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Graffiti from the late 70’s early 80’s
from my man ENTER
By Troy L. SmithSummer of 2007 What’s up my brother thank you for your time Id like to get right to the point, where were you born and raised? I was born on the East side of Harlem and moved to the Bronx on the Concourse and then over by you, across from The Grant projects in Harlem. This all happened before I reached the age of 9 years. When did you first start getting this desire to want to write graffiti? That was about 1978; I was about 12 years
old. It just so happened I was going to school downtown in the Chelsea
area at I.S. 70. Which was on 18th street across from Charles
Evans Hughes high school. It just seemed like everybody in that school
was writing graffiti. So you were going to school downtown, did you see a lot of white kids doing graffiti? Yeah guys like Dante Ross who became a big producer for 3rd Base, he wrote SCIENCE. There were a whole lot of dudes in the school, but I can’t remember at this moment their names, mind you I only went to that school for one year. But when I first started out I didn’t write ENTER. Long before I started writing I used to ride skateboards with your man Ernest and Carl from GRANT, and Harold from Morningside. I remember that whenever we would stop riding they would pull out markers and start tagging s--- up. I could never read it and didn’t really understand it. I wasn’t into it at the time, but I remember that this is what they did. One time they wrote in my building and the super saw it and I had to clean it up. Then your man Jesse from upstairs used to write Snake1, and he was always selling graffiti art and he would ring our bell trying to get us to buy some graffiti art from him too. So one day my friend from I.S. 70 comes to me and he has this El Marko. So he was like “let’s go tagging.” We were both writing FAKE. So what happened was we started Motion tagging, everyday we would take the train together to school and back home and tag up the trains with our El Marko’s and s---, and we just knew we were hip. One day I got mad at him and we stopped talking for about a week or something. So I was like to spite him I am going to write another name and get it up crazy. Do you remember the other names you wrote before ENTER? Yeah, I went to this dude that wrote and I
can’t remember what he wrote right now, but I wrote a couple of names
down on paper just to see how he would write it for me. Then I was going
to copy how he wrote it and just try to use that style. I had written
SPOT AND NATURE. Those were the first two tags I was using officially. That is a cool name, NATURE. Yeah, so I started putting those two tags up trying to get it up more then him. Then I let him know I was writing those two names. Then I started writing Master1 for a minute. Then I went back to homeboy and gave him two more names. I gave him ENTER and I gave him MASTER1. So who was homeboy that was creating these styles for you? I can’t remember what he wrote but his name was Mike. He was in upper classes in school and he was known for graffiti. Right.
So homeboy writes ENTER on a paper for me and
MASTER1. Although I liked writing NATURE, I stopped writing that and
started writing ENTER because something about ENTER had caught me. I
then stopped writing MASTER1 and stayed with ENTER. I loved it. So you don’t know why you picked ENTER from the very beginning? I guess it had to do with the ENTER sign? It might have, but I just gave him some names and ENTER was one of the names. So I started focusing on the name ENTER and started getting real excited about this and just went full blast with it. So now I go looking for Ernest, Carl and Harold around the way. The first person I see is Harold and I tell him “yo I write Graffiti now.” He was like “yeah O.K.,” so he starts taking me around to the bus yards on 129th and Amsterdam and the lays ups. The 1 train lay ups between 135th street and 145th street and Broadway. These were the first two spots I really started on. What exactly is a lay up?
I remember Barter, he was older than us, and Air was my man, a real cool Spanish brother from around the way. Yeah Barter was a little bit older but he was
my main partner. I met him with this kid that wrote SLICK. They were
Motion tagging on the 1 train one night. What exactly is Motion tagging? When the train is moving and your riding just like anybody else and you just put up a tag! Some people will keep on tagging just to see how far they can go with it, as far as moving from car to car. Or just bomb one car in particular. Right. That is motion tagging but no one would really know, or they would be under the impression that maybe you went to a Lay Up or the Yard. But you know! I got you. All right now, how did your family and neighbors feel about this new hobby that you had? (ENTER starts laughing.) My moms and them damn sure didn’t like it. It wasn’t like they embraced it. How long did it take before they found out and how did they find out? I think they found out by seeing ink on my jackets and clothes. I remember you having it on your hands a lot. I used to say, “Damn is he writing on his hands!” Yeah once they started seeing that and they saw the spray can, and really to this day I am not sure but it might have been my sister or someone who told my parents. Then they found out what my tag was and they knew what it looked like when they would see it. (Troy starts laughing.) You know what used to bug me out was whenever we would go to your house you would have tag’s all over your walls. What was that all about kid? Like how were you able to get away with that with your parents! Also what possessed you to put that on your bedroom walls? Oh and of course it was put in place like a graffiti artist would, and not like a little kid writing on a wall type thing. But I still could not figure out you doing that. Well I guess they felt like if that’s what he is doing, and that is what he is into, then it’s o.k. as long as he is doing it in the house! But when they saw it in the street they would be like “s--- how did you get your s--- on this train or what was you doing way down town!” So your mother and father would see it on trains all around? Yeah and my sister would see it on buses going to school, cause sometimes I would bomb the inside of buses too. What about you’re neighbors, the Super and the people that owned the stores? Well I never bombed my building. What about other people’s buildings like 1295? (building in The Grant Projects.) (ENTER starts laughing.) Yeah well I did
other peoples buildings, but not mine. See because if I did that in my
building it would only be one person that did that. Right, right. See it would be different if it were a whole lot of other tags in the building and s--- like that. Then I would have put s--- up. Being as I was the only one then they would have been like your son is a menace! Alright my brother you are going to have to do some defining for us. Define Racking! We used to do a lot of that. Well Racking is like what they call boosting. Racking is when we are going to steal paint, ink and markers so we can go Bombing! How did you go about it, and how much would you take? I had certain spots I used to hit, Woolworth’s and certain hardware stores. You also would want to wear certain kinds of coats back then. So the big goose downs were always a favorite. (Coats with inside pockets, so when you would take the cans you would just stuff them in your sleeves or the inside pockets.) A lot of writers would have stitch pockets on their coats and you just keep racking up and then you get up out of there! To me a good rack is if I get up to10 cans and better.
