_05And then another thing, you gotta understand. Los Angeles sits on flat surface. More flat surface than hills. Okay. So if anything, we don't get major fires. We get earthquakes, but we don't where it makes landslides. We don't get rain to where it makes landslides. We don't get super flooding because we're on flat land. You see what I'm saying? And the people the people that was here before us, but after the people that was here before them want this land back. Oh yeah. You see what I'm saying? Like you sitting in Baldwin Hills at the top. People get tired of sitting up there because it happens, they the house is uh in danger of falling.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they don't. At first, well, back in the day they ran to the suburbs. Yeah, but now they don't want to be in the suburbs now. The suburbs is where? In dangerous places? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Where it's hot, there's nothing out there. Or it's fire season. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? When it's rain season, it's flooding, muddy, we don't get that in the city. Yeah. So what you're gonna do? You're gonna buy it cheap. Yeah. And raise the shit up. At the time, it's not gonna be a lot of people living in California.
SPEAKER_04That means Los Angeles, I can't afford it. Oh, they it sound like they it seemed like they getting everybody out of here so they can have it for some type of uh certain type of class of people. You know, like California at that.
SPEAKER_05So that's what they want. They want to move everybody down south and here and there, but how do you think that's gonna affect the graffiti though? Like graffiti always gonna be graffiti. Unless they make a wall that anti-sprays the graffiti after you do it, like demolition man. But yeah, like I'm gonna.
SPEAKER_04Other than that, graffiti's gonna be graffiti. It's always gonna be a way of doing graffiti. Well, they got robots now that putting out fires. So uh They're gonna be probably have robots painting over walls.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. But then I posted on my stories, they said in the future 40% of the job is gonna be taken by AI, so artificial intelligence, so you gotta watch out for that. Yeah. But yeah, it's all different types of form of graffiti. It's not just using spray paint. Yeah. You got wheat paste and you got, you know, you got different ones. So if you can't spray paint something, somebody could put some wheat paste up. Yeah. You're always supposed to build. No? There's always a form of graffiti. Thanks, Search. Yeah, search. Rest and peace search. Search is one of the masters of the not the wheat paste, but the sticker game. He's the reason why everybody makes the stickers they make right now. Yeah. He's the first person that ever detailed a sticker for the streets.
SPEAKER_04On the international level, though, too.
SPEAKER_05On the international level. His reach.
SPEAKER_04You know what I'm saying? Rest and peace search. Yeah, he was the first one doing it. Did it and everybody hopped on. Yeah, but you know, rest in peace, all the other homies too. Uh John 57 passed away. Smacked over, Thor, Blake. Script, 47er. Alec, D Row, Triggs, White. White, Miles, Miles, relics, and taken into Eerie in the same manner sedak.
SPEAKER_03Lee, Lear, and even we believe that our problem is one not to be a few.
SPEAKER_04Jackal SAP for the violation of human rights. A lot of lot of a lot of different people. Azure. Yeah, that was my boy. Yeah, rest in peace to all the homies that uh chill it.
SPEAKER_05I'm one of them guys that been here for a long time. Started in 89. And you never stop.
SPEAKER_04How you feel about the uh the new generation of graffiti graffiti artists and how they move and how they get their spots and you know how they lack respect for certain uh the L oh the OGs and the and the system that was already put in place. That's right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05They can really walk a mile in our shoes.
SPEAKER_03Where the federal government itself has proven that it is unwilling, then they'd be able to like talk.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. But like I said, the way graffiti is structured right now made it too simple. So yeah, go out there, you can talk your shit and get a high spy, you can get a big spy, you can blow up, you can whatever. But in our era, we had to sneak that shit. You know that. Yeah. We used to go out on missions on rollers and shit, and we used to make sure we had to look out. Mm-hmm. Or we catch them a spot, we had a person that looks out while a person catch a spot and then switch off. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? That's how we was doing it now. If they just don't care, you're not getting arrested. Yeah. So it makes it much easier for They're giving out tickets now. Or even if that. Even if they arrest you, they not even do it daily, you don't care. Because it's not gonna it's not gonna do nothing until the regenrification happens. Once people start really putting money into properties and shit like that, you know. You can go anywhere in Los Angeles and catch a spot. You can catch a spot in front of the police. I think we can do that.
