Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project Description An account of the resource The Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project is a collaboration between Kurt Boone, veteran documentarian of urban culture in New York City, and Dr. Steven Payne, librarian and archivist at The Bronx County Historical Society. The project aims to document the early years of the graffiti arts movement in The Bronx through recording oral histories and collecting tags from surviving Bronx pioneers of the art form. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boone, Kurt BUTCH 2 Crespo, Pastor, Jr. Payne, Steven Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource CC-BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons) Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context OH-BAADP Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 02:27:16 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Boone, Kurt Payne, Steven Location The location of the interview The Bronx, NY OHMS Object Embedded OHMS XML file https://oralhistory.bronxhistoricalsociety.org/viewer.php?cachefile=OH-BAADP.20220301.xml Interview Format Audio or Video Video OHMS Content Content of OHMS Index/Transcript for searching (Hidden) 5.4 Interview with BG 183 OH-BAADP.20220301 02:27:16 OH-BAADP Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project Bronx Oral History Center This interview made possible through the donation of Stephen DeSimone, President/CEO of DeSimone Consulting Engineers. bxoralhistory BG 183 (Tats Cru) Payne, Steven Boone, Kurt MP4 bg-183-oral-history-2022-03-01.mp4 0.50:|10(10)|18(1)|21(9)|24(9)|28(9)|34(12)|38(8)|42(9)|47(2)|53(1)|57(3)|62(9)|66(15)|75(10)|80(5)|85(6)|90(5)|99(9)|108(11)|113(11)|119(6)|127(7)|132(4)|141(1)|145(16)|150(13)|165(4)|169(2)|174(2)|179(6)|188(1)|193(7)|198(16)|203(14)|210(9)|217(13)|222(17)|228(4)|241(2)|246(4)|256(10)|265(8)|271(8)|281(6)|288(2)|292(11)|298(10)|305(16)|310(4)|315(1)|327(9)|335(5)|340(5)|348(13)|360(6)|373(1)|377(13)|384(2)|388(8)|398(10)|407(4)|411(10)|415(11)|422(16)|427(18)|431(15)|439(13)|447(13)|454(4)|461(10)|466(15)|471(8)|476(17)|487(3)|492(16)|501(11)|506(12)|512(6)|521(2)|533(12)|543(3)|548(5)|553(1)|557(14)|567(14)|574(4)|590(4)|598(8)|603(7)|610(6)|616(2)|623(4)|629(7)|640(5)|650(14)|656(5)|667(6)|680(8)|699(5)|705(6)|710(14)|717(12)|725(1)|730(14)|742(5)|749(15)|760(4)|769(2)|774(4)|779(11)|785(10)|795(7)|800(14)|809(3)|830(9)|836(6)|851(15)|872(1)|888(14)|894(5)|901(8)|910(3)|915(15)|925(10)|930(10)|938(7)|946(18)|955(8)|969(19)|974(14)|985(6)|994(10)|1008(15)|1014(4)|1025(2)|1030(1)|1037(9)|1042(13)|1048(2)|1064(6)|1072(6)|1085(8)|1091(7)|1096(6)|1102(5)|1110(9)|1119(14)|1124(15)|1133(5)|1138(1)|1150(9)|1159(3)|1174(5)|1177(11)|1182(7)|1185(5)|1204(7)|1211(6)|1218(8)|1230(6)|1238(7)|1243(3)|1248(1)|1254(8)|1258(12)|1263(6)|1268(15)|1279(5)|1305(7)|1309(10)|1313(12)|1325(6)|1337(9)|1342(4)|1346(7)|1355(5)|1360(2)|1365(5)|1372(1)|1377(4)|1390(10)|1400(7)|1405(13)|1418(13)|1426(1)|1434(3)|1439(13)|1447(8)|1453(4)|1459(4)|1464(7)|1476(11)|1484(3)|1488(14)|1494(6)|1499(10)|1506(10)|1513(5)|1527(9)|1536(4)|1540(8)|1546(4)|1553(2)|1558(15)|1566(13)|1580(1)|1584(11)|1596(9)|1619(14)|1625(13)|1635(12)|1648(5)|1652(12)|1656(5)|1661(5)|1667(9)|1672(14)|1678(5)|1685(5)|1690(13)|1697(4)|1705(10)|1710(8)|1716(2)|1720(9)|1726(13)|1736(4)|1740(13)|1752(14)|1758(8)|1763(3)|1769(9)|1775(4)|1781(3)|1788(9)|1794(1)|1797(3)|1801(3)|1807(3)|1814(9)|1821(13)|1826(4)|1831(4)|1837(5)|1843(8)|1848(12)|1852(14)|1856(6)|1862(9)|1866(7)|1871(3)|1876(9)|1880(9)|1889(11)|1895(6)|1899(17)|1905(15)|1911(1)|1917(6)|1923(3)|1926(9)|1930(8)|1935(13)|1941(5)|1946(11)|1951(1)|1955(7)|1962(2)|1966(8)|1971(3)|1986(10)|1992(5)|1997(5)|2002(13)|2017(7)|2022(13)|2025(12)|2030(15)|2037(4)|2041(14)|2047(1)|2055(4)|2059(6)|2063(11)|2070(10)|2075(14)|2080(6)|2086(2)|2094(7)|2098(16)|2103(7)|2118(10)|2127(4)|2127(5) Undefined 1 https://youtu.be/XchdbfmsoVc YouTube video English 0 Introduction Steven Payne: Welcome to the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project. My name is Steven Payne Librarian and Archivist at the Bronx County Historical Society. Kurt do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself? Kurt Boone: Yeah I'm Kurt Boone and I've been writing about urban culture for 40 years. SP: Great. So today is March 1st, 2022 and we're really happy to be here with BG183 a founding member of Tats Cru, really legendary graffiti artist, master of style, and the intricacies of his backgrounds and the details in his pieces are just out of this world and BG will be talking a lot about growing up in the Bronx and his art, and we're excited to get into it. In this segment, Steven Payne and Kurt Boone, the interviewers, introduce themselves as well as the interviewee, BG 183, an early graffiti pioneer from The Bronx and founding member of Tats Cru, a legendary crew known for their style mastery. BG 183 (Graffiti artist);Tats Cru (Group) Bronx;Graffiti;Graffiti artists 0 45 Family History and Early Life BG183: I remember there was a building right across the street from where I live at and through the windows and through the curtain I could see light, a lot of light coming through the curtains! And then when I used to open the curtain it was like one of the biggest fires in the South Bronx. It was like a total of 5 buildings--like a complex building connected together, and you could see the whole five buildings burning. And then after that it was kind of like, you know, my entertainment. You know I'm sleeping I'm trying to sleep and I see all this light I'm looking out the window, seeing this fire, hearing people screaming. And I'm like wow! this is kind of like, you know I'm young this is crazy. And then the next day in the news you'd hear four firemen had died in that fire... In this segment BG gives an overview of his parent's background, as well as his own childhood experiences. We learn his father was a professional baseball player in Puerto Rico who had experiences traveling throughout the Southern United States as a young man. The focus when his family moves to New York to BG's own life. We get a rich sense of the games BG and his peers played, including the rules of informal ball games in fashion at the time. We also see how the fires in his South Bronx neighborhood affected him, becoming "like an entertainment" to him at one point. African American children's games;Baseball;Handball;Jigsaw puzzles;Santurce (San Juan, P.R.);Santurce Crabbers (Baseball team) Art;Bronx;Children's games;East Harlem (New York, N.Y.);Fires;Outdoor games;Puerto Rico;Racism 0 776 Adolescence and School BG183: That particular junior high school had just opened up. It was called Rafael Hernandez. He was a Puerto Rican musician. This school had everything. This school had a wood-shop, electrical shop, arts and crafts, sewing class. It was a school that was meant for, in my type of neighborhood, so-called the ghetto, was a school that had all this high end stuff to teach young kids. ... BG183: In the craft and art class I learned how to do stencils. That was my first time doing stencils. My teacher actually taught me how to use a razor blade, put it on the light to make sure you don't have extra paper sticking out. And during that time I was a great artist so I created this parakeet bird, and when he sprayed it, or I think he was doing silkscreening or whatever he was doing, he loved it. He showed the class and was like "look at this student." And I was kind of like shy back then I was like "ok." In this segment BG delves more into his experiences in Elementary and Intermediate schools. He gives a few great stories of his early experiences with art, including his first stenciling and how he came to treat art as a competitive skill to acquire. We also see the his relationship to the local street gangs growing, and how his identification with the burgeoning hip-hop subculture kept him neutral to the gangs, accepted but not necessarily "with" them. BG also talks about the stores early hip-hop participants were shopping at around Simpson St. and Southern Boulevard, and the types of clothes. He calls out Nike Cortez shoes in particular. Boogie Brothers;Chingaling (Street gang);Public School 66 (Bronx, New York, N.Y.);Rafael Hernandez Intermediate School 116 (Bronx, New York, N.Y.);Savage Nomads (Street gang);Savage Skulls (Street gang);Stencils and stencil cutting Education in art;Education--New York (State);Gangs;Gangs--New York (State);Hip-hop 0 1363 Involvement in Hip Hop BG183: When I went to his house and he's talking to his mom saying "Mom! Where's my gun at?" And I was like I can't even tell my mom where my slingshot or my peashooter was she'd whack me and this guy is saying "Mom, where's my gun at?" I thought he was joking and I hear his mom say "Yeah it's right here in the kitchen drawer." I said wait a minute. "Ok you sure which one is it? It's a small .22." Then I was like oh shit! What the... What's going on here? Next he asks for another gun, his mom says, "yeah I have it right here" and he says "Yo Ma can you bring it over" and his mom really brings it over, gives it to him and he's like "Ok Ma thank you" and I said wow. And this guy was one of the guys that when people heard his name they rand. So he was my friend! I remember we walked over to where Grand Wizzard Theodore was performing and he's walking around with a shotgun. And we got to the area where they're DJing at and he tells me "Yo, I want you to do this. Grab the shotgun, put it on the side, and walk around." And I said to myself like, why? Next thing you know I grabbed the shotgun and I walked around. KB: You did it! BG183: I did it. Then I tried to give it back to him and he was like "Nonono, walk around a second time." I said ok, walked around a second time, and then after that I see Grand Wizzard Theodore DJing, he got his crew. Back then if we didn't do stuff like that you got robbed for your equipment. A lot of DJs got robbed for their equipment. This segment details how BG 183 got involved in the hip hop scene. Gang-member friends doing security for park jams introduced him to the music and gave him access to DJ equipment and BG would become obsessed with the music. He also talks about the violence in the hip-hop clubs, how eye contact was dangerous and he and his friends would hang in the back and stay for the music, allowing them to observe who's wearing what and who's getting robbed. He also talks about his work making hip-hop flyers in the 80s later on. In addition, of the earliest art jobs he got was to replicate ticket stamps to get into clubs and parties for a discount. We also hear how the early hip hop hits were already considered played out by the time they made it to the radio due to being found on mixtapes and in performances for up to a year before. Grand Wizzard Theodore;Grandmaster Flash;Rivas, John "Mr. Magic";Savage Skulls (Street gang) Audio equipment;Gangs;Hip-hop;Hip-hop dance;Hip-hop--Influence 0 2257 High School BG 183: I went to James Monroe High School. You know one of those high schools that was so bad. The reputation was no good. And for me it was like my district school so when I went there who I saw? Everybody in my neighborhood. My brother's there. I remember my first time being at James Monroe high school you know you had to give like a ticket to get your lunch. So I gave my ticket and I had sat down and left my coat and bookbag. Then I went back--I went to get my lunch and came back and somebody was sitting in my chair. I said holy shit somebody is sitting in my chair! And I see my brother and all my friends here. And I asked the guy, yo you sitting in my chair! And then he went "This is not your chair." Next thing you know my brother and my friends say "yo get up." "Oh okay! I didn't know he was your brother." So I'm already connected at the school. So I think I was blessed to be connected to a lot of people that were someone... I grew up safe. In this segment BG details his experiences attending James Monroe High School, which was his zoned school, meaning he already knew most of the students attending from around the neighborhood. This afforded him some protection not extended to most students, meaning he could openly wear his gold chains and 8-ball jackets. We also learn about his experiences in gym and art classes, which led to meeting the person who would come to be BIO, one of the founding writers of Tats Cru and a close friend of BG. Bio (Graffiti artist);Bon 5 (Graffiti artist);James Monroe High School (New York, N.Y.);National School Lunch Program (U.S.);Pome (Graffiti artist) Education, Secondary--United States;Fashion;Fashion--Social aspects;Graffiti;Tats Cru (Group) 0 3180 Entry into Graffiti BG: I was doing other names I had a name called GAPP, I didn't like it. Then I had another name I didn't like I don't remember the name I was using. So every name I didn't like SP: tried them out BG: Yeah. Then the only name that I liked it was because after a while--remember I was playing softball-- KB: You's an athlete BG: I was real nice. So there would be a man on second and third, and we're losing, and they'd be like "Yo bring the batters in." So that's what I used to do. I was so nice I could hit it over first, I could hit it over third, I'm a switch hitter, so. So I used to bring the batters in. So BRING. Oh BRING that's a good name. I started writing B-R-I-N-G, but it was too long. So I cut it down to B-G. I took the first letter, last letter, and put it together. This segment goes through the beginning of BG's graffiti bombing career, getting his name, improving his style, slowly integrating into the community, his early experiences, and becoming the leader of a crew. Notable is the discussion of the Writers Bench located in the 149 St-Grand Concourse IRT station. BG talks about the layups he was able to hit and the lines he was most interested in painting. He also brings up the emergence of the "White Elephant" train fleet, a failed experiment by the NYCTA in 1981-82 to prevent graffiti by whitewashing large portions of the fleet with a teflon-paint mix, but as BG points out, actually encouraged them by providing a clean stable canvas for graffiti. Bio (Graffiti artist);New York City Transit Authority;Shoplifting;Writers Bench Anonyms and pseudonyms;BG 183 (Graffiti artist);Graffiti;Graffiti artists 0 4640 Adult Life and More Graffiti BG: We did like the Ghost Yard, the Ghost Yard was on like 207 St, it was a yard that was only us. Anyone who went in left with their head cracked, sneakers taken, jewelry. SP: What Line was that on? BG: It was a yard. It's on the 1 Line. On the West Side, on 207, and I think it's Broadway. This section details BG's early adult life, including his employment preparing and installing heavy metal apartment building doors. He also details his graffiti activities at the time with the crew TAT, an early iteration of Tats Cru. He worked with BRIM at the behest of Afrika Bambaataa to paint the inside of the Bronx River Center, briefly worked in a Graffiti and Hip-Hop based television program on PIX 11, all the while continuing his activities on the trains. What comes out is the significant violence of the scene, for instance he and his crew were able to maintain a monopoly on "Ghost Yard", the 207 St maintenance yard in Inwood, Manhattan by robbing any would-be competition. According to BG, this was exacerbated by the increasing security of paint stores in the City, making paint a valuable commodity that writers would travel even out of state to secure (and ultimately rob each other for). He details one event where he and his crew were robbed at gunpoint for their pain in Brooklyn, at a layup near Utica Ave, but allowed to finish their pieces first by the robbers, which he ended up seeing running on the trains. Afrika Bambaataa, 1960-;Grim (Graffiti artist);Krylon;Shame 125 (Graffiti artist);Violence;WPIX (Television station : New York, N.Y.) Employment;Graffiti;Graffiti artists;Railroad yards;Robbery;Spray painting;Tats Cru (Group) 0 5413 Creation of Tats Cru and Mural Career KB: So you was TAT what did T-A-T stand for at that time? BG: Ok it was Tough Ass Team, Tough Ass Teenagers, The Art Team, anything that stand for TAT... KB: And then the S you added with the third--so to become Tats Cru, maybe explain a little about