Do you have a legendary day in your past when you went racking? Not off hand, because I didn’t go just one day a week. I rack as much as every day if I got the chance. Plus I racked different things. One day it could be markers; another day it could be ink. I mean I used to take cases of ink! Just ink itself? Yeah-just ink. Matter fact I worked at a store that was legendary as far as Graffiti goes. I worked at a stationary store on Broadway called Bombay’s! And I worked there specifically for the weekends to be able to RACK UP!!!! (Troy is laughing real hard.) How long did that last and did they ever pick up on it? The Rack was, I would throw out the garbage and put the s--- in the garbage. I use to rack up cases of Marsh ink or Flow Master. This other kid that use to write graffiti worked there also. This mother f----- came back in the store with the garbage and a case of ink in his hand giving it to the owner, and I got fired. Homeboy ratted you out! Pretty much because he knew who put it in there because he knew I wrote. So you ain’t crack his mask or nothing? Nah. I let it ride and I didn’t know who he was, so we never kicked it or nothing like that. But a lot of writers used to come through. But racking is when you go out to steal the ink and what ever else you need to put in work. How many times have you got caught and served time for it? I only got caught writing graffiti twice. No I am talking about racking? Racking, never other than that time in Bombay. Damn never, isn’t that something, and all that stuff you took and you knew they were watching you! Well I would haul ass! I’ve seen them watching me and knew that I was doing it and they would try to get at me and I would haul ass. You in flight and them n------ is not catching you! I never got caught in Lee art supplies on 57th
street or Pearl Paint on Canal Street. Lee Art Supplies had the Mimi
wides and the Uni wides and others. So you often seen your graffiti comrades who also were racking? Did ya’ll try and stay away from each other while ya’ll did your thing? Well a lot of times everybody didn’t want to give up their rack. Because you didn’t want to blow that up and you didn’t have anything for your self later on. Certain crews would have their specific place to rack and no one else knew and they would stay there racking. People would spread it out because you never wanted to dead your supply letting some one else know where the f--- the rack is at. And the whole thing about racking up is to make sure you took enough so you had your own supply. So even if you didn’t go you had a stash at your house, and you would be like a store your self. You were self-sufficient. (Troy starts laughing.) So did you ever sell to other writers? Nah, but I had a lot of ink so I would help you and make a marker or if you didn’t have enough ink I would give you some ink, s--- like that! But I wasn’t selling any. So have you ever paid for your material? Yeah in the beginning but I racked more then I paid! (ENTER laughs.) Some times you might buy something and take something, yeah know just to get something. Make it look good. Alright moving right along, what is a Yard? A Yard is main place where the trains are held up. So what would you call a Bus depot? Just a Bus depot, or is there a slang word for that? We would just call it a bus yard! Or let’s hit the Buses! As far as the Yard is concerned my favorite yard was the Ghost yard! Where would that be? That Yard is on 205th street and
Broadway. Why did they call it the Ghost yard? I always felt they called it the Ghost Yard because it was so big. Most yards are pretty much the same but this yard was by the water and I guess kind of spooky. So I guess that is why dudes called it the Ghost Yard. So every one called it that name? Yeah everybody called it that. So what were the other yards called? Most of the other yards were named after the train that came out of there. But the thing about the Ghost yard was that that yard would have a lot of different trains in there. So you wouldn’t see one specific line in the ghost yard. So I could go to the ghost yard and there would be the IND and BMT lines. So you might hit the A’s and the C’s. Some E trains might be in there. The Independent line in particular would be more so in there. So why would those trains be more of interest to you then say the trains from other boroughs? The J’s, the M’s etc.
So that was why they called it the Writers Bench, because people would sit there and take pictures as well as critique it? Plus cats would go there to meet other
writers. I remember one time going up to the writers bench just to see who
was up their and that is how I met Presweet and some other people. Presweet I believe is either Dota Rock or JDL’s cousin. He was cool people; he put me down with the Rascals. But 149th street is in doors. I figured that ya’ll would name a spot Writers bench because the train was on the out side and people from all around could see as opposed to 149th street which is in doors! So what other places were called Writers benches? I only knew about those two places. See you have to know that I never really ventured out to other boroughs as far as street tagging would be concerned. You know bombing in the street. I would go to the Bronx for the 2 yard, the D yard or certain other trains where it would be enough that it could get out there on its own. I didn’t necessarily have to go to Brooklyn or Queens. I have been out there but it would be mostly motion tagging, or I might have went out there for other reasons’. See because I started knowing that I was already getting city wide just hitting the trains at certain yards that I knew would run through those other boroughs any way. So you wouldn’t know that I was from Harlem or where I was from, but you would know that I was up. I feel that walking on the tracks to put your name up would be extremely dangerous. It seems as though some one would be ready to s--- on them self! One night I went to the Bronx to hit the 6 train that was laid up on Jefferson and Zerega Avenue. Which was an elevated lay up. So when you hitting that line you are coming out side. So that line is out and up. Right you could fall through the tracks. Not really but you had lay ups that were in the tunnel and then you had ones that were outside up along the tracks. And the real key for a lot of those trains was you needed a key! Damn.
Some times the only way to get a key was if some one had a skeleton key and they gave you a copy, or you snatched one from a conductor! Did you ever do it?
Yeah I did it. Back then you had a lot of different variables or scenarios with the conductors. If you saw a conductor and you could get to his keys you would snatch it off his waist. Some dudes would try and go into their pockets and try and snatch it. It depended. Mines was a little easier because he had them visible. All I had to do was snatch them and run. So now I am running but I don’t even know if I got the right keys, I am hoping that I do. You don’t have time to think because it’s a no brainier, you just got to do it and go. And keep it moving right. So now you running through the train station knowing that at any moment a cop could come out of no where! Well the conductor isn’t running behind me because he is on the train. But sometimes they will freeze the train for something like that. It depends like I said, if you haul ass a lot of times they ain’t hauling ass after you. Not back then any way. Now everything has changed they have put all those laws together. We use to do crazy s---. Throw s--- at a conductor if he is driving by, even smack him. You know all that dumb s--- when we were kids. Alright now, what is a Throw Up? A throw up is more or less a quick form of getting your name up with out having to do a Piece or a Burner. So it would be more like Bubble style. My brother you have to define this because many of us do not know this jargon. Well you see more throw ups on the side of buildings or in the street. Like I said it was a quick way to put your name up consecutively. That’s why they call it a throw up. The whole thing about a throw up is lets say there is five trains in a tunnel right, and you have a lot of paint but you are not trying to do one burner where you would use all your paint to do just that burner using mad colors. So you would just say f--- it, I am going to do some throw ups. So you would maybe hit a certain section of the train real quick in bubble style letters, fill it in real light and give it an out line and keep it moving. So the time it would take you to do a quick throw up, that’s why it is called a throw up because it is meant to be quick! I got you. Whereas you might not have time to be sitting around doing a burner, because it takes time. Also that was one of the ways to know if some one was in the Lay Up, because if you were on a train it usually had to go through the lay up yard to get to were it had to go. So we would be in the middle of the train and you would sniff and if you smelled paint you knew some one was in the Lay Up. Damn! So that was a sign for anybody that wrote.