SPEAKER_04You got a um top five? Got a mount Mount Rush more of a graffiti, graffiti artist for you? A Mount Rush more of a graffiti? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05What's your top five? Let me see. I'm gonna have create in there, you know, create. He's he's one of the persons who showed me a different way of painting. So create this one of them. And then uh Cleck. I put Fleck up there. Because Cleck is a complicated piece of, even though he has a basic style too, but it's just complic it's the way he his fill-ins and his detail is. You got um Revoke is one of my two. Mr. Jason Revoke, yeah. He's one of my favorites. Okay. He's a style bender. He's a letter bender. A lot of people are not letterbender to me. He really letter bend. Uh then I have uh search is one of my graffiti guys because he's on the rush more because he's the actual inventor of the stop tags motherfuckers put up today. Yeah. That's been made with machines. Mind you, he didn't make with machines, he made them with straight hands. Oh yeah. I was there, I was a witness to it.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, we both he made our stencil. Made the stencil from scratch. He made the stencil from it. And made every sticker by hand. There wasn't nobody printing up stickers out at a copyplace. No, he does that shit by hand.
SPEAKER_05He'd go get the shit from uh the post office, he'd take the whole stack, and then get to work. And he'd have very different variations of stops. Yeah. Like 40 or 50 different variations. He'll fill up a peace book.
SPEAKER_04Um You got any um honorable mentions? Honorable mentions. Um I think we got hope. We got what one more? You said uh I got one more. I think you said uh I said Create. Create plaque. Clack search search review. So you got one more. One more before we get to the honorable mentions.
SPEAKER_05Another person that I enjoy watching and painting is Ewok. Ewok? Ewok from MSK. Okay. I like his style.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I've always been a fan of his style.
SPEAKER_05I like him. That dude just really fucking dope. Mm-hmm. That would be my five. No, you gotta create because create is a technical piecer that makes sure that his in his words make sure all your pieces hold weight.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_05Then uh fleck, his filling and his his his uh complex style of filling and using thin lines for designs and and uh search sticker king. He'll show you how to mop and do some stickers real life. You see what I'm saying? Revoke is a letter bender, a true letter bender, you see what I'm saying? Cause like it's like a you don't pretty much see the same style of revoke. Not even the same color skin. You see what I'm saying? And then the last one. What was my last one for last one?
SPEAKER_04Last one was uh We were trying to figure out the last one. Yeah, one more. We got uh, if I'm not mistaken, we had Create, play, Search, Revolt. Oh, Ewok. And Ewok, my bad, yeah, Ewok, my bad. There you go, Ewok.
SPEAKER_05Ewok because he knows how to use his letters and negative space. Which that was what Revolve told me to make sure you use your negative space to create your peace. You see what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_04So okay, that's your five.
SPEAKER_05Um honorable mentions, anybody rest in peace, you know, search, quite miles, ghosts, all my UTI members. Yeah. All my father soldiers from different crews, you know, OJ, MTA, you know. Yeah. A lot of different people that I've met over the years that has passed away nails.
SPEAKER_04How you feel about uh, how you feel about um to Augs didn't make the uh Mount Ross Moore. Say Aug? Aug, yeah, Aug.