how that came about. BG: Right so the Cru, Bio came up with the Cru because of, he didn't want to write Crew as C-R-E-W. So that was like slang so we did TAT CRU, that was there since the early 80s. ... BG: Like, I'm a graffiti artist, I paint graffiti, now I'm painting faces for these people that died! and I say to myself, "I can't handle this no more!" I'm hearing the news, I'm doing memorial walls, you know people just dying left and right. And I'm like, to talk about it nicely, "I can't take this no more, I can't draw this." You know I'm painting the face, and they come up behind me and they're talking to me. And I look, they're not talking to me! They're talking to the mural that I'm painting on the wall. This segment details the evolution of Tats Cru, how it evolved out of the graffiti crew as the members got older into a powerhouse of muralists. BG goes in depth on the spiritual toll memorial murals took on him, as well as hardships faced from the media who portrayed them as drug dealers and thugs, with memorial murals being whitewashed by the city. Coca-Cola;Graffiti Hall of Fame (Harlem, New York, N.Y.);Mortality;THE POINT Community Development Corporation Art and business;Education in art;Graffiti;Mural painting and decoration;Mural painting and decoration, American;Tats Cru (Group) 0 6633 Becoming a Business BG: Even when we went to go look for walls to go do this stuff we would go and talk to the landlord, and say look, we're gonna do a graffiti mural, "Nah I don't want it." And then we'd go back and say oh we're gonna do like a mural, a graffiti mural here. And I said, damn what's going on? Maybe I have to stop saying graffiti and say art. Oh we're gonna do an art mural here "Oh okay!" And that's how it all opened up. And again the media was also saying graffiti's not good in the 90s, be careful. This segment deals with the transition from "graffiti" to "art" with the Tats Cru. It was clearly not a clean break, the crew was writing heavily with Crack TS, more likely known by Fat Joe, at the time of the early transition. The portmanteau of TAT and TS is where Tats come from as a name. It also deals with how the business has been run from BG's perspective and his recent gallery experiences. Big Pun;Coca-Cola;Fat Joe;KRS-One (Musician);Mad Lion;Tats Cru (Group) Art and business;Graffiti artists;Mural painting and decoration;Mural painting and decoration--Technique;Street art 0 7750 Influences, Technique, Global Futures of Graffiti KB: How do you feel about this mural movement around the world? And you being a part of that, 'cause you travel the world and are an inspiration to this whole mural movement. Now it's way more than tagging its a whole global movement of murals. So how do you feel about the name Mural Kings and this whole mural movement. BG: When I started doing the graff you had artists like Lee. Lee was doing incredible murals back then in the 80s. He did one that was in the train station that was like my internet. You know back then the way you saw murals was you had to travel, by train like. So Lee had one that was from, I think from 34th Street to 14th Street there's an abandoned 4/5 train station. I think it's on 27th Street and it's abandoned. And when the train is going slow you could see the abandoned, and he had this mural that he painted, this Egyptian guy on a camel. It was a silhouette. So he did like yellow and orange this guy, and beige into browns for the sand. And on the tip of the mountain of the sand he did like a camel with an Egyptian like a silhouette and he drew like the shadow of the camel of the silhouette and it was so amazing. Like, wow I didn't know you could do that with spray paint! Like you could do art! This segment details how BG views the global mural movement, and his place within it. He speaks about those that were doing murals before him and inspired him, including LEE and SEEN, as well as new artists in the US and abroad who look up to BG, including those BG met on trips to Mexico and Brazil. Brazil;Mexico--In art;Quinones, Lee George;Seen (Graffiti artist), 1961- Mural painting and decoration;Mural painting and decoration, American;Spray painting;Zines 0 8439 The Bronx According to BG 183 SP: I got one final question for you, which is what does the Bronx represent to you? BG: For me the Bronx represents everything. It represents life, represents me as a person, because without me living in the Bronx and showing me different elements of life, from being poor, from being broke, from seeing everything. Like when people say, "You live in the Bronx?!" "Where?! In the South Bronx?!" You know for me it was like life. We had the hydrant, we had sports, we had the street games, everything that only a poor neighborhood would have, and we did, you know have the crime rate. You had to protect yourself. You had you know, your friends that was doing so much crime. Or you had your friend who passed away too early in the game, and you didn't want to hear about that. And you had everything that, you know like KRS-One says, "The Bronx keep creating it" and that's what we've been doing for many years. We create something out of nothing. That's what the Bronx represents. If you are born and raised here somehow you're talented in some how and some where in your life. If you want to be a dancer you go knock on your next door neighbor and he's a dancer. You wanna be a DJ you go upstairs and DJ. You wanna do graffiti the wall across the street has graffiti. Everything that you want is here. This segment is BG wrapping up his interview by answering what the Bronx means to him. He talks about the Bronx spirit of "making something of nothing" and shouts out everyone who has shown him what that means. He wraps up by writing a tag for the BCHS library. Díaz, Ruben, 1948-;New York Yankees (Baseball team);Salsa (Music);Tats Cru (Group) Bronx;Community, creativity, choice, change;Graffiti;Hip-hop 0 Oral history recorded for the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project on March 1, 2022 with BG 183, a member of the legendary Tats Cru, one of the most prolific Bronx graffiti crews painting whole cars and trains during the Golden Era of the 1980s and trailblazers of the contemporary global street arts movement. In this oral history BG 183 speaks about growing up in the South Bronx along the 6 line, his love and aptitude for art from a young age, his involvement in the emerging hip hop culture of the 1970s, his early days as a graffiti writer, how he got involved in Tats Cru (originally T.A.T. Cru), transitioning more to mural work during the late 1980s and 1990s, his current work as a globally renowned artist, and much more. Steven Payne: 00:00:01.339 Welcome to the Bronx aerosol arts documentary project. My name is Stephen Payne, librarian and archivist at the Bronx county historical society. Kurt, you want to go ahead and introduce yourself? Kurt Boone: 00:00:10.237 Yeah, I'm Kurt Boone, and I've been writing about urban culture for 40 years. Steven Payne: 00:00:15.590 Great. So today is March 1, 2022, and we're really happy to be here with BG 183, a founding member of the TATS CRU. Really legendary graffiti artist, a master of style, and the intricacy of his backgrounds and the details in his pieces are just out of this world. And BG will be talking a lot about growing up in the Bronx and his art, and we're excited to get into it. So BG, why don't you start off by talking about your family's history and background and say a little bit about how your family ended up in the Bronx? BG 183: 00:00:53.603 Okay. Yeah. So my mother, Maria, my father, Sotero, they both met in Puerto Rico in a place called Santurce. Santurce, Puerto Rico was basically a place that had kind of a hip-hop element in Puerto Rico but was called salsa. In that particular area that my mom and father lived at in Santurce, they had a lot of land club that was one of the best salsa performers, musician, singers came from in that era in Santurce. And that was like the beginning of my mom and pop. My father was a professional baseball player in Puerto Rico. He played under the baseball team, Santurce, and he played for two years. And before that, he also traveled, because my father was, like, a dark skin Puerto Rican. So when they took him to places like South Carolina, he played in Georgia, he played in different parts of the South of America. He was wondering why they kept putting him in black hotels. He only allowed to eat in black restaurants. BG 183: 00:02:35.609 So first time in his life, he was facing racism, like being Puerto Rican and Puerto Rico. If you dark skin, you still could walk into typical white skin Puerto Rican. But over there, when he came down here to America, he was treated different. They all rode in the same bus, but all the white, light-skinned Puerto Ricans, they took them to the white hotels, and then my father would go into the black hotel, and that's how it was for him. So after that, he went back to Puerto Rico. My mom and him got together, and then my father decided to go to New York City. So he moved to Harlem, like a 106, 107 in Park Avenue. Today is where they do the festivals at. So my father was there, in the beginning, I think he moved there in 1957. He came from Puerto Rico, so now he's in Harlem, and my mom is still back home. So I think after, like, three, four years later, my father asked her, let's come to New York. So they moved to New York and they moved into the Bronx. And I think it was like Brian Avenue where they lived there for a while, then they moved again to a regular apartment building where I was born. And that was in Freeman Street, right off of the Sheridan. I was like maybe a block away from the 6 train. We used to take the 6 train back then. BG 183: 00:04:32.359 My father worked as a factory worker, as a shipping clerk for many years and my mom was basically a housewife, like taking care of me and my other two brothers and my sister. And that was a time that-- it was early '60s I remember, and I remember a lot of stories. My father used to play softball. Now he's a softball player playing here. He would play like at Cortona Park, Central Park, Pelham Bay Park, and he used to play for-- they used to play for money, or for beer. Whoever wins would buy a couple packs of beer for the players. And then my father got into playing dominoes. So he became a professional domino player. Back then, he used to bring back trophies. I used to see trophies and I remember-- I think I probably knocked one of them. And I remember breaking one and he was very upset. I don't remember him hitting me or anything like that, but I know he was very upset. And my father was very strong. He was a very strong man. My mom, for Christmas, she would buy me art supplies. And that was like the beginning of me drawing and that helped because for Christmas, for my birthday, any type-- [inaudible] outside walking while she would see something art related and she would buy me coloring by colors, like those pages or coloring books, anything that was art related we used to do. I remember my mom used to buy like these 500 to 1000 puzzles and then we used to start early in the day and finish it at night, with all four of us, we'd be like [inaudible] putting all the puzzle together. Steven Payne: 00:06:39.236 You got your puzzle crew. BG 183: 00:06:40.454 Yeah. You take care of the sky, you take care of the tree area, you take care of the buildings, or the water scene whatever the actual puzzle was. We entertained ourselves, saying like I would go outside and I would play the street games. And one of the street games was [Skelzies?] . That was one. We used to play-- it was called 13 and that was-- you throw the ball against the edge of the side of the building and it will pop. It will go and you grab it or it might get stuck. They had like a little space of the building that if you throw it just right the ball gets stuck there and that was considered like 50 point to 100 points. And we used to play to like 180 so the more you [inaudible] but you always had to pass the number 13. You couldn't go under. If you went under that's when the next person [inaudible]. But I remember the [inaudible] I think that's how I [inaudible] and then you know we play roundup around the world, that's like a tag that you play, bulldog. We played all different games and [doing?] that time I remember we was mostly in a black neighborhood. But again I was kind of dark skinned so I actually fit into the neighborhood. And they used to say Puerto Rican against blacks. So it was like that. We always lost because they were much bigger than us and everything. We was kind of skinny but we had definitely had great time. I don't remember anything crazy. Then when when we was living in Freeman the building got-- that's when the beginning of the burning of the South Bronx. So these buildings was getting burned or-- accidentally. Not everything burned because they wanted to burn it. Steven Payne: 00:08:47.691 And these were old buildings, too, right? BG 183: 00:08:48.924 Right. These was buildings that was there owned by landlords and they were-- everybody was living there. But one building burned because maybe the Christmas tree. A lot of fire was caused by in the winter time with people plugging in heaters-- Steven Payne: 00:09:05.834 Heaters. Yeah, yeah. BG 183: 00:09:06.175 --with the Christmas tree or with the washing machine or-- everything was in one outlet. And these fire was really-- at that time I don't think they had any regulation how to plug in these stuff. So all these fire was taking place and next thing you know I think the landlord couldn't really afford to fix these, so-- and people was not going to move in places like that. I remember we always was almost the last family to move and they were like 30 family members that lived in one building. We was like maybe the second or the third to move. So I mean, during that time there was no landlord. So again my mom and pop was not really making money, so we would stay in those-- you still had light, but it was no heat. But at least you only got to do is my mom would put on the stove or buy two or three more heaters because again we're not paying for no light bill because that building, it's not on the record. So we lived like two or three years living like that. We were comfortable. After a while, you had a move because it was getting more abandoned and it's not safe anymore. It this like the early 70s? Yeah that's like early, early 70s. And then my mom moved again. We moved to Simpson-- Steven Payne: 00:10:31.615 Okay, Simpson. Yeah, yeah. BG 183: 00:10:31.873 --right across the street from Casita Maria. And that was a recreational area that I'd spend my time playing sport or ping pong or handball. And they also had a softball team there. And that particular block was always active and in activities because of Casita Maria. We still had the stickball. We used to do all different games. Every summer it was just playing sport, being active every day, doing that. Me and my brother was one of the best what at we was doing. We got into playing Connect Four and we became the champion of the block. Even to this day people said, I'll play you Connect Four and I'm still nice at it. And this is how it was and then again with the fires I remember there was a building right across the street from where I live at and through the windows and through the curtain, I could see light-- a lot of light coming through the curtains. And then when I used to open the curtain, it was like one of the biggest fire in the South Bronx. Steven Payne: 00:11:49.625 That's crazy. BG 183: 00:11:49.566 It was a total of like five building, a complex building, that was connected together and you see-- you could see the whole five building burning. And And then after that was kind of my entertainment. I'm sleeping I'm trying to sleep and I see all this light and I'm looking at the window I see the fire. I hear people screaming and I'm like ''Wow this is kind of like--'' For me it was like ''Wow.'' I was like I'm young so I was like that's crazy and then the next day in the news you would hear that four or five men had died on that fire because they probably was on the roof and it fell because all that heat of the fire. So this is what you heard. You heard always the fire department truck always