Soon as we went through the Lay Up we would go into the middle car and
sniff and see if we smell spray paint. If we smelled paint we knew that
writers were still in there or just left. So you never knew how much
time you had left or if they were seen or what the case maybe before
Police came or the work bums come or some body that is going to chase
you up out of there. So you trying to hit it up real quick and get as
much done as possible. There were days where you could stay up in there
all day. Ain’t that something! Sleep and just play, or whatever you f---ing wanted to do. (Troy starts laughing.) There were other days you would just be in there about your business trying to get in and get out. Right. So if you wanted to get in and out and still
have a nice little something on it that was visible on the out side, you
would do a quick throw up. What’s the difference between a Burner and a Piece? A Piece would be more definition in terms of just a little style with maybe some colors.
And that is a Top to Bottom? No a top to bottom is when you do the Top of the train car to the bottom of the train car with paint. And Whole cars are when you do the entire whole car. A dude might say “whole car top to bottom.” Which means he did a whole car top to bottom charters and everything. A Burner is like when a dude just does a specific style with say arrows and all the colors, the dimensions on it and everything like that. With characters that is a burner. A PIECE is smaller then a Burner. Right a piece would be a little simpler then a burner. All those years kid I thought a piece was bigger then everything. Nah the burner was like you would just put your Wild style on and just get real crazy with it and do it up with all the colors. A dude might do a piece where he is only using two colors. His primary and his out line! He might have sky blue and outline it with black and maybe high light the black with white. It’s not like a throw up but it is more defined with a certain type of style. But it’s a piece! The Burner you’re going all out, putting your foot in it. Alright what about Bombing? Bombing is when you just hitting everything! Hitting inside the train, the out side of the train your just going ape s--- crazy. Bombing is when we are just going to put it up, we just putting in work hitting everything. If it is sitting or moving I don’t give a f---, we putting it on there! On a seat it’s all good? On a seat, on the ceiling, the floor where ever! (ENTER chuckles.) There was one dude who was a cousin of my friend and he used to write K56 and he was the President of TKA. The Kool Artists. His cousin wrote M56, he was known because he would hit the top of the outside of the train. The old trains use to have like a camel hump. I know what you are talking about, those them joints that had the fans in them? Right, exactly he would hit those and put M56. That was like his signature spot. Actually their whole family wrote. The brother was FDT56. He wrote with SALSA! So he was old school like a legend. FDT56 was ridiculous; he was from the IZ to WIZ days. The DT part was because there name was Del Torre. They were from Queens and the click they had was The Kool Artist. I also ran with a kid that wrote Ram1 and he also wrote One and his click was TCT The Crazy Team. His brother was KC3 from TNA. But his brothers tagging partner was a dude that wrote KC5. So KC3 and KC5 were up big time. I ran with other dudes like BAN2. I was around a whole lot of them as well. Some I knew some I didn’t know. Let me ask you something did you guys ever have dares like home boy might say “now you have to put your name up on a conductor!” Nah not really, because that is the kind of
attention that you don’t want, because that involves police. Bad
enough that you snatching keys from the conductor but you really don’t
need the attention. But back then you guys were so daring it seemed as though anything was possible. Yeah but a dare might be something like hitting the side of a building on the sixth floor, and you might have to climb up s--- to get to it. Like you might see dudes hitting bridges or something like that. Or you might go across the triboro and you see where the Long Island Railroad rides and you be like how the f--- did they get up there!
(Troy is laughing.) You know what I am saying, so that would be more
daring doing s--- like that. Now you hear about dudes tying a rope to
the side of the building and climb half way down and do a piece. Now
that’s doing extra s---. Its more daring then the next, so you got
your name some where and n------ is standing there trying to figure out
how did you get it there? That’s like me and my man BARTER went to the
2 yard one night and we did a piece, and we didn’t know what train we
were hitting we just hit the first train that we could get to. It was
cold as f--- that day. Cans felt like they were sticking to our hands.
Come to find out that train that we hit was the shuttle train. So for
the longest
And nobody knew it. Nah, we would get chased out of there by conductors and motormen, they would see you bombing the train and pull their train up to you and bang on the window and s---. Then you had Hecky and Ski they were the known detectives that were looking for graffiti writers. So what’s the longest you have seen your tag up on a train or bus? I mean like you might have had one or two tags up where you would walk by and say “dam my tag is still up!” Well it could last for a couple of months. O.K., give me the type of different markers that were being used. I know about Uni, Mini and Pilot but what are the other names? You had the King Flow pen, which was by Flow Master. They had two types of pens. Flow master sold ink but they came out with two pens, one of the pens looked like a regular pen but they had a T tip. I remember that one I loved it I use to juice it up and write before the ink came out and made a mess! Right exactly. Then they had another version
of that pen but it was much longer and bigger then the first one and it
still had the same T tip but the tip was bigger. Then Marsh had a
version of that same pen. You also had Pilots and Magnums. Was the Magnum bigger then the Pilot? Nah it was separate from the Pilot but Magnums were hot. Those tips were wider then a pilot. Then you had the Marsh markers, which were more similar to the pilot marker. But my favorite was the Magnum. What was the difference between a Uni and a Mini?
