4) “Content”
March 9th, 2007 by steveWP
“Content” Text Cuts And Additional Commentary
This goes with the political pieces on page 100-1:
Exceptions may be inspired and sincere or of the insipid, boring “off the pigs” variety. Note that in the cool Marka piece detail below, the woman is “harvesting” aerosol cans. The UTI “Destructive Army” mural is unusual in two respects: first it is not a left-leaning political statement, whereas the majority of productions that have any overt political content at all tend to be “counter-culture” if not revolutionary in pose; second it is a 50th year anniversary D-Day dedication to the Allied Forces led by the United States (note the day count since the invasion). Few writers show interest in history before they were born, but lead designer of this production, Cale One, said he had been wanting to do a D-Day memorial for some years.
“Memorials” Text Cut
Skate, Ayer, Rob One, Pure, Geo, Sine, Risco, Tolse, Soon, Clever, Ink 5, Over and Lest are writers that have been and still are memorialized in tags and pieces around the city.
When writers get up messages with CONTENT it truly makes a solid difference.
Joey “The Shadow Man” would get up all over L.A. in the eighties and nineties with an almost insoluable human outline which would almost always be accompanied with a one-line slogan evoking thoughts or even action. “To feed the hungry… Oh how we mourn for strength”… “Lost Angeles”… “The city that sleeps all day” “Impeach Mother Teresa….jk”
Several thousand walls, tracks and alleys were hit by Shadow… several thousand messages were dictated. In Graffiti, it truly does matter what you represent and what you say.
Revok MSK / 7th Letter just got dissed by an unknown vandal… on Santa Fe Ave. by the Boyle Heights bridge… he countered by placing a fresh fullname throw up over the whole thing and scrawling “Leave a name you Coward!”
Things like this, with out basic content, can go on forever. If a writer wears his or her emotions on the sleeve… and does not consider a much bigger or greater cause to represent, they end up destroying lives or even their own ultimate focus whenever old school SPIT’s or modern day JA’s diss and rediss. We seriously need content in Graffiti.
Years ago (1989) at the L.A. Belmont yard, Nuke was rocking a piece with a kid smoking a crackpipe. HEX TGO hit him up and spoke directly on the responsibility we have a writers to know exactly what we represent and why. “What are you trying to do with this image? Do you think it makes you tough or hard to be seen as a crackhead in Los Angeles? What about the little kids that might think this is actually acceptable?” He had seen several friends die from crack and heroin overdoses in Lynwood, Compton, Paramount and South Gate. (DJ Style’s dad)… Nuke just stood quite and mentioned he understood, then placed a bid red ANTI sign around his character and ended up changing the message diametrically… due to “content”. Today, noone can stop Joseph Montalvo from speaking his mind on political, native and social issues, due to one writer who actually cared enough to stand on something.
From TWIST in Oakland to FLARE in New Jersey, From YEM in L.A. to Old School Joey “Shadow man in downtown alleys, Content always matters.
Saint
Santo is right.
Joey Krebs was known as: Shadow man, The Shadow, Street Phantom, King Krebs, etc.
He hit hard in the mid 80’s to mid 90’s with content that would make the average business executive or the drug addict downtown bum, have to stop, consider and think.
“Content” is important and is often lacking in alot of todays Graff works.