SPEAKER_05Augur? Yeah. Augur is a cool piecer. He comes with a different style of piecing. He liked to use a lot of uh like space alien type stuff. Yeah. You know, he's a great piecer, but he's not he's not up there as far as them. Cause you know, years, years equal experience. Yeah. Years and time equal experience, you see what I'm saying? Yeah. You know, he probably he probably done a lot. I respect that kid. Yeah. He's a good kid. I remember when he was writing ever.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I remember when I met him when he was writing ever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? Um, you got a girl, what's the greatest girl writer of all time? The greatest girl writer. Besides Pink. Besides Pink from New York? Yeah. Greatest girl, greatest girl writer all time, Los Angeles. We'll make it easy. Los Angeles, all time, make it easy. Yeah. Let's see. We're not talking about Miami, girls from Miami, New York. We're just gonna focus on LA. Girls. Yes. This one girl, greatest of all time. The greatest of all time? Yeah. Wow. A goat. Who's the greatest of all time of female graffiti in LA? Hey, Blossom.
SPEAKER_05Blossom? No. Why? Because Blossom been there for a very long. Okay. Very long time. She has decades in this and she's still going. I've never met her. Give me another female that's been running at once blossom right now. I can't think of no other ones. You see what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_04Blossom is MTA. She's old school. OG. I've I've heard stories about her from OGs that don't even write no more. From the 80s.
SPEAKER_05She's the LA GOAT. She's been going for many, many moves. Okay. You see what I'm saying? You know, you got Omega for my crew that's been around with Blossom. You see what I'm saying? You got Chalk. Yeah. But Chalk, I don't even know if she's writing anymore. You know? Chalk is old school too. But Blossom still to this day is out there catching burners, catching bombs, and tag.
SPEAKER_04See, I I I started writing late in the game. I never seen chalk up. I met her a few times, I'll seen her a few times, but I've always seen Blossom up. Even to this day, I still see Blossom up.
SPEAKER_05Like even my homegirl from RTDK, which is like Cuddles. Cuddle, that's the homegirl. Yeah, Cuddles from RTDK. And she was still doing, she gave me a go too because she she said she paved the way for a lot of female writers in this game. You know what I mean? Cuddles is the homie.
SPEAKER_04That's a RTDK TNT. She's still putting up stickers and doing purses and all that stuff, so props of cuddles, wherever you had out there. Mm-hmm. Uh shit, man. Like, you know, when I came out, a way late in the game, people were battling more. Now you don't see nobody, you know, crews don't battle no more. So what do you what you think was going on with that?
SPEAKER_05They the last like crew battle they really had was the silver and black. Okay. And I think that was the best they were doing that. Okay. Um but that was it. But as far as hardcore street battles, like to settle beasts, or just a friendly battle, or shit, even for money or whatever. Whatever mistakes may be, you don't get that. You don't get that raw uncut. That's another thing about graffiti these days. You don't get that raw uncut, like me and you sitting right here and we can be talking, and it's like, you got a crew, I got a crew. You wanna you wanna battle? Yeah. I mean it used to be all whole crew. All city. Buses, trains, walls, anything that that has a blank space. I remember it was 90 92, I think 92, 93. I just came back from Riverside. And I've been standing in the same place forever. So I'm looking, I got on Normandy and I'm walking, I'm looking. And the AIAs have was in the was battling. You said the AIAs? Yeah, artists in action. Okay. Sis copy and all of them. They was battling, I forgot who they were battling with, but they they went from King all the way down to to like Imperial past Imperial. Back and forth, tags. Okay. Tops. You see what I'm saying? Topping each other and all that, you know, capping. I forgot what crew it was, but I know AIA's was one of them.
SPEAKER_04I saw a few battles I remember. W-A-I-T-K-O. Yeah, that was that was a that was a pretty that was one of the That was a roller battle. Yeah. Oh another battle I remember is uh another battle I remember is the J the what's it called the BS crew versus the J2H's. I was a part of that. Yeah. That was uh from J2H back in the day. Okay just too hard. J2H's are up back in the day, you know. Jane Hollywood. And then there was another I saw the SM Dubs were battling, I think, with the LAPDs or the LAPDs were battling a lot of crews too. LAPD also had a lot of people uh crews. Yeah. What's up, Ash 9? Yeah, we're having a um LAPD, man. I don't see LAP. Where's Ash 9 at? They don't like no more.