A mini was a smaller version of a uni. It was called a Uni Wide that had a big wide tip. But it was a skinny neck with a wide tip? Nah it was just long… the Uni wide and mini were gray. And you can take the tips out and you could pour ink into it and put the tip back on and give it a flick or two and the ink would come up and you would just start bombing. Or some people would reverse the tip because when you turned over the tip you would see that the tip had three grooves on it so when you would tag you would see a middle part with two outlines on the sides of your name. Then you would have what they would call mops where you would use an eraser. An Eraser? Yeah like the school eraser! You could take a pilot and take the tip out and put some of that eraser in there. But all mops were really about getting the drips when you tagged. So you would use a whole lot of ink with a mop. Now some times people would take a razor and split the tips on a pilot or they would do the same thing to a Magnum. But mopes are where you would get the crazy drips. Do you still see those types of markers today? Yeah I heard there is a spot down town that still sells them. Have you seen any new type of markers today that they didn’t have when you were putting in work? Actually somebody had a magazine that I saw where some one was selling mops. (ENTER is laughing.) If you don’t know how to make them they sell them now. They even sell the fat caps. What’s that? If you had a spray can there were certain caps that could make your name spray fatter then others, and those would be called fat caps! One way of making it was we could stick a safety pin in the hole and try and jimmy the cap so when it sprayed it made the words fatter. Those were different little tricks that writers used to use. But now they sell them so you don’t even have to go through all that. So to me today I feel a lot of it had lost its fun. Why do you say that? Well it’s a different time now, because before you had to be innovative and come up with ways and ideas to come up with a lot of these different things. Even with the mops, some people would use the baby bottles; some people would use a deodorant bottle. Some people would use a body from a different marker; you know what I am saying it was more innovative. You would rap it with electric tape because the ink sometimes was so strong that it could melt and come through. So you would rap it with the electric tape so it wouldn’t give and be too soft. Right. So these are a lot of things people might not
know now because you are taking the easy route because you will say f---
it I will buy a mop instead of making one. So that was the fun in being
able to do it your self. You had some dudes that would just take the
whole can and just put an eraser on top of it and write! I did that a
couple of times and you just have a crazy drip when you write like that.
And you did a lot of this to out do the next person. That was what the
competitiveness of graffiti was about. I mean it was about the fame,
don’t get it twisted but you also tried to out do the next person. As
far as what they are doing I am doing it this way. If they are writing
their name this way, then I am going to do it backwards upside down. You
think of all kinds of s---! Alright what are the different styles of writing? One of the first ones you spoke about was the Bubbles. Well the bubbles were more dealing with the pieces and burners. Styles in terms of the written hand people are always trying to do something different. Some people would do it in script, cursive; some might add a little calligraphy. Calligraphy? What does that mean? Yeah this kid name STRIKE used to kind of write his name with that kind of style, more of an Old English type style. o.k. I got you. So the type of forms or letters people would
take and exaggerate and then come up with there own. And once again that
is what graffiti was in a since too, an exaggeration of a lot of things
in terms of life that we see everyday. So people take that and
exaggerate it and get abstract with it and do other kinds of things with
it. Think about some of the characters. You see the dude with the big
Afro and the big shades. Do you remember that? Well everyone knew how to
draw that one, which was graffiti 101! Even if a dude didn’t know how
to draw graffiti he knew how to draw the shades, put the chin and that
big Afro. You know what I am saying Right,
right.
So you had from that where people started getting into bold, where they would do Cheech Wizard and certain characters and then that character and him self would transform in terms of the body and the posture where he was more slumped over with the shoulders. Long legs drooped down you know. Initially it started were you just had the big Adidas with the jeans hanging down. And dudes would just exaggerate that body posture almost like what you would see in an Ernie Banks painting from the T.V. show Good Times. Right, I see what you are saying. Like he would have the long figures with arms and he would exaggerate. See people started doing more exaggeration in terms of characters as far as the form and body posturing was. So as far as lettering and writing goes everything was taken from something and some one added there own form or style to it. My initial form was just block letters in terms of how I wrote my name. My T had a little turn on it so I guess that can be taken from Calligraphy. And my R had the same little turn on it at the end. On the initial ENTER. But everything else was block. My N had a little line going across the top that would cross over so that would be more from just adding something extra like an arrow type of thing. So my transformation came from when I started doing more of a cursive style but a quicker form where I could get it off quicker. I added extra little s--- to it where I could make it fancier. See at first I was going to do a new name. I had three new names I came up with. I started writing Heat, ON, and I started writing TER. But what happened was when I started writing TER I would put it next to ENTER. So people associated that with the same person. I was initially trying to be a different person. I didn’t want nobody to know that TER and ENTER are the same person! But I f--- up because I would write TER, then I would write ENTER next to it. So why would you not want anyone to know that you were the same person? That was what some writers would do. You had a lot of writers that had more then one name. So they were trying to be two different people and no one would put them together as one! Right exactly but you would know if you were part of the circuit. So the real good writer would actual change the style of the second name from the first name? Alright let me put it this way like Zephyr, he had a girl friend and he would put up SHE193
o.k Now if you didn’t know that you would be like “who is SHE193!” You know what I am saying some people would say “oh that’s a girl other people would say this and that.” You really wouldn’t know unless you knew the history behind it. Same thing with Futura 2000 he had a girl friend and he would put up a tag for her. His girl friend happened to be the sister of this dude I used to bomb with named MACKY. MACKY also wrote HYPER. There are some cats out there with two names. SE3 also wrote HAYES. So you had writers doing that and getting dual fame. EN005 also wrote WEIRD HAROLD, or HAROLD! So you had people doing it I was just trying to come up and do my thing with TER but I messed around and put it next to ENTER. And what happened when I did it I created a different style with the name and just connecting and just having that one flow. You know like if you have an E and a line cross it. You know like when you do an E. so instead of doing that I figure I could just do a flow where I don’t have to stop, like a curser almost but I can do it even quicker. When I started doing the TER that’s when I said f--- it and put TER ENTER. But the way I would do it now is when you see that E connected to the N and the TER and it all connects. So I figured out I can do a nice quick fast flow like that with the name and get it off and make it look good. Right. So I more or less went into that form in terms of writing my name. But bust this when ZEPHYR and FUTURA wrote their second name did it not look anything like their first name? It didn’t because it was two different names. ZEPHYRS tag first of all he connected the ZEP that all connected, then when he did the HYR the Y and the R would connect but he would do like a script kind of Y and the R would get real crazy. And he might do like a melody note with the R. like he would do a full R and when he comes to the bottom of the R he flip it around and turn it and do crazy s--- with it. So he would get real crazy with his name. But when he did the other name he did it in regular letters. So people that didn’t know better would think that its two different people. Yeah but most people that were in the know
knew! If you didn’t know you wouldn’t know. Let me give you an
example. I use to write with this one dude and he had four names. He
wrote MR. FRIDAY, he wrote CH1, He wrote BOOM2 and CASTRO. He was from
Washington Heights and we use to bomb together for a minute. But his
main name was CH1 and BOOM2 but then he started writing CASTRO and MR.