passing by. You hear the ambulance passing by you hear the police going in and out of-- and I'm still you know I'm still growing up but at the same time I'm doing the sports, I'm enjoying I'm doing some art and my school and I graduate from the 5th to the 6th and now-- Steven Payne: 00:13:05.705 Which elementary school? BG 183: 00:13:07.179 I went to [P.S.] 66 that was on Jennings and then from Jennings so I went to PS 116. Steven Payne: 00:13:17.176 Oh okay. BG 183: 00:13:18.089 No, it's P.S. 66 and I.S. 116 was a junior high school and that particular junior high school was just opened up. Steven Payne: 00:13:30.226 Oh great. BG 183: 00:13:30.939 It was called Raphael Hernandez. He is a Puerto Rican musician and they had-- this school had everything. This school had workshop, electrical shop, art and craft, it had sewing class it had everything that-- like it was a school that was meant for-- and my type of neighborhood so called the ghetto was a school that had all these high-end stuff to teach young kids that going to that school so I went to that school when I was in the 6th grade and I learned how to do workshops, electrical, I learned how to do sewing, craft and art and the craft and art class I learned how to do stencils and that was like one of my first time doing stencil like my teacher actually taught me how to use a razor blade, put on the light to make sure that you don't have extra paper sticking out and I would again during that time I was a great artist so I created like this parakeet bird when he cut it and then when he sprayed it or I think he was doing like silk screening or whatever he was doing he loved it he said he showed ''Class, look at this student.'' And I was kind of like shy back then I was like ''Okay.'' And I remember doing that and then I remember one story in the third grade I think this is like one of my stories that I always mentioned is I drew a Spider-Man Steven Payne: 00:15:15.058 yeah. BG 183: 00:15:15.448 I just did like an oval head and the eyes of Spider-Man. And I remember I looked at it, I had on top of my table and I think it was like home rule like you could talk for like 10, 15 minutes before class would start again. I remember this one guy one of the students came up to me and said, ''Oh, can I see that drawing you did? It looks very nice.'' And took it and he brought it to a group of students that was like talking about it and I'm hearing them like this ain't some stuff then the guy come back and he says ''My friend is better than you.'' And he gives me back my Spider-Man. I said ''What?'' So that made me go back home to practice. That was like the beginning of me getting into it so I went and I drew the same Spider-Man head but this time I did the web that come for the Spider-Man head. I thought I'm gonna show these guys. So now I'm waiting for them. So he comes over. "Can I take it?" I said, "Yeah, take it." Then he comes back and said "The other guy drew Incredible Hulk. It's better than you." I'm like, "Oh my gosh." So again because the life of The Bronx is like that. It's always a competition, like, "I'm better than you. Look at your sneakers, your sneakers, they got holes in it." Or, "Your sneakers look dirty. I got the brand new sneakers." So the fashion part of The Bronx and I was next to Jewman. They had a store called Jewman with cool [hosiery?] and that was around the corner and they the one who actually started the fashion of hip-hop because all the clothes were made by Jewman. You would buy before [Dr Jays?], before the Jimmy Jazz, before all these stores, they say, "This is a hip-hop store." Jewman was one of the first. BG 183: 00:17:16.085 So we had one on 163rd and it's still there. The son is still there. His name is Chucky. We know him for many-- we know him since the '70s and then you had two more stores that were around the corner on Southern Boulevard, on Simpson train station, and then you had another one on Freeman Street. So we had really no more than 1000 feet, 1500 feet away from all these stores. When you bought your first Nike sneakers was-- Steven Payne: 00:17:54.885 You go there. BG 183: 00:17:55.620 --you go there and I remember going into these stores and you'd be like, "Oh, let me get those pair." "These are the new Nikes." I said, "Nike?" And they were called Cortez. They were riveted bottom with a-- almost like a tennis sneaker, a blue family. And I said, "Oh, they look nice. Can I buy one?" And they'd be like, "Okay." So they would show you the brand new Nike, oh that's beautiful, and then they would put it in the box and I say to him, "Oh, can I see the other one?" They say, "Why? Why do you want to see the other one? Why?" And I'd be, "Oh, I want to see how you look." And they will be like, "No." And then when they pull it out, it's an old pair of Nike. So the left or the right will be old and be like, "I don't want it." And then they say, "Get out. Get out. You don't want to buy--" it was only $15 for a pair of Nikes. This is the beginning of sneakers. And the same way when you bought Adidas. Adidas came out before Nikes and you had the Pumas-- Kurt Boone: 00:19:09.448 [inaudible] PRO-Keds. BG 183: 00:19:10.225 --and then you had the PRO-Keds. You had the 69ers. The 69ers were-- Steven Payne: 00:19:14.315 The 69ers, for sure. BG 183: 00:19:16.162 These were like a line and then before that with the Converse and then before the Converse were the Skippys. The Skippy was one of the first. I made sure that I had a hole in my Skippy because I didn't want to wear Skippys. Yeah, and then snap on your [inaudible]. Yeah, and your toes be on the bottom like this looking or they will flap up. It was because the heat of the summer used to burn the rubber off. So it was really hard times. So again, so we had the Jewman giving out the hip-hop clothes. They had the sheepskins. They had the leather jacket, the bombers. I used to rock all that, that [Chinese?] mock neck, the overlap jeans that had French-cut pants. Everything that was the fashion, you went through them. Steven Payne: 00:20:11.013 And this was when you're in junior high? BG 183: 00:20:12.381 It was '73, '72, '74. Steven Payne: 00:20:15.949 Yeah. Sure. Sure. Very early early then. BG 183: 00:20:18.464 It's very early. Again, because I always outside. And it's funny. I was not trying to show up in front of a girl. It was mostly to show up in front of my friends. You know what I'm saying? The day, the one, I would go to that group, and automatically, they would try to snap, make jokes on you. So in the beginning, I felt kind of like, "Oh, why they doing that?" Then after a while, I became the guy. You come up to me, but I see something I didn't like, I would-- Steven Payne: 00:20:53.993 You would be snapping them. [laughter] BG 183: 00:20:54.954 Yeah. Be like look at your glasses or look at your jeans, look at your pants. Next thing I know, they want to fight me, and we start fighting. But that's how it was. Growing up, it's the fashion, painting, playing sports, I'm better than you, I have more home runs than you, I got a better swing, I could catch better, and when we play two in touch, I could do more moves than you, I could catch, I could run faster. So everything was always a competition. Kurt Boone: 00:21:29.371 So let me ask you. Talking about the gang activity too. So you run in the gang members. You got colors on. How did you navigate that too? Steven Payne: 00:21:40.621 You see that graffiti up on different walls, things like that. Did you encounter that? BG 183: 00:21:43.639 For me, doing the time with the gang members, they looked on my block. So it was not like I was scared of them or anything. So I was very part of that group, but not running with them, but I was neutral with them. Steven Payne: 00:21:59.938 Sure. Which one was it? BG 183: 00:22:00.344 So we had the Savage Skulls. We had the Ching-a-lings. Yeah. Savage Nomads. And you had the Boogie Brothers. And then you had other crew that wasn't gang member that was regular crews. You had Kelly crew. In my neighborhood, we had Kelly crew, Wilkins crew. You had the Gestapo crew. You had those little nation. You had all these crews that was up. We got Boogie. You had the Bamboo Brothers. And that was with Theodore and them. You know what I'm saying? They used to jam a place called 75 Park in the early '70s. And I saw him perform, but I didn't know he was [inaudible] with the Theodore. And a true story is, again, I had a friend of mine that when I went to his house and he spoke to his mom and he's saying to his mom, "Mom, where's my gun at?" I can't even told my mom where's mine [laughter] or where's my slingshot or my pea shooter. You know what I'm saying? She'd whack you if you do that. [laughter] She'd whack me. And this guy's saying, "Mom, where's my gun at?" I thought he was joking. And I hear his mom saying, "Yeah. It's right here in the kitchen drawer." I said, "Wait a minute." "Okay. You sure? Which one is it?" "It's a small 22." [laughter] And I'm like, "Oh, shit." I'm like, "What the--?" And my mom like-- "What's going on here?" So next thing you know, he asked for another gun. His mom said, "Yeah. I have it right here." I'm like, "Oh." And he says, "Yo, Ma, can you bring it over?" Now, maybe this guy is lying. So his mom really brings it over, [laughter] give it to him. And he's like, "Okay, Ma. Thank you." And he gets it back to her. And I said, "Wow." BG 183: 00:23:54.944 And this guy was one of the guys that when people heard his name, they You know what I'm saying? So he was my friend. And so I remember we walked over to where Grand Wizard Theodore with performing and he's walking around with a shotgun. And then we got to the area where they were DJing at. When you DJ, there's always people surrounding to-- and he tells me "Yo, can you do-- I want you to do it. Grab the shotgun, put on the side, and walk around." And I say to myself, "Why?" But next thing you know, I grabbed the shotgun and I walked around. You did it, though. I did it. Then I went like this. I try to give it back to him. He like, "No, no, no. Walk around a second time." And I said, "Okay." I walked around a second time and then after that I see Grand Wizard Theodore-- Steven Payne: 00:25:02.059 Doing his thing? [crosstalk]. BG 183: 00:25:02.237 --performing and DJing. He got his crew because back then, if we didn't do stuff like that. You got robbed for your equipment. Steven Payne: 00:25:10.070 Absolutely. Your equipment would be gone. Yeah. BG 183: 00:25:11.975 Because equipment. A lot of DJs got robbed for the equipment because, one, there was no money in the street and the way you probably got-- you rob somebody for they DJ equipment or you will break into the store, an electrical store that's sold mixers and turntables. Steven Payne: 00:25:30.532 That stuff was expensive, anyway. Yeah. BG 183: 00:25:30.754 You would go in there-- at that time it was expensive. Or speakers. So at that time, that was like that. So I started DJing because he had DJ equipment in his house. So, boom, I'm DJing. I met a lot of a lot of people during that time. There was a DJ, Whiz Kid, and had a couple of groups that were performing back then. Breakers? No. The breakers was later on in like in the 80s, but they was-- before breaker they were called b-boy and the b-boys, they had their own almost like a alt-rock. They used to do alt-rock firs. Before breaking they was more alt-rock and they would dance together and they would drop and do almost like a routine. And that was the first time I got to see that-- in that time, again, I was not really dancing or doing anything like that. But then later on-- I'm seeing and not even into graffiti yet and right now I'm more into-- Steven Payne: 00:26:43.738 DJing. BG 183: 00:26:44.062 DJing. And then you had the song Rapper's Delight that came out. But when Rapper's Delight came out, I'm in the mix so you'll be the first one to hear it before it went on the radio. So it went it went on the radio a year later. It got on the radio. So what happens when you hear too much music? Kurt Boone: 00:27:07.815 So you would hear it in the [inaudible], or you just [crosstalk]? BG 183: 00:27:09.630 Right you hear it in the [inaudible] or you buy the record? Kurt Boone: 00:27:13.486 Oh, you buy the record. Okay. BG 183: 00:27:14.291 Right. You buy the record because it's the beginning and everybody's like, oh, look, Rapper's Delight and already the DJs and the MCs, they're already performing. You're hearing the Grandmaster Flash perform. You're hearing a lot of DJs performing and you hearing all these cool Herculoids performing. So all that you hear it from mixtape. And people coming over with mixed tape and giving you mixtape-- Steven Payne: 00:27:41.761 [crosstalk] mixtape [crosstalk]. BG 183: 00:27:42.912 --and you're hearing all this and that's how-- and then you had in the early 80s, you had Mr. Magic. Kurt Boone: 00:27:50.315 Mr. Magic, yeah. BG 183: 00:27:50.915 And then before that it was somebody else, but that was Underground College once and then they had Mr. Magic that came on about like 11 o'clock in the PM or and then he moved over to 12 and he moved over to 1 PM. But we used to fight. My brother was one of the guys that went on a mission to record all these hip hop. So my brother was into the music, so I got into the music with my brother. So again, you had the DJ, he had the jams going on again. I'm in the South Bronx, so all those performance you see, you see for free, you know what I'm saying? You saw for free. And then you had the records, you had people dropping records. And I remember like we were saying earlier about Rapper's Delight and it came out in a year later it became in the radio and then two years later it was one of the hottest songs. And I'm tired of listening to Rapper's delight. And then you hear people saying, "Oh, you heard this soul Rapper's Delight?" I say, "Oh, that's old." "That is not old. I just hear in the radio they say this is brand new." "Well, like no, that's old, that's old." Because when you're in the mix of the culture of hip hop, you hear it way before it became mainstream and you knew-- so I was one of those guys that was fortunate that I thought all that stuff. And then my older brother, he got into gangs. So now he's part of the Savage Skulls. Steven Payne: 00:29:32.384 Oh, he's part of the Savage Skulls. Yeah, yeah. BG 183: 00:29:33.514 So now, there was a-- and I think early, late '70s like '78 or I don't know how early they started, you had a guy named Comanche Steven Payne: 00:29:46.191 Oh, Comanche. I've heard of Comanche. Yeah, yeah, yeah. BG 183: 00:29:47.343 And Blackie, they was like the presidents and the one who ran the Savage Skulls. They started a Puerto Rican-- what's the name? Puerto Rican Coalition Security. Steven Payne: 00:30:06.840 Oh, the Black Skulls had something. The Black Spades had something similar. Yeah. BG 183: 00:30:11.327 So the Black had the Black Coalition, and then you had to Spanish Coalition. And they both had security license to get contract for when all these buildings was all abandoned, they went in and they're trying to make them all brand new, renovate all these old buildings. So the Spanish had mostly all the South Bronx area because it was all dominated by Spanish people. And then you had the Black Coalition that they will run Harlem at some part of The Bronx. But I remember that I don't know who was stepping on whose territory, we had to go to war. So now I'm working with that company. It was a security company. So I mean, I think it was like '79, '80. I'm working with them. They used to pay like $30 for every eight hours. And that was pretty good money, $30 during that time. And I'm working with them on the weekend. So I would do a 16-hour shift. I'll do eight hours on a Saturday and eight hours on a Sunday. And I got to meet every gang member. Because every gang members was allowed and any type. It could have been [inaudible], it could be Savage Nomad, Savage [inaudible], it doesn't really matter. You will go and work because a lot of these guys, they was probably uneducated or came out of jail, can't get a regular job, so they will go there and get paid. BG 183: 00:31:55.798 So I got to meet Fish. He was the president of the Savage Nomads, vice president. Got to meet him and we would honestly like really hanging out