SPEAKER_05I don't know. You know, but then graffiti is about longevity. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04How long you can stay in the game. Man, what's the key to staying in the game, though? Because a lot of people be dying off or they just die off. Or they or they wife kill them off or.
SPEAKER_05Don't you know family? You have family. Family normally happens in it stops graffiti. Or you growing up and working and supporting yourself, it stops graffiti. But some people take graffiti and and put it in their everyday life. So I'll go to work and then go bombing after work. See what I'm saying? Or I'll I'll I'll be able to go to my meetings because I got that day off. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? A lot of people who fall out the game fall out because they want to fall out. Because you can do one or two pieces, three pieces a year. You know what I mean? You can do five pieces a year, you still be good. Yeah. There's only four seasons in a year. If you do a piece every uh each season, you did it four pieces a year, you're still active. Yeah. You know what I mean? I guess people just You don't have to bomb. You don't have to go tagging. Yeah. You even just do a permission wall. You're still, you're still painting.
SPEAKER_04Some people, they just, you see who's really in it, who's really about it with the longevity. And it was just a phase. It was just something for them to do, you know. The ones that have phases, you know what?
SPEAKER_05A lot of it's a lot of them that pretty much look at it as a phase, but that was good at it. Yeah, yeah. And it was before they time, and they never realized it, and they stopped.
SPEAKER_04Dude, I like seeing, I used to like seeing Doom from um, that used to be from TKO. They came K4P. That was a dude that was like super talented. I love seeing his stuff, and I don't I don't see him no more. I wish I could. I know he's still out there doing his thing, but I ain't seen that done so long. Yeah. Um, how long you gonna be doing graffiti, man? I know we used to talk about it, we're gonna do it till the wheels fall off. Until my fingers stop.
SPEAKER_05I I got arthritis now. Okay. 45 years old. I still paint. Some people think that it's childage at me, I still paint on people's walls. But me, I find it exciting. I think it's it's the thrill, it's always gonna be a thrill to me. Like people like shoplifting. Yeah. Which was a part of graffiti. But now it's just graffiti is graffiti. I love graffiti. You see what I'm saying? I'm not gonna stop painting. It might get rusty, and I I I I have a lot of paint too.
SPEAKER_04That's the crazy part. That's true though. I mean, shoplifting is uh, you can call that childish too. People still do it. People still still're but you know, but graffiti is different from different people. I mean, for people it's therapy, some people escape, some people it's just uh it's a part of my life. It's just who they are.
SPEAKER_05It's a part of my life. It's never sport. I can never go nowhere and a motherfucker say, or can't say, or you're merge, you know? Yeah. Like, aren't you merged? Like, yeah. Damn, fool, I ain't seen you in a long time. My name is always gonna be my name, so you can't take that from me. You know what I mean? Even if I stopped writing, it's like I can't stop writing because my name is still there. Yeah. I made it a household name. You see what I'm saying? I ingredient that in people's heads. And I used to have people used to come to me all day, like, man, I used to see your name up on the walls everywhere. Like we used to be going to school and your name up on the freeway, and this and this, and that. That's when times was fun. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Now it's just like I can go hit that spot and in broad daylight at night. Get in trouble.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, man, that's true, man. Shit. Um, what's going on with IWU, man? IWU is still a kind of crew.
SPEAKER_05IWU is still a crew. But I haven't been with them in so long. I had a couple of members who rest in peace. Rest in peace to uh uh homieson, which was IWU back in the days, MTA, T H C, Puck, IWU, Keg, IWU.
SPEAKER_04What's up with uh solid and i and um ions?