FRIDAY. He had CH1 up crazy along with BOOM2. So would he put up all 4 names at the same time when he went bombing? Nah he wouldn’t line them up all together
at the came time. He would put them in different places while he was
bombing. He was known for doing throw ups on the out side of trains, so
you would see him kill CH1 on the outside of the train. Now on the
inside he would BOOM2 and MR. FRIDAY and CASTRO you to death. Right. But on the outside you would always see a CH1 at he front or end of the train. That was like his signature spot where he would do his throw up. So now with ZEPHRY would he just write his girl name in a location all by her self with out ZEPHRY? The key spot that I would always see that name is by the emergency brake or by the exit when you are going through the cars of the train, because it was only 3 letters with a 193 so he could find a nice little spot and get off up in there. Where as his name was a much longer so he would try and put it……see there were key places that people were always trying to put there tag on. I got you. If you walking through the car you have the overhead, or where you look up to the ceiling of the middle of the train there’s an indicator that tells you each stop and the time. Before that it use to be a big space and people would love to hit that. I follow you. Right, or to the left and right were you see
the lights lit up telling you each stop long before you get to it, that
would be key places for you to bomb. Then you had the body of the train
were the seats were at and all up in the corner. So cats had prime
places that they loved to hit and then everyone else would write all
around their tag trying to fit in. to me to hit a car that was clean and
nobody hit it yet that was like a faggot in boy’s town, just happy as
a hog. So are there different styles pertaining to spray painting? Some dudes just like to write with fat caps, to make it fat and puffy. Others would make it real narrow and that’s depending on where you are hitting it and what you are trying to do. Some dudes like using little cans. Then you had some dudes that didn’t give a f--- and go over everybody’s name, so the quickest way to do that might be with a fat cap so you can’t see who you went over. There was a style to that too just going over a mother f----- if you just did it that way. You had some dudes that didn’t care and you had some dudes that could do it and you wouldn’t know who they went over. So there is a style for doing a whole lot of things. You go over another mother f-----‘s piece, s--- there is no room on the train somebody’s s--- has to go. So I know n------ caught a lot of fever from that too I am sure! Yeah that’s how some beef started you going over somebody and they going over you now ya’ll going over each other s---, and now its beef. We are not going to get to the beef just yet. Which companies had the best paint and best markers? For me it was never really the marker because you are going to make the marker do what you want it to do any way! But some might dry out quicker then others am I right? Well that was the point I was about to get to, it’s about the ink! A marker will dry up if you don’t have any ink. Well the point I am trying to make is wasn’t some
ink thicker then others and some thinner then others as well?
You had what they call the transparent ink. If you wrote it on a solid base you would no what it was, but if you wrote on say a window you would see through it. Then you had what they called the opaque ink. The opaque ink you could write with and it had like a richness and thickness to it that you couldn’t see through it if you wrote on a window. That was the difference between the transparent and the opaque ink. Then you had the storing ink, that’s that purple ink that they used in the supermarkets to stamp prices on cans and other goods. Right. That was one of my favorites because that was hard to get out. But the only place you could really get that from was if we boost in the bodegas. (Spanish little groceries in the ghettoes of New York.) Damn the bodega, of all places! Yeah, I remember my boy got caught and they sprayed the ink in his face. I remember hearing about incidents like that when we were growing up. So would Martin paint etc have the better paint then other no name stories? Well as far as the premium paints are concern yes to Martin paints. They would have Krylon or Rustoleum etc and that’s premium paint. If you knew how to use the can with different tips to get what you want out of it so your can doesn’t run, you filling in your burners and pieces, you doing out lines, it depends on what you are doing. The better paints would last longer. I also have to say that those were the key places to get the paint but they weren’t easy to Rack once you got in there. It got to a point were they; the storekeepers would keep the paint in a cage. I am sure that didn’t stop you. You right because then we would try and bend the cage from the back and try and slip your hands through and squeeze the cans out. You would come up with ways to get that paint. So what were the easiest yards to get into? It was just knowing how to get into them,
that was the key. You could say the 1-yard, which was like on 225th
street or 230th street. The last stop was actually 242nd
street. The 1 was somewhat easy because you had to go all the way to the
back of the school, through the football field. Once you hit the beams
they had cracks in the wood and you had to climb up the wood and come
through the cracks in the wood to come up in to the yard. So was it pretty much the same with the bus depots? With the Bus depots all of the bus lines were out side so you could hit those first. Then if you had balls you would go inside the bus depot and just start hitting those buses also. What’s the craziest place you put your name up at? I once bombed the inside of Madison Square
Garden! What! I hit the blue section, ran around and just bombed it. That was kind of crazy for me because I never really tried to hit the bridges or do s--- like that. I might have hit a bridge one time. So I never really got in to climbing or scaling bridges or walls. I felt that my name was up enough between the trains and the buses. I felt I was pretty good. I would hit the streets somewhat but I didn’t go hard on the streets just because I was killing the buses and trains. What were some of the crews you were running with? The first crew I got down with was TMC, The
Master Crew. During this time is when I decided I wanted to go to the
Lay Up my self. See you have some writers who could write by them selves
all day and you had some that needed to be with people. So it took a lot
to get that confidence where you would be able to go all by yourself. So
I started to build up that confidence and I went by myself. One day I
was standing by the 1 train Lay Up on 135th 145th
street and Broadway. I was on the 145th side and I wanted to
go in but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go by myself. As I am
pondering these thoughts and out of no where all these dudes that I
didn’t know from jack just came running, and they jumped down on the
tracks and kept running to the back of the yard and they were like “yo
come on kid” and so I jumped and went down in there with them.
Although I didn’t know these dudes, once I told them who I was they
was like “we seen you up and know who you are”. So I started Bombing
with them. So they put me down with TMC! I started to meet them
everyday. We hooked it up so that one person would go in instead of all
of us and so that dude would hit the exit and then hit the street exit
and open up the hatch and we would come in from the street. (Troy starts laughing.) We did that for the transit dude in the booth so he wouldn’t say to the cops “it was a bunch of kids that just ran through here.” So how many crews were you down with total? I got down with a lot of crews, some of them more
famous then others. I was happy to have met and got involve with a lot
of writers, and they respecting my work.