almost every time I go to work that was like my friend so I got to meet a guy called Machine Gun Eddie. So now I'm with the gang member but I'm also at the same time I'm dressing still hip hop. I got my hip hop gear on. I will go to work and that's how I was. it was like for me I never really saw there was violence going on. The violence was when you go to the clubs. When you go when you go clubbing always in the ending of the club, there will always be somebody or two or three people getting beat down. Why you looked at my girl, why stepped on sneakers? Why are you looking at me funny? That was it. Back then, you would walk you never gave eye contact because the person will look, " Yo, what the fuck you looking at?" "Do you have problems? What's up?" You'll be like-- Steven Payne: 00:33:15.857 I was just looking. BG 183: 00:33:17.039 What's up? What's up? and the what's up? and then you go like this, and that guy is like that and who was with who really [inaudible]. You have what I have. So that's how I was you know. So my crew had Simpson crew we was always together so we always go as a group and we leave as a group. You know what I'm saying? Again we was not looking for no girls we went for the music of the hip hop. Whoever was DJing and see who was wearing and then at the same time who was going to get robbed that night. Steven Payne: 00:33:57.822 Yeah. BG 183: 00:33:57.994 So that was like we will be in the corner like this looking and this guy's getting robbed. This girl getting her hair pulled by another girl, that this guy is fighting. This guy came through like this and now he's running scared like I thought he was tough and he wasn't. Every weekend was like that every Friday and Saturday. Kurt Boone: 00:34:22.420 So did the hip hop flyers come across your desk and did the artists [inaudible] you must have looked at the art or Phase 2 and some or the other writers were doing the flyers. So you and your brother were in the music so anybody approach you about applying? BG 183: 00:34:42.254 No, we did. We did flyers in the early 80s. We did flyers I think Bio did flyers, I did flyers, help them out do flyer but again it was like we did it and not thinking that. I probably saw a lot of Phase 2 flyer but I looked at them. Anytime they give it you, you throw it out. I know where this is at and you throw it out. You're not thinking that anything with worth or anything. And then during that time again I'm still broke like before I even started working security with these guys, I needed to make money. So again I was good artist and I used to go to these shows. I went to this to this party that I used to have every weekend I used to go there and they always just used to stamp you and that's how you pay $2, they stamp you go in and then one day I think I didn't wash my hand really good I went back and I went like this and I got in for free. I said oh shit, I got in for free. But they were using the same staff from the next day. And then and then I said to myself it took me a couple of weeks I said maybe I could draw it. So I used to ask somebody to come over. "Let me see your stamp. Oh, stay right there." And I used to draw it exactly alike to replicate it. "Okay. Thank you." [laughter] "Oh, why you want to look at my--" "Thank you." Then, I went like this, and I got in for free again. [laughter] Oh, shit. And then, after a while, my boys started saying, "How you got in?" I said, "I could draw it." "Okay. You draw mine." So I drew all my boys. But we had to wait-- you can't go in too early. You got to go in when it-- almost packed. They don't know who's in and out. Steven Payne: 00:36:35.855 When they don't pay attention. Yeah, yeah, yeah. BG 183: 00:36:36.644 And sometimes they change the person at the door. So you go like this, and I was here earlier. Because back then, you was allowed to go in and come out. I know you had a stamp, you could go in and out in case you want to go to the store. So and then, I was saying, "Yo, maybe I'll go start charging people." So and then, the [jam?] was like $3, I would charge a dollar-- yeah, I think a dollar. So I made my dollar. Now, I'm making $20. I got $20 in my pocket with 20 people. Then the [jam?] was like $5. I used to charge $3. "I don't have $3." "So you're not going in. So pay $5." Then, people used to get tough on me like, "How do you know-- I'll give you the $3. But if I don't get in, I'm going to come back." I said, "You're going to get in. Just relax, walk in like nothing happened," or make you seem like you got a fake-- and then, they used to walk in, walk out, and that's how I made my money during that time with my art game. So growing up, again, it was-- What high school you went to before? And then after that, I went to James Monroe High School. Steven Payne: 00:37:43.559 James Monroe High School. For sure, yeah. BG 183: 00:37:44.641 It's one of those high school that was so bad that it was-- the reputation was no good. And for me, it was my district school. So when I went there, who I saw? Everybody from my neighborhood, so. Everyone from your block. Yup. My brother's there. I remember my first time being at James Monroe High School. They gave you a ticket to get your lunch. So I gave my ticket, and I had sat down and I had left my coat and my book bag. And then, I went to get my lunch, came back, and somebody was sitting in my chair. And I said, "Oh, shit, somebody's sitting in my chair." And I see my brother, all my friends here. And I asked the guy, "Yo, you're sitting in my chair." And then he went, "This is not your chair." Next thing, my brother said and my said, "Get up." Then, "Oh, okay. I didn't know he was your brother?" and the guy got up. You know what I'm saying? So I'm already connected at the school, so it was-- again, I think I was blessed to be connected with a lot of people that was someone, you know what I'm saying, had something going on during that time. And I think I grew up safe. I never had to worry about-- I used to wear big gold chains. I still have gold chains, but I used to have a bigger gold chain. I used to walk around in the '70s and the '80s. And I remember when people was getting shot for the eight-ball jackets. And that was-- Kurt Boone: 00:39:24.305 And sheepskins. BG 183: 00:39:25.271 And sheepskin or leather bombers. And I used to rock all that kind of stuff because [inaudible] was right there, so. Kurt Boone: 00:39:34.971 And you wasn't scared? BG 183: 00:39:36.030 No. I used to walk around. People would say, "Yo, you're crazy. Why? Yo." Kurt Boone: 00:39:42.590 Yeah, I would never wear that. Yeah. BG 183: 00:39:42.902 And then, the eight-ball-- I can get a [inaudible] like a six-month to a year that on the front page was somebody dying from a eight-ball jacket that-- he didn't want to give up this eight-ball jacket and he got killed. Because the eight-ball jacket was made out of like a shearling, sheepskin material, but it was multi colors. And these jackets, they were like from 900 to like 1,800-dollar jacket and they were custom-made, some of them. And people, hey, if I take that from him, I could sell it easy for 500, 600 dollars. That was money back then. So I was lucky that, one, I didn't travel too much away from my neighborhood. Steven Payne: 00:40:26.259 Sure. Sure. Sure. BG 183: 00:40:26.681 [crosstalk] if I did, they'd probably throw a-- I always had it like that walking around with a grilled face and I think that helped out too. And my father always showed me like when you walk, always walk like you got something in your pocket. That helped out. And then after that, it's you yourself to say to yourself like, "Okay, I could do it." The same thing when I first started and I started-- oh yeah, let me go back to James Moore High School. So with the ticket, I remember doing the ticket time, and again, I was hungry and that time there was good food with hamburgers, meatloaf, hot dogs. You don't get that in school anymore but back then, it was pretty good. So when the day-- today was number 13. So you go use number 13 and the next day, 14, the ticket. So the people that came in, they have a 13, they would throw it on the floor. So what I did is I would pick up all the 13s or all the number threes like there's 23 or 43, anything with threes on it I used to grab it and make them into eight. So I took all the threes, I just went like that with black ink and I did it really perfect that you can't even tell it wasn't an eight. So now I figured every number eight, I'm eating for free or I will sell that. Kurt Boone: 00:42:00.342 You sell the tickets. Sell the tickets. BG 183: 00:42:01.387 Sell the tickets. Because I think they were like-- I think like 75 cents to a dollar to buy. If you didn't have a ticket, you pay a dollar or something like that for lunch. So I sold them for 50 cents, [inaudible] 50 cents in high school, [inaudible], you know what I'm saying. And then people started doing it taking out a number two trying to make it into an 8 and then I think they realized that and then they started checking all the tickets. After like a year or two years after I had a good run everybody started like-- jumped in the bandwagon and so again it was like growing up and using my ability to just get by and to hustle, you know what I'm saying? It's simple hustle but it's still something that I was doing for me to continue what I was doing and-- Steven Payne: 00:42:52.046 It's interesting because even before you got into graffiti you were kind of drawn to I guess you could call like typeface or things like that. Manipulating whether with the letters or even the stamp kind of is a kind of [crosstalk]. BG 183: 00:43:04.965 That helped me out. And so then after that so-- Kurt Boone: 00:43:09.519 What year you graduate high school? BG 183: 00:43:11.459 I don't know like '83, '84. Steven Payne: 00:43:15.345 Okay. '83, '84. BG 183: 00:43:17.542 I was like a super senior when I graduated. Kurt Boone: 00:43:19.955 Super senior. Okay, now you actually-- I've seen interviews with you. You actually met some members of the TATS Crew in high, right? BG 183: 00:43:30.301 Right. Kurt Boone: 00:43:30.490 In high school. BG 183: 00:43:31.260 Right. So yeah, so when I went to James Moore High School, I had-- I was in already so as a junior year they gave me weight training, gym. So I had a gym day. So I'm in the gym pumping it up and getting kind of big and I had to bring my own locker. The locker because they allow you-- you have to wear your gym clothes and that was the shorts and something, a T-shirt [inaudible] high school short was probably too short. I don't know. I never like it, the shorts, but you had to wear it. But I remember one time when I came back for the second semester of school, I didn't have a lock. So shit. I need to put my clothes somewhere. So I looked around and looked around I saw this skinny guy with some glasses on, I said, "Yo, can I put my clothes?" and I'm like, "Can I put my clothes?" and the guy looked at me like, "Right. Right." He said, "All right" but in his mind, he probably was saying, "What the fuck. I ain't going to give you" and then, I said, "No. No. I just wanted to put my clothes." In his mind, he probably thought I was trying to rob them. I said, "No, I was really being fair. Yo, really, I want to put my clothes there. And then when we meet again and when the period is over, I would get my clothes back." So he said, "All right." Then I saw him, I waited for him, and then I got my clothes and I said, "Don't worry. Tomorrow I'll bring my lock and I don't have to use you." And I forgot again. [laughter] I think when I went home, I started hanging out, whatever the case, I went back and I saw the guy again, and he looked at me like, "Damn, man. This guy still--" I know in his mind, he says, "I don't want to talk to this guy. This guy's trying to get me." So I put my clothes back in, boom, and then the third or fourth day again, I forgot my lock again. And I was like, "Damn, I keep forgetting my lock." BG 183: 00:45:37.535 Then I remember buying it and I left it there to grab, but I left the house too early and then the third or fourth day, I didn't see the guy no more. So I just got to put it somewhere and put it anywhere. So now I'm in a major art class. They gave it because I was a good artist and I was drawing. That time was the earlier of graffiti for me. And I look and it's like 25 minutes to a period I think it was, right? Kurt Boone: 00:46:10.922 About 30 minutes. Yeah. 30 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. BG 183: 00:46:12.968 So I'm sitting here and there's a guy sitting in front of me. But all day, he's like this, look at this. Here you go. So all day, he's like this. Troy. And I would like-- and then after like 15 minutes of the class, I kept looking and it's the guy, did I take the-- Kurt Boone: 00:46:44.418 The lock. BG 183: 00:46:44.728 Did I share my lock? I said, "Yo, what's up? Yo, man. How you doing?" And he's looking at me, "Oh yeah, yeah. I'm doing art also." And then I look and he's doing letters. I said, "Oh, you doing letters." And it turned out to be Bio. Steven Payne: 00:46:59.855 That's crazy. BG 183: 00:47:01.082 And I said, "What you doing?" He said, "Doing my name, B-I-O." I said, "Oh, that's cool man. I'm doing my name, BG." And then the next thing, we became partners and partners in crime to this day, so. Steven Payne: 00:47:15.935 It all started out in gym class. BG 183: 00:47:17.351 Yeah. Started out in gym class then we became good friends and I kept telling him, "Yo, I want to be nice, or every day, I went on a mission to be really nice" and he say, "One of the things that you have to probably do is your hand style." So he had good hand style. I said, "Okay, maybe I have to go." So, every day, I started practicing hand style. It's like, if you go into break dancing, you have to have footwork. You can't go start break dancing without any footwork. So, in graffiti, it's the hand style before you do anything else. So you do the hand style and then you do the throw-up. The throw-up is a simple letters you fill in really fast, and then you do the simple style, then you fill in with colors in the background, and you have to wild style like phase two. And he's one of the guys that I looked up to. Kurt Boone: 00:48:11.901 So let's go back because I really want to explore early style writing, just the fundamentals in high school, right? So you meet Bio, and he's already aware of style writing-- BG 183: 00:48:26.653 Yeah. He's already because he's-- Kurt Boone: 00:48:27.534 --because the trains were already hit at this time, so he was already kind of aware. Did he introduce you to it, or how did--? BG 183: 00:48:35.169 No. No. I already had seen it. Kurt Boone: 00:48:37.516 You'd seen it too. Okay. BG 183: 00:48:38.230 I'd seen it because, again, I took the subway from where I live at James Monroe High School. Steven Payne: 00:48:43.737 [crosstalk] James Monroe. Yeah. Yeah. BG 183: 00:48:44.178 So that was a 6 line, and that was run by Duster, The Seen, UA, UBA. You had a lot of old writer like Part. That's Part of that. He was like the king of the 6 line. I didn't even know that till years later. Kurt Boone: 00:49:02.215 Two years later. Okay. BG 183: 00:49:03.224 No. I mean, years later to now that he was the king of the 6 line. He had so many pieces on the 6 line that I never really saw [inaudible]-- Kurt Boone: 00:49:12.492 But did you know it was-- okay. BG 183: 00:49:13.483 Right, because he was doing them in the 70s, and during the 70s, I wasn't really-- Steven Payne: 00:49:17.034 You weren't taking the train as much, huh? BG 183: 00:49:18.729 I was taking the train, but I wasn't aware of the graph. Kurt Boone: 00:49:21.247 Oh, the graphs, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kurt Boone: 00:49:22.453 The graph from that slate on right now, and nobody talk about graph. You would pass all graffiti walls. You won't pay attention now. But if they mention it now, you'd be like, "Oh, look. That's graffiti over there. Oh, look. That's more graffiti." Now you start seeing the name. "Oh, yeah. It's the same name I saw in Brooklyn. He's up in The Bronx here." But that's how it starts, so. And that makes you want to go, "I want to be a graffiti artist." So during that time, I was already good at finger painting. I was already good of pencils. I was good in black and white ink. I was already good in acrylic paint doing all you. I was doing still life. I was doing contour drawing. Anything that was art related, I was ready. I was really good at it already. Even my teacher taught me-- she would put a person. "Can you draw that person?" The whole day, you would draw. It was like major art. And I would draw, and I would say, "It looks nice." And my teacher would be like, "Doesn't look good." And I said, "What are you talking about? It looks good." He said, "Look, the person is tall, and you made the person on your drawing look like a midget." [laughter] The proportion wasn't good, but for me, it was perfect. She showed me. She said, "This is a circle, circle, circle, and this is how you do it. The elbow lands here, and that's it." And then that's what I started doing. I said, "Oh, oh, oh, okay." And then now, I'm on proportion, and then she will be like-- her name was Miss Jorkins. She'll be like, "Okay. Today we're going to draw this flower." So we draw the flowers. And then tomorrow will be like, "Okay. We're going to draw the flower in 15 minutes or today 10 minutes. Today, we're going to draw it in 5 minutes." And you're like, "Oh, we're going to draw it." You have people complain, "We can't do all that." She said, "Just draw it, so." BG 183: 00:51:19.207 And then she was showing me, "Sometimes you don't have to put a lot of details to make it look like a flower. You can just do a couple images, and it looks like flowers." So at the same time, she was showing me different way of art but not really physically grabbing my hand. She was saying, "Look. This is what you have to do." So all my skills was getting better. Then when the same thing when it came doing graffiti, there's no teacher for this, so you really had to learn by myself. And that's how I improve my skills. You know what I'm saying? Bio was doing his, and then at the same time, we had a couple more graffiti artists that was also the class. Kurt Boone: 00:52:05.272 In the class. BG 183: 00:52:06.342 We had Bom 5. We had Bom 5. We had another guy called Pome. This guy was really good with doing [letter?]