- 8 hours ago ·
- Filadel Castro But was Graffiti "birthed" by hip hop and is it possible to have a forum on graff that's not related to hip hop?
- 7 hours ago ·
- Culture Livingston graffiti was almost 10 YEARS OLD when hip hop was born. and it was born in a whole different city, and thats Philadelphia. Cornbread n them was rockin to James Brown and P-Funk when they went out bombin. and if you really know the Funk Mob, they was heavy guitar rockers, not just "Knee Deep". so it was already outside of what was called hip hop when it began. so its easy to see a rock forum about graff. cause it was the same shit for dudes like Bobby Beck and T-BONE in Philly and for dudes like TRACY 168 in NY who were white dudes who were writing graffiti BEFORE Kool Herc was throwin parties in the Bronx in 1976.
the fly shit about graff was meeting dudes like ESPO and PIZAZZ and they almost exclusively banged to rock shit. shit, ESPO was the one who really schooled me on the P-Funk i never knew, "Cosmic Slop" and all that shit. it was that type of cultural exchange that made the culture strong. it had a lot of branches to draw inspiration from. thats why white dude like BRAZE could rock so hard. if u never pieced to Led Zepplin, you dont really know how open you can get.
you also have to bear in mind that many break beats are rock records. "Big Beat" is by Billy Squire and is a ROCK song. but wen RunDMC droped "Here We Go", it aint make a difference. that cultural exchange was already established by the graffiti writers before Afrika Bambataa and Grandmaster Flash.25 minutes ago · - Culture Livingston same goes for the skateboard culture, which a lot of graff dudes were into heavy. it used to bug me out to see MEEZ Polo down, wit a bangin skateboard. CYPHER (DJ Cosmo Baker) too. he was the one that got us the MItchell n Ness gear back in 1991, 10 YEARS before these rap dudes was rockin it.
i bring up the skate culture cause it seems a lot of these rap dudes is all on it all of a sudden. but by the time AL SKI was bombin LA in 1972, skateboardin was nearly 10 years deep, too. Vans sneakers goes back to the 60's. so graff writers was skateboardin WAY before there was a such thing as hip hop. dudes was ridin skateboards BEFORE there was something called graffiti.
hip hop is the meeting grounds. the party made everybody come together as one. remember, they was already playin everybody's music. so the meeting ground made a place where everything could get recognized. Herc used graff writers to do the flyers, because they were more well known than him, and that got people interested.
the problem is that nowadays there is no more exchange. hip hop feeds on itself for the most part now. and EVERYTHING that feeds on itself is headed to extinction. even the sun in the sky, which is feeding on itself, will one day turn the lights off of this small, blue planet...
3 comments:
Cult knocked this one out the park! Growing up in Jersey City in the 80's - 90's I was heavy into graf. Two of my favorite artists were Kaws and T-Dee. Kaws went on to make legit bread doing what he loves which was super dope to see. And I had always seen T-Dee's shit all over the place, but dude was like a myth to me.
So one day my uncle is taking me all over the different hoods to take pics of pieces and I jump out the van and start snapping away with my little piece of shit disposable camera and just so happened to catch T-Dee in the middle of putting up a big ass joint with Loomit (from Germany) Anyway, T-Dee had long ass hair in a pony tail and looked nothing like what I had imagined. Dude was reppin what I had deemed to be a major part of hip hop looking like a fuckin Hell's Angel or some shit.
I guess the point of this long ass ramble was a co-sign to the post. Can't judge a book by it's cover is the abridged version.
thats whats up Cap... thanks my dude...
i think a lot of shit lost in the translation. when it went to a next level, EVERYTHING was supposed to go. graff writers had to go to Europe to really eat, and i wasnt really ready to make that trip then, even tho i sold at a few galleries. (in to that street shit... seemed cool at the time...) it amazes me that these dudes that say they love hip hop dont own no pieces from the dudes who were there at the root of this culture. you would think Jay and Puff would have paintings from LEE and FUTURA, instead of the hotel lobby paintings that they show off on Cribs.
it was the first element of hip hop to come into existence. it deserves much more respect than it gets.
Lee got that Great Adventure money! Someone recognized his influence and talent and gave the pioneer his own space to put up work on that original Batman ride. I went on that bitch like 10 times, not for the ride, but to get up close to Lee's work.
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