I heard of those Party Hardy Killers. Yeah, PHK and MK were like one click. Then you had KARADO135, he was up big in Harlem. I can’t forget CHRIS135 and my man DEEM. I remember DEEM. Then you had my man T-Rock and then they use to put up TRC The Real Crew! Then you had this dude PAUL118 and them, they were putting up BAL, Bombing All Lines! I am talking about a lot of dudes out of Harlem, Baby Rock and them from the gang The Ball Busters. They put up WKTU, We Killing The Underground! I got down with them too. You were cool with the Ball Busters on the Graffiti tip? Yeah Ain’t that something they be ready to stomp a brother out on the streets. And they let your ass hang out. We used to have crazy beefs with them. It went to golf clubs and pistols beefing with them. I hear you and I know what you talking about,
but me Baby Rock and Chase used to go Bombing together in the 1 Lay Up. I
put them up on the buses and whenever they put up WKTU they would put me
up. Who were the most popular crews in the Bronx and Harlem? The biggest wars were between TMT vs. TNT vs. RTW! Those three crews were like the main crews everybody wanted to be down with. TMT, The Master (or Majestic.) Team. TNT, The Nasty Team. RTW, which was Rolling Thunder Writers and they where all White Boys. What? From were?
They were from all over and they had cats
like REVOLT, RASTA, BILLROCK, ANY. A lot of them were from Brooklyn
others from City Island. But they had a lot of fame and they had a lot
of style. They were up. They did a lot of burners and pieces, on pretty
much the major trains. So did they have a lot of respect from the brothers? They always had beef because it was always a battle. Cats were like “these white boys think they hot and ain’t know brothers down with them.” So there were always racial undertones. So would the brothers rush them and take their stuff? Yeah. Like one time in particular I was in
the yard with TMT, which was at the 1 Lay Up. Your man TB was there for
this one. And God bless the dead, you remember Joey that died in Stone
Gym? Yes he used to play football with the equipment with
us.
Well he was there that night too and he wrote AD Rock. Joey was like our big gun so to speak. It was a whole bunch of us in TMT that was in the yard. Then we heard that RTW was in the yard also. It was RASTA, ANY and BILLROCK. BILLROCK was like their big gun as far as size goes. TMT stepped to RTW and it got wild in there. So when you catch a mother f----- in the yard that you had beef with in the past its bragging rights, you know we got to throw down markers, cans what ever was getting vic. Damn kid and you used to see all that going down in them yards? Yeah and they call that Bogarding! A n----- just take your s---! Right. So that takes me to was there actually a crew called The Vamp Squad? TKID and SHOCK123 were partners. SHOCK was from
the eastside down with TWA. But T KID and them were first putting up
TNB, The Nasty Boys. Then they got on some hard s--- where they were
really on some taking people s---. They tried to get to me a couple of
times I got away. But to me I was smaller and they were older. I seen
TKid recently and I said dam I was scared of this n-----?
(Troy starts laughing.) I am much bigger then him now but back then them n------ seemed like giants. And we are talking about VAMP SQUAD? Right this is when they went hard body fully with the Vamp Squad s---. How many was in the crew? It was a lot of them. Where were they from? I didn’t know and I wasn’t trying to find out! How many times did you see them in the yard? About 3 or 4 times, and every time I knew they was there I stayed the f--- out of their way. Were all these dudes Black? Well T Kid was either Spanish or White. And he was vicking the brothers? He was big plus they were deep. See hypothetically if I am going in the yard by myself or with one other person and not my whole click like TMC or we go in 6 or 7 deep then I have to fall back. But you got other dudes like my man STAN1 if he ain’t going with the click then he is going with a Burner. (Pistol.) So you had some dudes that would go to the yard and just take a gun with them. I remember being down with a crew called TLP, They Love Paint. It was only two dudes FADED and this kid name LK. Them n------ always had a little 22. with them in the yard. That was all you needed, once a n----- pull out a pistol that stops all commotion. The first day I met them it was just me bombing and the doors open and two dudes get in the car and they were short dudes, but they had the little two two on them, so I felt comfortable with them I’m like “alright lets get this mother f----- rocking”. Lets get busy! What crew had the most writers that you were apart of? Its hard to tell because the days that you could get everybody together as oppose to dudes just being out there on there own was tough to do. Plus you had different chapters and different sets of a click. Now the home base or the home team might be from the Bronx so you would have to initially go to the Bronx and meet these dudes and everybody see who you are and then they give you the o.k. to put it up. Or they seen your name up or somebody sponsored you so to speak. How many people did you rob in the Bus and train yards? I was never really big on that whole bogarding thing. And at that time I wasn’t big in height. I tried it a couple off times and got a couple of dudes for their markers. But my thing was really that I figured I know how to get it and I am going to get it and I got it. I really didn’t want to get to hard into the whole bogarding thing. And then when you take from some one you have to worry about cats crossing your name out so it didn’t add up to me. Now how many times did you get bogarded? I got bogarded one time. Were you by your self? Nah I wasn’t by myself in fact we had just walked in and it was a whole bunch of people in the yard. So this dude says, “shorty let me see your marker”…in fact he didn’t even get it from me, I let some one else hold my marker. He asked him could he let him see the marker so he could put up a tag, and he took it. This kid that roughed the marker was in there deep with his posse. We were about 4 strong but these n------ were deep and I didn’t know how deep they were, and they were older than us. Who was this crew? Well I knew who the dude was, he wrote VAN2 and he ran with COS207 who also wrote DRAKE. Then there was this other kid name One Arm Case who wrote CASE2. He was in the yard also. And these are some of the dudes that were just known for taking people s---. CASE2 was known for taking n------ coats! (Troy starts laughing.) In the yard ain’t that something? With one arm! Knock a n----- out and take your coat. Damn That’s like hearing Doc Holiday is up in the spot and he might have done something to you and you be like “oh no there go Doc Holiday” you might not want to f--- with him. (Troy starts laughing.) Cold gun a n----- down. Cause another n----
be like “one arm?” “I can take him!” “Yeah well he knocked out
about 5 other dudes, I don’t know if you want to get hit with that one
arm!” “He’s pretty quick with that mother f-----!” (Troy bust out laughing.) “Damn that one arm is looking cock diesel!” You like “s--- f--- it we ain’t got no wins on this one lets just beat it.” So what became of the VAMP SQUAD, how long did they last? They still around today, T KID and them are
still doing burners, and hall of fames and all types of s---. They still
are putting it up. Go to anyplace where there are conventions or were
graffiti artist met up. So some of them still are active. How did you feel about the big name dudes like FUTURA, DONDI, PHASE 2 etc?