. Kurt Boone: 00:52:15.328 How do you spell it? BG 183: 00:52:16.392 P-O-M-E, Pome. So these guys was really good at what they were doing. And I Bonfire had really dope hand style and he had a good simple style. And the Pome had almost a wicked wild style, simple style. So they were the one who was like-- I would look at their style. And then after a while, I started doing my own stuff because that's how you start. If somebody's dancing, they had a particular foot movement, you will follow that but then you add your own. Kurt Boone: 00:52:56.304 Add your own. Yeah, yeah, yeah. BG 183: 00:52:57.097 You add a twist to it. So that's what I started doing. And then to get into the graffiti world-- Kurt Boone: 00:53:05.319 Because Bonfire wasn't his real name. So, obviously, in high school, was this styling by you, or was he--? BG 183: 00:53:14.091 Actually, his name is Wilfredo. So he was doing Wil, W-I-L. Kurt Boone: 00:53:20.958 And then what did you start doing? BG 183: 00:53:23.120 I was doing other name. I had a name called Gap, G-A-P-P. I didn't like it. I didn't like it. So then I had another name I didn't like. I don't remember the name I was using. So every name I didn't like-- Steven Payne: 00:53:37.972 Try them out. Yeah. BG 183: 00:53:38.993 Yeah. Then the only name that I like is because after a while, again, I was playing softball. So I was real nice. So they'll be man, second, and third. And we losing, they'd be like, "Yo, bring the battles in." So that's what I used to do like. I was so nice that I could head over first. I could have over third. I'm [going to push it?]. So I used to bring the battles in. [inaudible] Bring, Bring, [crosstalk]. I said, "Oh, Bring. That sounds like a good name." [laughter] So I started doing B-R-I-N-G, but it was too long. So I cut it down to BG. I took the first letter and last letter and put it together. And then the number came about-- So I had a guy from [James Moore?] High School called Griff. And every day we used to battle. The battle was we take any name and we do it once and we do it again two time and we do it again a third time. So we say, "Okay, cool." So I did the first time. And then the second time I changed the style. The third one I changed the style. And he says, "Do a fourth one." and I got stuck. I couldn't do a fourth style and he did a fourth. So I kind of lost that battle. I said, "Oh, man, I lost." So I went back and I practiced some more. I did maybe up to six. So we did the same thing a different name. We did the same thing. And he went up and did two more than me. [laughter] Man, this guy is really good. [laughter] And I think it was summertime I was walking home and I went by this-- I think it was this paper company that did cardboard. BG 183: 00:55:27.186 And they had these 2x3 rows, black. They was throwing the garbage, so I asked the guy, "Look, can I take this?" He said, "That's garbage. You can take it." So I don't know how much it was, 50 to 60 of them. I grabbed it and I started walking. And then one guy started screaming, "Yo what you doing? That's not garbage." The next thing you know, I'm running [laughter] with a whole bunch of paper. And I got home. He probably gave up on me. And that was where I used to-- the whole summer, instead of being-- Steven Payne: 00:55:59.152 You're practicing on that, yeah. BG 183: 00:56:00.416 And I was practicing every day. What I did is I would do a line straight in the middle and I do like cross and I do another lines. I do like three lines and I made these small rectangle boxes so I could do maybe almost like 30 to 36 of them and then I would do the style. I do one style here. Then I take that, I say, "Okay I like the way my B is looking on this one. I'm going to use that B. I don't like the G. I change the G." Then I come back again and I say, "Okay I like it maybe change the B a little bit, but I like the first G." And I keep going like that. Oh. [crosstalk] So to learn and then again, there's no money really behind me-- Kurt Boone: 00:56:49.400 Explain it. Yeah. BG 183: 00:56:50.474 --so I just took ideas. At that time there was no books yet, so there's nothing to follow. Remember there's no Internet that you could Google everything now, so. Kurt Boone: 00:57:01.624 Did you [have?] 149th Street, Writer's Bench at that time? BG 183: 00:57:05.721 The bench, yeah. Yeah, I did that. Kurt Boone: 00:57:07.827 You did that? Oh. BG 183: 00:57:08.249 Yeah, I could tell you that in the few. Kurt Boone: 00:57:09.749 Okay, cool. BG 183: 00:57:10.020 So again, I drew my name. So let me get that pen. Kurt Boone: 00:57:15.096 Yeah, here you go. Steven Payne: 00:57:15.588 Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure. Kurt Boone: 00:57:16.232 Oh, okay. Here. [crosstalk] Because [inaudible] the contract, yeah. BG 183: 00:57:18.441 So again if I did a B - so I did a BG 183. That's pretty quick. And then I take it-- Kurt Boone: 00:57:54.595 But you explain it. You got to the B and G, but you was talking about how to get to 183. BG 183: 00:57:59.874 I do like this and then what I did is I go like this and I flip it over, and you still could see a BG 183. Put it against the light. Kurt Boone: 00:58:16.875 Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Steven Payne: 00:58:17.213 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I see. Kurt Boone: 00:58:18.787 I can see it. Wait. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Steven Payne: 00:58:22.384 I'll also scan it, too, so it'll show up. BG 183: 00:58:24.596 You see how you still say it still read BG183? Steven Payne: 00:58:25.648 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. BG 183: 00:58:27.323 So this is a way that I started teaching myself because now the style is always different. Whatever you turn it, it's a letter. Kurt Boone: 00:58:36.241 It's a letter. Oh. Steven Payne: 00:58:36.962 That's [easy?]. BG 183: 00:58:37.445 So you go like this, you get a U and over here you got a W. And then here you get all different style when you reverse the letters. Steven Payne: 00:58:47.793 Yeah. BG 183: 00:58:48.034 Here, I could say, okay this will look like a nice E. Kurt Boone: 00:58:52.760 High school, right? This was. [inaudible] BG 183: 00:58:53.686 This was in high school. This is me at home-- Kurt Boone: 00:58:56.837 At home, okay. BG 183: 00:58:57.356 --doing this and then the 183 again started with the guy, Griff. So in the end I got to beat him. He said, "You look like you got a 183 styles." Kurt Boone: 00:59:07.820 That's funny. BG 183: 00:59:08.579 So I kept the number just to mess with him. Kurt Boone: 00:59:12.117 Just to mess with him. Oh. BG 183: 00:59:13.297 183 styles, so that's how the 183 started with the BG 183. Kurt Boone: 00:59:17.315 Yeah. That's amazing story. Steven Payne: 00:59:19.330 That's wild. BG 183: 00:59:19.938 So and this is how I started. This is where if I teach somebody how to do grab, I say, "Look, this what you have to do," and they be amazed. "Oh, I didn't know. Wow, look. I could get numbers." You get numbers. You get whatever you want and that's it is. So then I started doing the 183. It doesn't really matter like what I do and just for now it's just having fun. Again, there's no erasing, it's all just freestyling. Kurt Boone: 00:59:54.580 Okay. So, you're in high school and at that time, high schoolers were out there hitting trains and doing pieces in black books so to develop relationships at 149th Street and tag other people's black books? Or did you keep your black books or how-- BG 183: 01:00:13.063 So before the 149th Street, first, you have to be accepted in the graffiti world. It's not like I'm a graffiti artist and people are going to come up to me and say, "Oh, you make graffiti? Oh." Even when I first started, it's like you're a toy. [inaudible]. No, I was a toy. Everybody starts as a toy. It's like you as being a writer doing poetry. People are not going to read your stuff. "Oh, look. I just wrote this." And they're like, "Oh, okay." But now, people see your work, they want to read it. Kurt Boone: 01:00:47.826 They want to read it. BG 183: 01:00:48.151 Each one. So that's how it started. So with me, I had the group of guys in James Memorial High School. They probably in the game for two, three, four years in the game and so I'll try to fit in. So I would go with them, smiling. They making a joke and I'm like [laughter]. I'm laughing too. And then they all say, "Okay we're going to go street bombing." And then I will follow them. They'll be like, "What are you going?" I said, "I'm going to write." "No, no, no. We don't know you." So you got to wait. Said, "Oh, shit." So I would hang-- I still would hang out with them. I'm like that guy. "Who's this guy here? Anybody know this guy here?" I was that guy. Kurt Boone: 01:01:36.453 You're that guy. Steven Payne: 01:01:36.613 Yeah. BG 183: 01:01:37.383 So they didn't want to accept me as a writer so I have to-- so, again, I go into the phases. I found a whole bunch of papers. My skill level's going up but yet I'm not getting accepted in the graffiti world and I really-- so I went up by myself. Hearing the story, first is how you paint a train. Where you go? I don't know that. Where can I go? But hearing them talk, they were like, "Oh, you could go up to a layup." A layup is like an elevated train. Then they park them in the center between two train station in the summer. Reason why they park them in the summer because it's warm. It's easy to start the train, to put them back in the express line. So I heard that and then I took the train and I saw it park after rush hour. After 7:00 PM, they would start laying them up. Steven Payne: 01:02:43.913 Yeah. Which station did you see first like that? BG 183: 01:02:45.150 From Elder to Soundview, from Soundview to St. Lawrence, from St. Lawrence to Castle Hill, and then I think it was St. Lawrence to Parkchester, from Parkchester to Castle Hill. And then you had the Middletown Row. I didn't go too far out because I was like the white graffiti artist. They catch you over there, they will beat you down. So-- Kurt Boone: 01:03:12.455 We heard stories about that. BG 183: 01:03:12.821 --the Spanish people-- so anywhere that I know I'm going to get hurt, there's no reason for me to go. You know what I'm saying? Let's be smart about this. And so I went to that and I remember I got my first-- I went to a store and I racked a total of six cans Steven Payne: 01:03:35.098 yeah. BG 183: 01:03:35.451 But I only brought two to go to the layup because-- and then I've been practicing my throw-up. I've been doing my throw-up. I've been practicing. I used to go to my backyard where I used to live at in the basement, practice, and practice. And now, I think I'm good enough to do this job. So I get to the train. I'm there by myself. I'm looking around. Nobody in the station so I jump down. And I blew my throw-up. Steven Payne: 01:04:11.403 Yeah, BG 183: 01:04:11.664 [inaudible]. My heart is pumping, ta, ta, ta, ta. Kurt Boone: 01:04:15.138 Yeah. What'd you write? BG 183: 01:04:17.691 All right. I did my throw a BG. Kurt Boone: 01:04:19.907 BG, not one in [inaudible]. BG 183: 01:04:20.996 No, not one in [inaudible]. BG, ta, ta, ta, ta. [inaudible] come up. I did. So then I went back and I went back to the group and I say, "Oh I just did trains. You did trains?" I said, "Yeah, the trains." And they were like, "Okay, cool." And I did one car boom, they said, "You did what?" I said, "They want car." They said, "You did all 10 cars." because there's 10 cars. You didn't do one car he did 10 cars. You trying to say you did 10 cars and like, "Yeah I did 10 cars." And I was like, "Okay." then I went, "Okay, [inaudible] I got to do 10 cars. So I went back by myself again, I jumped in the track and I did all like one name in each car. Steven Payne: 01:05:09.996 Wow, okay. BG 183: 01:05:10.554 And I went back. I think I spoke to the same guy again, I said, "Yo, I guess the train again yesterday, they were lay up and I did the whole set of 10 cars." They said, "You did 10 cars?" I said, "Yeah." "You did both sides or you did one side?" I said, "Oh God." Kurt Boone: 01:05:29.878 They've been hard. Steven Payne: 01:05:30.907 Got to go back. BG 183: 01:05:31.583 I had said, "Got to go back." because in bombing you got a bomb. And so you can't go and do one and you done because who's going to see? That's like, I don't know how many cars in a subway system but you're not going to see your name when nobody going to really going to see your name, so. And now I did one, I got 11 cars. Next time I went, I did front and back. So now I got front and back, and then at the same time there was not only one set of trains but there was other set of train. So you went to all of them or you just went to one station earlier [crosstalk]. So now I went back and did all the different stations. Steven Payne: 01:06:15.085 All on the 6? BG 183: 01:06:15.963 All on the 6 train [crosstalk]. Steven Payne: 01:06:17.042 Yeah. Kurt Boone: 01:06:17.331 [inaudible] you were had traffic? BG 183: 01:06:18.854 No, I'm not. This is the way of bombing. This is [inaudible]. Again, there's no book you can read it's showing how to do this. You had to really know someone that done it before and that could help you. I remember this is all underground and no one really has a faith. You don't know who's really is a bomb or a tiger. [inaudible] going to be like, "Yo I'm doing trains and publicize it to any." So the only people that knew that I knew was these guys and nobody else. And then from there I was doing trains and now I'm in like about three months doing this trains. Doing my throw-up everywhere, I'm taking the tag BG then I think I started doing the BG 183 and I couldn't see my name on the train. Steven Payne: 01:07:07.515 Yeah. Kurt Boone: 01:07:07.704 [inaudible], okay. BG 183: 01:07:08.628 I said, "Why I've been-- I'm done mourning like 200 cars or 300 cars that came, why can't see it." And then I started speaking into bio and buy and say, "Oh." And he said, "Don't worry about it. If you can't see it, somebody else is seeing it." But I said, "I got me a little happy." but now I became sad again like, "No I want to see it. I want to see