SPEAKER_05Ions still stay in the neighborhood, and too bad solid still stay in Hawthorne. Okay, taking care of their family and shit like that. That was a legend, IWU legends right there. It was us. Ink was used. But yeah, they the IWUs is everybody doing something different.
SPEAKER_04Everybody doing their own thing. I mean, like what crews you see up right now in in South Central LA right now. Because South Central LA don't get enough credit. But there'd be a lot of crews and a lot of riders that come up out of South Central LA that don't get we come up out of South Central LA.
SPEAKER_05I tell you the truth.
SPEAKER_01Like the base die.
SPEAKER_05As far as a black writer, you really are your generation. You're underneath, way under me. So it's like you're like the last of the the killers.
SPEAKER_04You see what I'm saying? I mean, you got what is it, me, Tahoe? There's some new riders. Some new black riders that came out after me though.
SPEAKER_05You see what I'm saying? Cause you you got out there and showed motherfuckers how to bomb.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, jokes is telling me, um let us jokes telling me, um jokes from JC at JW was telling me um how being warned, he blamed me for everybody doing the same bombing style, cause now everybody got lazy.
SPEAKER_05Nah, you you actually said it, you said a trend. But you that that was an easy way for a motherfucker to get up. You you figured how to get up fast because it only takes you about less than three minutes to do your your your vibe. Probably two minutes.
SPEAKER_04I mean, it's all love. I mean, I love j jokes, jokes is a homie, but uh I didn't I can't say that I uh originated that I got that from Coke too. Watching them Kings Destroy. So you gotta you gotta also think about it.
SPEAKER_05You made it to where is a repeated thing for you to go out and do it easy. Yeah, and that's what people know it's it's not the style, it's how fast you got up and got out of there. Yeah. Because that was the name of the game. Get up and get out. Don't take too long on a piece. I mean on the on the bomb. Don't take too long if you burn it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Now with the name of the game, and you made it to where you can get up so fast and have so many burners in so many places. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? The time that you spend from uh a 12 o'clock to six o'clock, you'll probably do 50 outlines compared to the next person that's still, you know, trying to bust uh real fast, but it's taking them four hours to do something once for one.
SPEAKER_04I I think it would, you know what it is? I think it's uh it was a different time back then, like you were saying earlier. Like now you could just sit out there and not even worry about it. Man, you can cover the motherfucking change while you pay. Yeah. It wasn't like that back then when we were painting. I was talking to uh 281 from PM, Kat, talking to that dude, and we were just talking about some of the stories. Uh talking about some of the stories that was going on, how it's not, it's not uh, it's not the same. A motherfucker can just right now go out there and do a roller right now. In broad daylight. In broad daylight. And people just go look. I literally went and tried to do a roller in broad daylight years ago when I was paying and got arrested. Ended up in jail. And had a quote of court and got put on probation for a whole year. For a whole year. Trying to do a roller in broad daylight. I got three years probation behind this business. So um it's uh it's crazy, man. It's crazy. But yeah, man. I just want to make sure we people know who you are. People know before this world ends, I want people to know who Merge is, how big of an impact he was you are, and and how important you are to South Central graffiti. Um set a trend out here. I was getting up fast. I mean, we were bus hopping, we were doing a lot of shit.
SPEAKER_05Man, we was doing all kinds of shit. We was going to washers, busting in washes, we was bus hopping, majority bus hopping. Yeah. It's like you're an RTD killed him.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05We doing shit. Uh racking. Yeah. Cashing in. You see what I'm saying? Beach. All kinds of shit. Everything that was fun.
SPEAKER_04Um, you got any uh anything you wanna, any final words you want to say? Anything you want the world to know? The king is back.
SPEAKER_06Alright, man.
SPEAKER_05No, I'm out of Vegas. Like I live in Vegas, so anytime I come to LA, I I I get the paint. But anytime I touch LA, I'm gonna put in some work, really. Yeah, I still, yeah. I am merge one from U T I T H R T D K. All right, man. It's good.