Well DONDI was CIA. He had DURO, FACT and some other dudes. But I never got the opportunity to meet him. But whenever I went bombing especially at the Ghost yard their s--- would be up in there, and it would be up in there real hard so I be like “yeah let me put mines up next to theirs”. So they had crazy fame. When he did the hand of Doom and a few other pieces people were like “these dudes are nice.” So DONDI and them were like no joke, so of course I had respect for them. Who were some the guys you really appreciated? That’s hard because you can appreciate cats
for different reasons. In terms of styles and dudes that were really out
there that were really talented. A lot of people felt that SCEAM was
talented. But it is hard to just pick people like that. So I will say some names. FUTURA? See with FUTURA I didn’t really see him up crazy like that. So I wouldn’t put him in that category with me! Yeah but wasn’t his art beautiful? Back in my football days with Riverside Church Warriors and the projects games we played down in Riverside Park on 103rd street and Riverside Drive…. ..Nah I know what you saying he might have done more murals like Riverside Drive but I didn’t see him up, plus he was older also. Plus he was doing murals before they became popular, at least in my opinion, am I right? Nah dudes were always hitting paddleboard courts. I have joints up on paddleboard courts also! Alright, but this piece was amazing in Riverside Park. When I first seen it I was amazed. Because I am playing football and I look up and I see a n----- face and it says “Freedom to Write!” I remember and don’t get that twisted
because there was a writer that wrote with him named FREEDOM. So FREEDOM and FUTURA were two different writers?
Yeah. FREEDOM was old school and he could do murals and s--- like that. Today I believe FUTURA has a clothing line called ZOOYORK. PHASE2? PHASE2 was really old school so when I was
coming in he was slowly going out as far as hitting trains and buses! I
would see pieces but not any burners or anything. Just like BLADE and
COMET, I saw pieces and throw ups by the time I got on the scene. And
BLADE and COMET are supposed to be original Kings.
So during your era would DONDI be the biggest name? Nah I wouldn’t say the biggest name, because I use to dig REVOLT’s stuff as well as MACKIE’s. I also was digging ROCKY’S stuff. Even T KID and them was crazynice. DISCO and MID from out of the BRONX was known for doing nice burners and pieces. Then you had CRASH, COZ207 were known for doing nice burners too. Then there was the two SEEN’s, one white SEEN and the other black SEEN. What about the women? I met PINK one time also seen her at a recent Graffiti get together. But she was the only one I knew about and I met her through DOZE who was running with IBM, Incredible Bombing Masters. How many females do you know about? There were others but PINK is the only one I
remember right now. How do you feel about the artists such as CHRIS217
and SMITH that didn’t really have a style about them but were up all
over?
CHRIS217 was known more for just tagging his
name. He would do tags on the out side of trains, on the inside and on
all the windows. He might have had one or two
God Bless SMITH and his family. You said he had style, I asked you that because his style seemed so simply, SMITH SMITH SMITH! That was simple how he did that, but if you
seen the stuff him his brother and PINK were doing then you would say it
was obvious that they did have style.
I am not talking about them together, but SMITH alone. I feel what you are saying but if you doing throw ups then you just trying to get your name up real quick. Man I would just see a simple spray painted job. Right but his style, and he is old school, was just the way it was. Like say if an old school brother put up a tag right now, he is not going to try to recreate his name and do more like they are doing it now.
I got you. He is going to do it like a STAYHIGH or a SHY147 or somebody like that, they are not going to try and do it like they are doing it now. You are going to know for sure what era they came from based on how they put it up. Can you look at a tag and tell who was from the early 70’s or 80’s? Yeah because you know the style, you know the
long gated S’s that drop all the way down and come up and different
s--- like that. As well as the Y’s and dudes putting arrows in their
names. Or the stick figure with the Saint and he is smoking a cigarette.
That’s stuff dudes don’t even do now. But was the blaze back then!
What era would that be from? That is more of the second half of the
70’s, because a lot of them were still writing and still putting it
down so to speak. Also they might not have had to go as hard back then
because if you hit enough your s--- will ride long enough. Because on
average you might last about 3 months or how often before they decide to
buff, but if you was consistent with the bombing your s--- would stay
running. Their came a time were they might be more concern with the
outside then the inside. So it depends on what might have been the
standard before 1985 but when they came out with the Buff, then it was
all out war against graffiti. Now they got the dogs in the yards, and
every time a train came in they would take it to the Buffing station to
clean the outside and inside. What exactly was your era? I would say I came off the end of the 70’s and really came hard in the early 80’s. But probably 79, 80, and 81 was probably my best years. You have to remember I was in it for a short time. So for what I accomplish in a short time that I was in it was incredible because you could only imagine what I would have had if I had all those other years to really go hard and develop and go to that next level. Like I said I was already city wide, up all over the trains and I had pieces running I wasn’t doing burners yet. I also had a couple Block Busters I did on a train. What’s a Block Buster? The big block letters, that was 3D, you know what I am saying? I had a couple of those riding. So I was starting to get a little style and I was developing, plus I was getting up more. I started meeting more people and finding out about other little yards and other little scenarios as far as getting up.O.k.