what I'm doing." And then another three weeks pass by, I look up to the train, and what I see, my name. BG. Then I went up again and went up again and I buy your bio, come on man that's me and you go up. He said, "For real." I said, "Yeah come on it's me." And then me and him started going up and doing all these bombing together and he became my graffiti partner and we got a whole bunch of cans. And we said, "We're going to do my first piece on the train. So I went, "Okay." Kurt Boone: 01:08:10.741 Masterpiece. BG 183: 01:08:11.707 So it was one of the coldest days, I think it was Christmas time. So I did a BGee and I was doing B, G with two Es. So I was doing BGees. It was funky for me so I did a B-G-E-E, and I remember spraying and I was catching these drips and I was looked at nasty, it was ugly. But the colors were good but the drip was so crazy and I was really upset with it because I caught so many drips because-- that's how you could tell when somebody got experience. The way they spray, if they sprayed with a lot of drip you already know that this guy is a rookie, a toy. And I was a toy, so I went like that. I looked at it. And then I saw two other guys on the platform, they also was writers. And then when it came by they were like, "Oh my God that shit look awesome, that shit look good. Yo, you really did it," and I said to myself, "Come on, man. You joking right?" They said, "Nah, BGee you rock. You and Bio killed it, yo. Your guys rocked it." I said, "For real?" And he said, "Yeah that shit look hot. It's the hottest shit running right now." Oh yeah? And that gave me more confidence to go back out there to do more. Steven Payne: 01:09:37.003 Absolutely what was that first piece? Do you remember-- BG 183: 01:09:39.209 Yeah. Steven Payne: 01:09:39.294 --the layout? BG 183: 01:09:39.595 I actually have a-- Steven Payne: 01:09:40.849 You've got a picture, okay. BG 183: 01:09:41.010 --photo, I have a photo of it. I actually put it up on my Instagram not too long ago. So I did that and then and then you start hearing about writers going to this place called 149th Street in the Bench. I said, "Oh the Bench? What's that?" That's 149th street and Grand Concourse. You go there and the bottom level on the uptown side where the 2 and the 5 train pass is the Bench. That's where all the writers hang out. So I went there and then it was a scary place to be. People that wasn't even writers was hanging out there Steven Payne: 01:10:25.935 yeah. BG 183: 01:10:26.080 They were called stick-up kids. They were robbing people for anything. They wasn't out robbing for graffiti, they was robbing in general, a gold chain-- Kurt Boone: 01:10:33.942 Money. Yeah, money. BG 183: 01:10:35.243 --a pair of sneakers, or a coat-- Steven Payne: 01:10:37.280 [Coast?] had a story about that, yeah. BG 183: 01:10:37.606 --a jacket. You know what I'm saying? And we was like, "That's the place you go when you want to rob," because that's all the connection. You can go downtown or you go uptown and you could see the people and back then it was some stairs that you-- there was a stair there, they took it down. There was an elevator there, they took that down. You would go up to the elevator and it was an overpass and you could stand in the middle and look at the whole station, then you come down to the other side. But the whole platform got taken down. But that was the way you go from the downtown to the uptown and that's where everybody met. In the movie you see them all hanging out on the Bench and they're talking about what was new coming to the station. That's why the 5 and 2 became more like the most viewed and envied trains. So that's why I stood by the 6 train or 2 or the 5, and that's the only train that I really really hit because those are more the main stations where everybody will look at. And it was easier also to take photos because the train will run through Intervale, and Intervale was the station that you could go here and go underneath and come back here without getting off. All the rest of stations you had to physically get off and go around, so this you could connect so you had like the one [inaudible] you got the [inaudible] on. I mean [inaudible] when you had also interval that was like a platform and then the bench but people used it and took pictures there. People went there for one, you bring your black book and you have famous people coming right on your black book. If you got your black book back because sometimes you gave it and it was gone. Kurt Boone: 01:12:33.675 They take it? Yeah, they took it, like, "Where's my black book? You got my black book." I gave it to you I know but I gave it to this guy and I don't know what happened. And probably the first guy you gave it to took it but he thinks this guy I gave it to this guy he just jumped on the train with it. The book is gone. And then in a book you had like already famous people on there so your book is gone. And maybe that same guy got his book that book taken from him. It was like a time that if you was not really a tough writer or somebody was on point you got your shit taken even you gave a marker to somebody, your marker was gone. Where's my marker? I don't know I used it last, I don't know what happened to it. So that's the way it was so you got to be-- that's why I really didn't bring no black book there like I didn't want to be like damn man. Kurt Boone: 01:13:24.781 Did you save any of yours? BG 183: 01:13:26.759 I have a few, not too many. Not too many. I actually got lost one that I had and I started a new one but I never got to finish it but it just that's the way. For me I didn't even took a lot of photos on my work. I got people like Ken, Sam, this guy named Rise that he took a lot of photos of my stuff like Bio, took a lot of photos of his stuff. Mac, Sam I already mentioned him but that was the e days for people that was part of my crew, you know what I'm saying like they were making sure they were taking photos and so again we started with the TATS CRU, They put me down with TAT. Brim was the one in charge. With Brim there was Mack, Base, and Bio. So those four they met in junior high school and I met Bio in high school when he got to a high school a year later. Kurt Boone: 01:14:28.452 So you already had a crew when you met them? BG 183: 01:14:30.407 Yeah. There was already a crew, it was TAT but they were mostly like three bombers and you then buy [inaudible] doing pieces with colors but I went in there and started doing like let's do crazy pieces, you know what I'm saying? I started doing characters. So I was really doing stuff I got and now so me and Bio decided to do like a train and that's when the White Elephant came out. Steven Payne: 01:15:01.467 Oh okay okay. BG 183: 01:15:02.397 The White Elephant is the train that like the MTA said these trains if you write on these trains your paint will just fall off. So it's not going to stick yeah so there's a lot of writers that was painting in the 70s like the scene and days, CRASH. Kurt Boone: 01:15:23.482 Riff. BG 183: 01:15:24.699 Riff, they stopped writing completely and a lot of them went into the galleries. They went to the galleries. Kurt Boone: 01:15:33.470 [inaudible]. BG 183: 01:15:34.205 Yeah, all those guys went to the galleries. So the next generation, we're the third generation of graffiti artists that went into the 80s and started like-- for us it was like you know like I don't care about the galleries, all the doing canvases. I want to paint trains. I'm in the beginning, I'm really in, I'm enjoying it and then the White Elephant came out, oh my God that was like a white paper. It was clean like they're giving us a white trend. So colors would be so rich when you paint on top of them. Steven Payne: 01:16:13.003 And you could paint on them, right, despite of what they said. BG 183: 01:16:15.015 Yeah. You could. Yeah. There was no dripping. There was nothing. Kurt Boone: 01:16:19.135 So it stuck. BG 183: 01:16:20.599 It stuck like a regular canvas board. Kurt Boone: 01:16:22.839 Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. BG 183: 01:16:23.736 So now you're hitting these trends, and I'm loving it. My style is improving to top-notch and my other-- and let me put down the volume. And so now I'm enjoying it. And then a lot of my crew members was like, "Yeah, Bijoux, you're the nicest one in the crew. Can you do me an outline?" So I was doing outline for my crew. I was kind of the ghostwriter. So I was ghostwriting a lot of pieces then for my crew, and I didn't mind doing it. I was like, "Wow." And then a couple of months or a year, they stopped calling me. Like, "I don't want nothing--" They got their own style. They're already improving everything, so. And life changed a little bit. Then I started hanging out with Brim, and we met with Afrika Bambaataa. And now, Afrika Bambaataa, he asked me and Brim to paint the inside of the Bronx River Center. So we painted the inside where all these people perform [inaudible]. If you look back in the videos, it's called Body Rock. You see all my graffiti that I did in the video. And there's characters, there's records, there's the Zulu Nation. We painted the Zulu Nation inside the center. So it was me and Brim that painted the inside. Steven Payne: 01:18:15.293 It's amazing. BG 183: 01:18:15.562 A lot of people don't really know that history, that I painted the whole inside. Steven Payne: 01:18:20.180 And what year was that? BG 183: 01:18:21.497 It was like '82, '83-- around there. Steven Payne: 01:18:24.255 '83, yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah, yeah. BG 183: 01:18:26.360 So if you Google it, you see all my pieces that I did. Steven Payne: 01:18:30.245 It's amazing. BG 183: 01:18:30.523 Yeah. And the thing is again I didn't take no photo of me actually making it, but everybody knows it was me because the style-- Steven Payne: 01:18:37.788 The style, for sure. BG 183: 01:18:39.140 --was there, so. And then I did that. And then I also did the first hip-hop on TV. Because nobody haven't done any type of [inaudible] and graffiti and breakdancing. I saw almost like a TV show-- almost before MTV, before BET-- was a show called Graffiti Rock. Steven Payne: 01:19:09.331 Graffiti Rock. Okay, okay. BG 183: 01:19:10.783 So me, Brim, and Sien, we did the graffiti for that show. That was aired on a Saturday PIX Channel 11. And then they played it again a second time, but it was never picked up. They felt that it was kind of too grimy. PIX felt like, "Oh, I don't think that's going to make money," and they canceled it. So it was only one show. The show was great. You still can see it. You can still see it online. Steven Payne: 01:19:47.025 YouTube, probably. BG 183: 01:19:47.988 Yeah. You could YouTube it. It's called Graffiti Rock. So me and Brim and Sien125 actually painted this, so. Steven Payne: 01:19:55.208 Wow. BG 183: 01:19:55.919 And my movement into the craft was always there, being in the right place at the right time. We did the Scuffle of Bambara. We did the Renegade of Funk. That's a video that Shame and Brim comes out . And the first member that passed away, Dive-- not Dive, Dale. Steven Payne: 01:20:23.574 Dale. BG 183: 01:20:23.949 Yeah. My friend, Dale, he passed away and later on I actually did a memorial wall for Dale. And that was really my first time drawing somebody's face with spray paint. Like taking a spray can and drawing the eyes, the nose. And it took me like three days. The first day I finished it but they say, "Oh, maybe you come back the next day add some more." And I did that. And then the third day we went back because that time there was no time. Take your time and everything. We're doing it for ourselves. We was not getting paid to put it up a memorial wall for our friend. That's the first member of our crew that died so we did that. And then I also painted a Rest in Peace for Cowboy, for the Grandmaster Flash. So me and Brim at Bronx Coast Center, we went and we painted Cowboy. It was one of the first memorial wall for a rapper that passed away that we painted, again, in the early '80s. So during that time, life, studying and I mean getting older, I'm already 19 going on 20, it was trying to pay bills. My mom said "Yo, you got to get a job." Because I always worked. Again, I worked with the security on Nighthawk with Comanche that was making money from there. BG 183: 01:21:59.073 So I was always making but I needed a more of a steady, like a 9 to 5 job. So my father put me on to work with him. So I was working with my father for a good three years. And again, he used to work in a door company, picking up hollow metal doors and frames. And these doors and frames whatever, they were heavy. And for apartment houses-- and during that time, a lot of apartment houses was getting built in the '80s. So I was working for a company. Now what I did was just sand it down, with sand, with a machine, turn it down, wipe it, flip it, do the same thing on the other side of the door, and then hang it to be painted. And each door was about 80 pounds, 90 pounds. Some doors was like 150 pounds depending on what kind of size and the material. so I remember the first, the next two or three days, my body was aching. I couldn't close my hand because the machine was vibrating. And my mom came up to me, I was laying in the bed covered up like this and she saying, "Do you want some Tylenol?" And I'm like, "Nah, I'm good. I'm good." Trying to be tough. She said, "Are you sure?" "Yeah, give it to me." I took the Tylenol and then after a couple of days in there, it was good. I was picking up the doors. Steven Payne: 01:23:34.528 Yeah. You got used to it. Kurt Boone: 01:23:35.504 No problems. BG 183: 01:23:35.822 I was strong, I was [inaudible]. So it was a good time and at the same time I used to meet up with the guys we used to go and maybe paint trains. But it was a while we did the Ghost Yard. the Ghost Yard was on 207th Street and that was a yard that it was only us, no one else could go in. Anyone who went in, they left with their head crack and sneakers their sneakers taken, jewelry We had Steven Payne: 01:24:08.151 What line was that on? BG 183: 01:24:09.433 It was a yard, it's on the one line. Steven Payne: 01:24:12.222 On the one line, that's what I thought. BG 183: 01:24:13.339 It's on the west side on 207 and I think I don't know if it's Broadway or-- Steven Payne: 01:24:18.641 Yeah, I think so. BG 183: 01:24:19.280 Might be Broadway. Kurt Boone: 01:24:20.184 Yeah, Broadway. yeah. BG 183: 01:24:21.529 So that's on the one train so-- Kurt Boone: 01:24:23.679 So was TK like to go [inaudible]. BG 183: 01:24:26.167 T Kid was also part of the crew. You met TK? Kurt Boone: 01:24:29.501 T Kid. BG 183: 01:24:29.993 Yeah, so T Kid was a guy who was connected to the ghost yard so he was already in. So I met T Kid through Ken. I met T Kid and he introduced us to the ghost yard. And I remember painting with him and this guy was so fast because he was really old school guy from the mid 70s. So I met him in the 80s so this guy was like so fast. He was like [inaudible]. He did a train with us. It was a T Kid CanaBG 183 and he also did two more cars. I know one car but he did a boost and a T Kid. Like he did all three names while I was still working on one but I also did the characters on that train. But this guy was really, really fast. So he introduced us to go in the tour of [inaudible] so I was like one of the first member of TAT to go in there to me T Kid and Ken also got me in there also so. Kurt Boone: 01:25:39.489 Kid is from [inaudible] BG 183: 01:25:40.818 Who T Kid? Kurt Boone: 01:25:41.413 T Kid. BG 183: 01:25:42.284 Kenny with two Ns. K-E-N-N and then his partner with CEM 2. These two guys were notorious in a graff world. You hear those two guys come in, you run. Your shit was taken. There was no surviving. Everybody got robbed. They robbed Coke 2, they robbed everybody. They didn't care. They did care who you were, you know what I'm saying? And you was just I don't care. Steven Payne: 01:26:16.597 Are they still around? They still in the graff world? BG 183: 01:26:18.258 Yeah. They're still active. They're still active. You know what I'm saying. Kurt Boone: 01:26:21.870 So they were part of TAT? BG 183: 01:26:23.179 Yeah, they're part of TAT. So that's how TAT got to grow more, again when we went back to the bench at 149th Street in Grand Concourse, how cool was Big, already had a reputation and people already knew TAT was not playing. We would rob everybody, we were punching people in the face. You know what I'm saying? All the writers, they had to respect us. You know what I'm saying. Remember we was in our age like again the hip hop world was there so it was people was afraid of us. You know what I'm saying? I knew that and you had paint and that time you got to understand like when I got in the 80s a lot of the paint stores was very burnt out. So you couldn't really go racking. Because all the old school writers from the 70s up to the 80s already that's where they started putting gates behind these spray cans. Steven Payne: 01:27:30.738 So you couldn't get them. BG 183: 01:27:31.395 So you couldn't get them. So what you had to do is sometimes we had to travel. All the way to Philadelphia to Boston up Connecticut, New Jersey because those places still have the can open in a shelf. It's like you just grab it, take it, sometimes one of us didn't get back because they got caught. So it was a hard time during that time. So for us if we didn't know you as a writer and you came in, "Hey, hey, hey I'm painting over here." I say, "Yeah you painting and how many cans you got?" got like 20 cans right so leave the cast and wake up. Be like, "Huh? What are you talking about?" You know and they know my people they carry knife and they had like machete. We didn't care. We had ice picks. We didn't play. We don't need it to use it, we just pull it out . You know what I'm saying, but remember we went to Utica one time, that's in Brooklyn. We went to Utica tunnels, and we paint things and then these two riders come up to us and say, "Y'all, we're going to rob you," we're like, "Huh? You're going to rob who?" "We're going to rob all you." And if you know my boy said, "Y'all, they got a gun." And we didn't have a gun. But they said to us, "Look we let you rock, let you put your name, but leave all your paint behind." We were like,"Shit, what can we do?" BG 183: 01:29:09.653 So we painted we tried to use, how much can we use? And we took some cans, we put some full cans and put them to the side, we don't have to give them everything, but give them something. At least they'd be happy. So we gave them like at least 10 to 12 cans and we give them like really empty cans and maybe two full cans. And that time they came out and were like, "We knew cans carrying on," they came out with a color called bonfire that was like a new can line of colors, bonfire and Spanish fly. I could hear them saying, "Y'all, look at this color bonfire we never had bonfire before, but then we left, we was upset, we got robbed, we never get robbed. We got robbed but at that time, again they had a gun, we didn't and they was going to show us love, they're not going to cross out our work and the work actually ran and we did good. Steven Payne: 01:30:12.398 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kurt Boone: 01:30:13.412 So it was team strength at that time. BG 183: 01:30:16.485 Okay, so Tough Ass Team? Steven Payne: 01:30:18.764 Tough Ass Team, yeah. BG 183: 01:30:19.577 Tough Ass Teenagers, The Art Team, anything that stands for TAT. Kurt Boone: 01:30:26.865 And in the S you add it to the yard to become Todd's crew maybe explain a little bit about how that came about because you had CRMU. BG 183: 01:30:40.952 Right so the crew because bio came up with the idea, crew, because of you know he didn't want to write "crew" as C-R-E-W. So that was like slash so we can, you know we do TAT crew. We had that in the early 80s crew, always been there. Kurt Boone: 01:30:58.787 Oh, okay. BG 183: 01:30:59.289 And then so now we couldn't paint again we couldn't paint no more in the subways . It was hard . Everything was kind of locked in and plus we were getting older . Everybody's kind of like working like that. But we still would meet up and paint walls. So we were paying walls, we were painting at the Hall of Fame, the graffiti Hall of Fame, that's strictly kings and better . You had to be really good to paint there and again you wasn't guaranteed that your work would survive that long. Somebody else might come and go over it and then you had to at least take a photo and accept that you went and got over. They didn't cross you out, a lot of it, they just did something brand new. It was okay. And so we did that and then-- Kurt Boone: 01:31:48.338 What was the first wall at the graffiti Hall of Fame like 80 something 90s? BG 183: 01:31:52.271 It was in, I would say late 80s. Steven Payne: 01:31:56.817 Late 80s. BG 183: 01:31:57.483 Like '88,' 89 yes that's pretty early then we painted a lot more in the 90s, we painted there in the early 90s but we painted the outside. Kurt Boone: 01:32:12.979 The big one. BG 183: 01:32:13.682 The big one, the outside because nobody wanted to paint the outside wall because there was a chance that it got crossed out the same day or it didn't last. So then this guy, a writer called Easel. Easel took over the Hall of Fame before James Topp, before [inaudible] TDS. Kurt Boone: 01:32:39.498 [inaudible] TDS, yeah. BG 183: 01:32:40.252 You had Easel that was running the Hall of Fame because he went to the school, he wanted to paint. So he asked us, "Look, you guys want to paint?" We said, "Yeah, but we don't want to paint the inside. We don't want to be with other writers on the inside, just give us the outside wall because nobody really wanted to paint the outside wall." Everybody, "No, no, we paint the inside." So we took the outside wall and we did a nice production. Me and [Bobby Nicel?] did a nice production and it lasted a long, long time. The whole body came. People took tag on it, but it was cool because they took tag and they were famous writers. So we kept it, we never buffed it. And then we went back two or three years later, we did a new one. And I remember the one that I-- my side that I painted on, what I did is I replicated the Hall of Fame from the outside. And somebody took a photo, so I did that same-- Steven Payne: 01:33:47.047 I think I've seen that picture for [inaudible], yeah. BG 183: 01:33:47.645 --dyed one. I did that. And then when I did the-- when I was drawing the actual wall that we painting on the actual wall, I did the same thing that we did on the wall but I forgot that I had to paint it again. So I had to paint this smaller because this is the one image but I'm painting and I have to draw the same image again so I had to redraw the same image again and they got smaller. [inaudible] staying like that, and I'm going smaller than that. But I did the whole thing and everybody loved it because I did the projects and people used to come by. I went back a year or two years later and they would say, "Yo I live in that building right there." They will point to the mural and we love this mural. That's one of the best mural done, and then at the same time, [inaudible] did a nice cool area, [inaudible] did a nice cool area. So it was good. So it lasted a long, long time. Nobody was crossing out and then we went back and we trying to do a whole brand new wall and they told us-- the people in the community said, "No, don't take down the one I painted. Leave it." We like, "No, no. We have to." No, no. Leave it. And again, now we dealing with the community. So they the one who's really in charge. When we live there, the community is the one going to be in that neighborhood. So we like, "Okay, we're going to leave it. We're not going to cross it out." And we left it. So every time we painted from the ending of that mural to the end, I had to rip replicate the same mural on the wall again. Kurt Boone: 01:35:31.635 You're right. Yeah. Yeah. BG 183: 01:35:32.738 So at the same time, it started improving my skills of painting. So we're getting a lot of work. We started doing work for Coca-Cola. That was our first big contract. Steven Payne: 01:35:44.439 Wow. BG 183: 01:35:46.318 A lot of company wanted to know why a big company like Coca-Cola is hiring three graffiti artists, Latino from the Bronx. So we started getting a lot much work. And then we got a contract with Coca-Cola, we got a contract with McDonald's, and then now we painting advertising. Steven Payne: 01:36:08.870 Wow BG 183: 01:36:09.030 these walls so, but not too many like these landlords wanted to accept our work to be painted on their property. So it was kind of hard. So we started a lot of graffiti all that painted murals didn't last it in the '90s. They all were getting crossed out by all the writers, people were doing drop over them, artists were trying to paint artwork, regular artwork, they were getting crossed out, and we didn't want it to be that artist that we did work that got crossed out. So we had to put pressure on a lot of writers. We did. So we went and did house visit. We'd make sure that you know who we are. Don't cross us out because it's not going to look right. And a lot of these walls was graffiti art that was doing street bombing, but what we was telling them like, "Yo, we're not physically going over you. Don't take offense because this is not what we're trying to do. This is more business." You know what I'm saying? And the landlord's giving us permission to paint over it. It's not personal, you know what I'm saying? And we're going to buff the whole world. We're not going to leave a little piece of your name sticking out that looks like we went against you. We're going to cross everything. We're going to go over everything. And then we were getting so much work that we said to ourselves, "Maybe it's good for us to maybe start hiring all the graffiti art from this part of The Bronx, let's hire this artist from this part of The Bronx. Let's hire this artist from Manhattan." BG 183: 01:38:05.547 At the same time, we ain't trying to step [inaudible] foot so they don't feel that we're going against them. So we started doing that. Like, "Look, we got two walls for you. Oh, beautiful. To be paying $1,500 for you to do a wall." Beautiful. They went and got the wall and then we had a total maybe like nine artists in New York City are doing the work for us. So we was only subcontracting the work and pay and then we would take some for ourself [inaudible] that we already had with our wall. And everybody was like, "[Jazz Crew, Jazz Crew?]." Now they're showing us love and we're showing love right back and that's how we started doing. And after you couldn't-- then when the academy got messed up in 2000 and [inaudible]? Steven Payne: 01:38:59.809 '8. '7. BG 183: 01:39:00.417 Like '15. When nobody was making money, that inflation got hit hard. Was it all '07, or? Steven Payne: 01:39:10.676 That's when it first started, but it took a few years I think-- BG 183: 01:39:13.527 Yeah, yeah, I think it-- Steven Payne: 01:39:13.746 --to come into effect BG 183: 01:39:15.576 Yeah, you could be right. It could be '07, '09. So yeah, '07, '09. Yeah. It was so bad that we don't know how we survived. I think because we was in a location that got offices that's based in at the point. So the point with there was really good with us. Steven Payne: 01:39:40.452 And they just celebrated they're 25th anniversary, right? Yeah, yeah. BG 183: 01:39:42.727 Right. Right. So we've been there-- actually, we've been there a little longer. So I think they're around almost like 27 years. About27 years. We've been around there like 26 years in the point. So they gave us a break like, "Don't worry, we know the inflation it's not good. We love you guys to stay." Because not only that we there, we also it's good for us to be there because we also do art, and when they first started at the Point, nobody was going to the Point when they first opened up because, again, it's in Hunts Point. It's a ghetto place. It's more industrial, and [Pam?] was like, "I'm not sending my kids over there." I [better dump?] to hang out in a corner grocery store, you know what I'm saying? That's kind of even worse, but I rather not send them to the Point. So the Point was sent out a lot of like information that we got after school program. We got the theater. We got this. We got that, and nobody would show up. So we spoke to-- the Point came up to us, saying, "So you guys have any idea to bring people in?" So we say, "Yeah, we know like Bambaataa. We know Crazy Legs, and maybe these guys could come. Maybe." BG 183: 01:41:11.383 So Bambaataa came through, open up a thing, and that got too crazy. They had like 400 people going in, and then when they used to leave to Point, it was like a riot. So they had to shut Bambaataa down with that. But again that started the people coming in. Then Crazy Legs came in. We spoke to Crazy Legs. "Yo, Crazy Legs, can you know?" He says, "Yes. It's probably a good idea." So he started teaching break dancing class at the Point. So he started doing that, and then the Point came up to us, said, "Look, we have a small budget. Maybe you guys could do graffiti class." So we're not teachers. I'm not a teacher. I can't see myself as a teacher. They're like, "Oh, you could teach. " So they try to bring like elementary school kids, and they were too young. One kid ate an eraser, right? [laughter] And I see a guy going like this, "Yo. Yo, take that." And it was then they said, "Okay, maybe we bring in high school kids." And that worked out. So we did almost a year program with them. Steven Payne: 01:42:20.025 Wow. BG 183: 01:42:20.710 Two or three of them became famous after they graduated, and hired us to do work. One guy was in charge of production company for music videos, so he called us a do a video with Beyoncé. Kurt Boone: 01:42:38.824 Wow. Steven Payne: 01:42:39.345 Unbelievable. Wow. BG 183: 01:42:39.328 And [J. Cole called?] the party. Kurt Boone: 01:42:43.162 Wow. BG 183: 01:42:43.254 So we came out in the video, and he the one who got us in and got us paid to do the video. And the funny story is they kept telling us, "Guys, when you see Beyoncé, don't give an eye-to-eye contact. She don't like that." [laughter] This is the people like, "Okay." "Don't ask her for her autograph." And then later on, they told us the same story again and the third time. So now I'm painting on the wall. I'm doing this, doing the background. We're doing it at the party. And Beyoncé came. And I stood stuck. [laughter] She said, "Oh, I love it. It looks nice." [laughter] She falls for like, I don't know, two or three minutes? And someone said, "Freeze," and I just froze there. I never saw Beyoncé's face. Never looked at her. The only one I spoke to her was Nicer. And [Nicer was like?] and me and Bio, the only one stuck. Steven Payne: 01:43:51.676 Froze. BG 183: 01:43:52.322 Frozen. Steven Payne: 01:43:56.057 Wow. BG 183: 01:43:56.928 Because they kept telling us, "Don't look at her. Don't look at her." [laughter] And I thought, I believed it. [laughter] Steven Payne: 01:44:03.405 Wow. BG 183: 01:44:03.940 And so life been really good. You know what I'm saying? Me by nights have been together since high school. Steven Payne: 01:44:11.202 Yeah. Kurt Boone: 01:44:11.673 So you met Nicer in high school, then? BG 183: 01:44:13.110 Right. Then later on, I met Nicer in high school. He was the youngest one in the crew. And he used to just tag along. Steven Payne: 01:44:21.362 Yeah. Kurt Boone: 01:44:21.703 Okay. BG 183: 01:44:21.987 I'll be like, "Oh, I'm going bombing," he said, "Can I go with you all?" We'd be like, "Okay, come." Steven Payne: 01:44:25.924 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. BG 183: 01:44:26.304 That was cool. Yeah. I invited so many people to write with me. Even when I first started and I'd be like, "Okay." We used to do a lot of street bombing. I saw a lot of pretty sweet tags. A lot of BS 119, a lot of Blade tags. When you bombing, you start seeing all these famous people bombing. And me and a couple friend of mine that wanted to do graffiti-- that did graffiti with me, but when I took them to the tunnel, I said, "Come on, you ready to go in the tunnel?" Where? I said, "In there." They said, "It's kind of dark in there, isn't it?" I said, "Yeah, it's dark." "What about the rats?" "Yeah. sometime they go around but don't worry about it." "There's other people in there?" I said, "Yeah, there'll be some time other people but don't worry about it. Let's go." Kurt