I was already the bus King of the M11, 100, 101, and 102, 104. Plus putting in a lot of work on the trains 2, 3, 4 and the 7, those ran long. So I was mostly concentrating on hitting everything running through Manhattan. See I would just jump on my skateboard and go to the bus yards on the Eastside, skate up to the bus yard up on 205th street by the Ghost yard. I would go up in there and hit, it made no difference to me I would travel to put my name up. Let me take you back to Chris 217. I don’t know why I always dug him because I didn’t know him and I never even seen him before. He was considered somewhat of a toy but his name was up everywhere. And didn’t you tell me one time he was the King of the 104 Bus line? He did start trying to hit the buses at one time also, but he wasn’t up more then me. He was coming hard at the buses too. The only cats that were trying to give me a run for my money on the buses were KEPT and CAP. KEPT’s brother wrote SIGH1, he was a known old school writer. I later met up with them two dudes and we became cool. You had another dude trying to get up on the Buses and he wrote SHAKER. You had cats trying to do it but known of them did it like I did it. Did you ever meet CHRIS217? Yeah I met him. He was a cool white boy with blonde hair, kind of like a hippie and he was on the heavy side. Alright can you actually say graffiti and hip-hop have something to do with each other? Yes because it was all a movement and it started in the street. Look at the flyers for the hip-hop shows, that was done by cats that wrote graffiti. You had to find or ask some one that dug graffiti to put that kind of element and that style on to those flyers to give it a certain kind of presentation, because graffiti of course was hot and this was a form of the street as well. So you wanted the two to exist in a sense were as first of all you are doing a flyer and you have all the hot graffiti writers or somebody with some type of graffiti style that could draw the microphones or the characters etc depending on the flyer, but that was graffiti. So you would have graffiti artist that also embraced the art form of the emcee and the d.j. going to these very same party’s to watch battles like the next man. Some even lived in the neighborhood of other hip-hop artist as well, even in the same block or what ever. Y’all brothers had a lot of respect for the older cats that wrote! Yeah, I used to dig seeing an old tag up, even
now. Man I recently seen TEEN up, and he goes way back. You see his name
some time you are like “wow”. I mean its still in my blood. When you
got it you got it. Even if I am just doodling on a piece of paper its
What was your thoughts on the movie Style Wars and Wild Style? (Pause for a moment.) I didn’t really have
a feeling, I just felt like everything was coming of age, in terms of
the popularity because everybody at that time wanted to see it and be
part of it. Now that I think about it I was happy to see it. I seen
other documentaries as well and I remember seeing the Rock Steady
Crew. I used to hang with them also and we used to go to Douglas Projects,
and when the pool didn’t have any water in it they would put the
linoleum down in there and break dance inside the pool! Plus I used to
tag with Frosty Freeze. I ran with them a lot. So just to see them in
the documentaries and movies and getting respect for what they did was a
good thing. What were your thoughts on Fab5 Freddy, LEE, Pink
and the rest of the FAB5 writers? Did you ever run with that crew or
know of them back then?
Fred was cool and he was up but the King of that
crew was LEE! Plus Fred is much older than me so I never really saw him
back then. At that point LEE and them were like on their way out. A lot
of stuff they had up was stuff that was just riding still. They might
have had train cars just riding around on the strength of a couple of
years untouched! Like classics, “that shit is still riding like a
ghost, oh s---.” LEE got more into doing murals on hand ball courts
and s--- like that. So he wasn’t into hitting trains like he use too.
You would have to be down in the village, SoHo or lower eastside from
were he was at and catch one of his pieces. He had this big mural down
by Houston Street off the FDR I think in this handball court with a big
tiger on it and some other art going with it. And I have to say this,
about your man FAB5 Freddy I would have to give props to him because he
was something of an ambassador for us writers. My feelings is you
can’t say Fred exploited it, he made it so you could go mainstream
with it and bring more attention to it as an art form and a culture on
the whole. So him being able to make a living off of that I am not mad
at him at all. In fact there are a whole lot of other brothers that you
would like to see and hopefully they would be able to get into a
position and show their creative side and be able to do things as well.
You have some that are doing it now, who have evolved and are doing
canvasses, clothing lines etc. or behind the scenes doing visual. So
that’s why you can say the two do coincide and are one!
Bust this, and this is the last question. I need you to go deep on this psychologically. Today do you still have that thirst to tag and during your days of tagging did you wake up like a drug addict in need of a fix saying, “I have to hit the yards and put my name up no matter what my family or others say.” And once you are on your way did it feel like everything was grand and beautiful and once you are in that yard doing your thing did it feel like euphoria for you? It was exciting of course every minute of it. From racking two days before you go, to the day you finally went. We said we are going Thursday so we racking Tuesday. Lets get all the paint we are going to get. “Yo what you going to do”? Dudes might already have their pieces laid out on paper figuring out how they are going to sketch it. So it was fun and excitement and it was like you were going to get your fame, and we not suppose to be doing this but it’s Freedom of expression of art. It was just you getting up and representing your neighborhood or your self and you feeling good about it. From then til now I still feel good about it. But you might say I am an ex vandal because I don’t have that urge to do a piece and hit a wall like I used to but I don’t take those kind of risks any more. Not to say that I wouldn’t but it’s not that sense of urgency for me to do it at this point because I have been there and done that so I know what I have accomplished. But there are other times where I want to hit that wall in the Grant Projects. I be thinking let me get that can and hit that! One day you be walking though and you be like…. “He hit it.” You is a funny brother. Do you ever wonder in your mind have you lost your touch or that style? Nah, nah. Its automatic! That flow in my hand is signature now. (ENTER starts laughing.) That s--- is like when somebody gives you an autograph. My s—is a signature! Even somebody tagging today has to respect my s---, cause my s--- is classic. Let me ask you this when y’all went bombing was there a special day everybody went bombing? Like a Thursday or Friday etc? The weekend was it. So it would be jam packed in all the yards? It would be like Grand Central Station because everybody is trying to bomb on the weekend. There would be times were it would be like 30 or more writers in the yard bombing. You be like “guess who is on the other side, you be like “word is he over there?” Cats would be over there just standing and watching people doing burners. N------ have ladders out with their pharmacy jackets on and all types of s---. (Troy starts laughing.) And you would be just standing there in amazement. Then you would go back on the other side and some other nasty known writer is there that you never seen start doing work. Those would be the better days. And cats ain’t fronting on others! Right exactly and then you get to really
understand the brotherhood. That was what graffiti was for me. Plus me
being younger and being able to sit back and watch these n------ like
they were a master painter at work it was like “oh s---.” Even
though you didn’t do it but you were there to talk about it later. So
you could be like “yo ya’ll missed it they was in the yard and they
did blah blah blah. So just to be apart of it was exciting. Thank You my brother ENTER. |
not
like I am hitting walls or buses but I will put one up. To be honest I
am a minute away from doing it. I was going to hit the paddleball court
inside of The Grant Projects, and just do a little throw up. Just to put
it up.