Boone: 01:45:16.745 Let's go. BG 183: 01:45:17.665 "Nah, man. I don't feel like writing. I'd rather street bomb than go in the tunnel with you." "Ah, you for real?" So not a lot of people liked that I wrote with-- you really had to go and have-- not be scared? Even when you did the layup, you had to walk the wooden platform. Steven Payne: 01:45:37.147 Sure, and some of the times the wood would be [inaudible]. BG 183: 01:45:39.415 And you could hear it. And like, "Oh shit," and you up in a third floor, second floor, you might fall. Steven Payne: 01:45:47.200 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. BG 183: 01:45:48.631 So not everybody would like to go also on the platform to do layup. They'd rather get close. [inaudible] right here or to jump into the track. They'll be scared and be like, "I'm about to third rail." I said, "Don't worry about it, though." You don't touch it and you're good. "No, no, I buy it breaks." So there was always an excuse for-- not everybody that I wrote with would go with me fully. And then after that, we started painting these walls and the streets. And you had to be extra careful what you painted, because we painted a wall-- started painting memorial walls. People that passed away. And these memorial walls was to honor or to represent that friends or family that passed away and it's to remorse the person that just died. I remember painting these walls-- painting these walls. Memorial walls. And after I painted about 12 memorial waIls, it started messing with my head. Yo, this is deep. These people are my own people. They just dying. Babies that passed away from an accident. We painted this lady, she hit her head on the escalator and she died. Old people died of natural causes and then you had-- some of them were murdered. Kurt Boone: 01:47:29.521 Street violence. Yeah. BG 183: 01:47:30.512 Street violence. And you had one guy that he was messing around with his girlfriend-- he had a new girlfriend, but the old boyfriend came back and killed him. It was kind of not-- this is in the 90s. People would just gunshot everywhere, the drugs. This is before Giuliani. You know what I'm saying? It was so bad in the street. And everybody wanted a memorial wall. Everybody. And this block saying-- they used to told us, "Oh, you see that memorial wall you did? It looks nice we want ours to look better for my boy. You know what I'm saying? For my boy that passed away. Then we were going to Manhattan doing a memorial. We was doing in Brooklyn, we went to Jersey. We was going everywhere painting, but that always was the same thing. It was death. I'm a graffiti artist. I paint graffiti, now I'm painting faces for these people that died. I saying to myself, "I can't handle this no more." I'm hearing the news. I'm doing memorial walls, people just dying left to right. And I told [Bian?] nicely, "Yo, I can't take this no more. I can't draw this." I'm painting the face and they come up to me behind me and they're talking to me. And I look, they're not talking to me. They're talking to the mural that I'm painting on the wall. Kurt Boone: 01:49:06.205 You guys became real famous for that. BG 183: 01:49:08.266 Right. So and then the media was not good for us either. The media was saying, "These guys are painting memorial walls for drug dealers, for gangsters, for people--" And then the city went and started buffing all these walls. In the '90s, they went--I think late '90s, they started taking down all these walls that we painted. "This is not good." I know the person that came. It was a lady that came through and I kept looking at her. I said, "You're a cop, right?" She, "No, I'm not a cop. I just want to know about these walls. The way she was talking to me and then after she left, all these walls were taken down. And a lot of these walls were taken down through having programs with kids. And then they would have kids come over with buckets of paint and, "Oh, we're cleaning up our neighborhood." And they will buff these walls, the memorial walls. And then they have police present in case something jump up, but that's how it was. It was taken down-- we had like at least 50 memorial walls, and I think only a few survived. Steven Payne: 01:50:30.725 That's insane. Wow! Kurt Boone: 01:50:32.904 So can you talk a little bit about TATS CRU becoming a small business in the midst of all this difficulty, right? Because you guys are working with corporations, and that takes some savvy to kind of do that. You got to go through agencies and stuff, there's contracts, that kind of thing. So how does the [inaudible] crew become this business with their art? BG 183: 01:50:58.332 Before we transition into all this, remember, we was hardcore graffiti artists, now we going into the business. So I remember we got our first contract-- we haven't established ourselves as a business. We working with each other. Me, Nice and Bob working with each other. We got a contract and now we go to a hardware store. And in the hardware store we like, "Hey, what's up?" And the guy's name was Marty. "Marty, what's up, man? We're going to buy some paint." And he became good friends with us. And he would give us the key with all the spray paint inside. So we will open up and we see all these spray can. And us three is looking at each other like, "We could steal some of this paint." And then we said, "No, we're going to start a business. We shouldn't be stealing. We have a budget for money to buying paint, let's buy paint." And that's how we did. We went in there and forgot. But again, all that, I could take at least 10 to 12 cans [inaudible] but then in end of day, and the guy was even looking. There's no camera during that time. So we like, "No, let's keep it legit to the sense that we are businessman now, now we-- so it was kind of hard. Even when we went to go look for walls to do these to do this stuff, we would go and talk to the landlord and say, "Look, we going to do a graffiti mural to-- "No, I don't want it." And we'd go back and said, "We're going to do a mural, a graffiti mural here." "I don't want it." BG 183: 01:52:51.585 And then I said, "Damn, what's going on? Maybe I have to stop saying graffiti and say art." Are we going to do a mural or a art mural here?" "Oh, okay." "Well, yeah, a little art mural." And then that's how they kind of opened up, so. And because again, the media was also saying graffiti is not good in the '90s. You be careful. Because-- Steven Payne: 01:53:16.670 And then once you gave the name graffiti too, to begin with. BG 183: 01:53:18.811 Right. In the beginning with and same thing with the word hip hop. We're really writers. But we know that story. But so it was kind of hard for us. So we started finding ways and how to really talk, be like, "Okay, look, we're going to go into your-- we want to paint your wall, your wall is already vandalized." And, "I don't want it." No, just hear me out. Maybe I could paint the wall for you for free. I'll do a mural because it's a grocery store. You could do something with Coca-Cola. And I could give you some money." Some money. Oh, you're going to give me some money? I said, "Yeah, I'm having a budget 300. We paint the wall and I just need an okay." "Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, paint my wall." Kurt Boone: 01:54:14.036 Pain my wall. Steven Payne: 01:54:14.401 Paint any wall. BG 183: 01:54:15.049 "You're going to pay now?" "No, no, no, when I come back, I got to let my client know that we're going to paint this wall and then it's okay." And I would come back a week later, "Look, here's the 300." And then from there, at least the wall has to stay up at least a little bit. At least, after two months, three months. So they started working. And then we had one wall that got buffed by the owner a month later, and I said, "Oh, I thought you were going to leave it up." "No, it's [a month?]. I only keep it up [a month?]." Then we made a contract that he signed here, I'll give you this money just say that the wall going to stay up for two or three months. And then we started doing that. And then so we started mostly the street movement that people now could paint the street and the wall would last. But back then, no mural would last. We started that movement that you allow to go over a wall that has, again, graffiti on it, you could go over it without the actual graffiti aught come back to cross you out. Do that, it's a no-no. You don't do that. So that's how we started giving out these walls to other writers, that's how it's spreading out the news that this is the way it should be, and everybody should be happy with it. It's not like we're going against yo physically. It's nothing personal. It's all business. BG 183: 01:55:45.482 And so that's how we started doing these walls and getting permission. It was hard for us. We were not making no money. We were broke in the early '90s. Really broke. There was like six months that we didn't even get a job. My wife was telling me, "You better work at McDonald's. Go to McDonald's. Go to where. I don't care. Get a a job. [he?] like, "Yeah, yeah, go get a job." [laughter] I was like, "[inaudible]" because I left my job already. You know what I'm saying? I left my job in the '90s. And how I left that job was because I was a engineer for a company called Acme Steel Door in Brooklyn. And my supervisor was like-- because I used to paint walls. I'd go to my job and then meet up with the guys about 8 o'clock at night and paint until we finish. Sometimes we finish at 3:00, sometimes we finish at 5:00 in the morning. At 6:00 in the morning I would go home, jump in the shower, drink a lot of coffee, and go to work. And then get to work and I'll be sleeping at my desk. And my supervisor came up to me. She said, "You have a choice. You could leave here or leave the other job. You can't be sleeping here." And that rang a bell like, "Oh, okay. That's a choice I wasn't thinking about." I'm thinking about working, making money. And then this will be also making money. So I'm making money both ways. I'm okay. But it wasn't like that. BG 183: 01:57:19.861 So when we started landing all these jobs, I said, "Okay, it's time to leave." So I saved up enough money. I said, "I'm going to leave my job and never look back." So I left it and never looked back. When that money ran out, there was no more money. We was like, "What the fuck are we going to do? There's no more money in the street and it's kind of hard." And then we landed another company called Crooked Eye. They were a bill distributor. They had a juice called Crooked Eye, almost like a drink, alcohol. So we started doing that. And then we started doing other small jobs and doing mom-and-pop stores. We did Shivas Regal. And during that time, we did ABC Carpet at Home. So how we started the company TATS, I mean adding the S to the TAT screw, we met Fat Joe the time that we were also doing a music video for KRS-One called Mad Lion. Mad Lion was a singer. He was doing a song. And we was actually painting in a place called The Bronx Hall of Fame. It was located on a 169th Street and 3rd Avenue behind the school. And so KRS knew about the school. And it was a perfect place because it was kind of like a backyard to a big wall away from the school. And we'd been painting there for a year or two. BG 183: 01:59:04.651 So we told KRS-One that would be a good place to do the video for Mad Lion, and now we're painting. The Mad Lion video we did a big lion. And who came along? Fat Joe. Fat Joe came, and he was like, "Yo, what's up, guys? I love you guys. TATS Crew, I love you. I love you, Guys. You guys are my idols. I love you guys." And he also was a graffiti artist. Steven Payne: 01:59:34.184 Ah, he was a graffiti artist. BG 183: 01:59:35.809 And he wrote Crack. So next thing you know, him, Brim went on a mission and became All City. They were going all over the place doing Brim, Crack, Crack, Brim all over the place. And when Joe was ready to drop his album, he came up to us. And he said, "Look guys, want to do [snikes?]. And [snikes?] are just you come on with a poster and you go through the neighborhood and you put it up, like a new movie coming out. Coming soon. So we went and we did a lot of-- I got Flow Joe posters all over. So we made up-- Kurt Boone: 02:00:24.868 We paste it. BG 183: 02:00:26.326 We pasted. We met up with Fat Joe by 11 o'clock at night. Didn't go out until like 1 o'clock. So we hit all the major fashion places like stores. We would go to Fordham road. We went to 3rd Avenue, then we hit Southern Boulevard, and then we go to 125th street. From 125th Street, we go to the Times Square, the Village. And then from the Village we go up to Queens, to the Queen's Mall, Northern Boulevard, Queens Boulevard. Then from there, we go to Brooklyn. We go to the Bushwick section. We go to Coney Island, and we would snipe up every day for like a whole month. One time, Joe was like, "Yo, it's like 6:00 in the morning," and Joe said, "Yo, we got to go-- we got to go over here and we like, "Yo." Me and Bio was like-- was looking at each other like, "Yo, Bio. I'm tired. You know what I'm saying? We got to get the fuck out of here, and Joe got us kidnapped." You know what I'm saying? So me and Bio say, "Yo, Joe man, can you pull over real quick? We gotta take a leak." So when he pulled over, me and Bio started running. And Joe knew already that we was out. We wasn't coming back, so we see the van taken out. We were like, "We got to get the fuck out of here. We've been here with you for hours and hours." But we loved it, and that campaign was so successful when Big Pun came along. He was doing the same thing for Big Pun. We destroyed Big pun. BG 183: 02:02:11.779 I think Joe got a different team and Pun with everywhere. People want to know-- the way he was doing it was like street bombing as a graffiti artist. So when you're a graffiti artist, you bomb anywhere. We do inside of the highway. We was doing everywhere. And then at the same time, [inaudible] was doing work with Coca-Cola. We're doing work for everybody and so we tagging ourselves. We putting up TATS. You know what I'm saying? What happened is, instead of doing TAT and TS separate, so we took the last T, and just added an S. We've been doing that from the beginning, you know what I'm saying? When [inaudible] had his crew, TMB, we bought TAT and B for that mean TAT, T and B. TOA, TCA. We had a whole bunch with the TAT, but we added in your first letter of your cool sided with a T, and we just connected it like that. So that's how the TS started from the TATS. We also part of task crew [inaudible]. And so we just kept going and kept doing that. We painted when Pun passed away. We had that particular wall that we painted. And me, Bio, [inaudible] and me, we had a nice wall that we painted. Bio did a [inaudible] did a character with a bulletproof vest with a Puerto Rican bandana and then he's holding up two guns and he shooting and then there's a BG 183. BG 183: 02:04:03.319 And I remember when Pun was coming out with his album, he his promotional photograph was him in front of that particular piece that he's doing the same thing, the same movement. And that was the photo that he was promoting himself to the world. So when he died, we say, "Oh, let's do that wall," and that's how that area of the Pun at Roger's place became the Big Pun wall. We also painted and Casita Maria, again, I was born and raised across you from Casino Maria. Casita Maria reached out to us to paint three hermanas and the three hermanas is actually Joe Conzo's grandmother. That we also painted another wall for his grandmother on Prospect. That got you know got taken down, but the actual print is inside the facility. So we painted a lot of stuff. I love The Bronx mural that's located on Simpson. Again, Simpson is where I grew up at. And that's how we got the wall. So a lot of these walls was because of my neighborhood. Bio was born and Bio raised up in Bronx River Project and that's how I got to meet Bambaataa because of Bio, but Bio lived in Bronx River. So we did a lot-- I did a lot of stuff in Bronx River. But it was a great time. It's a lot of stuff that we did that's still out there that you still could see, but. BG 183: 02:05:51.989 And after that, we were just taking the company in a way that not only that we do murals, we also do vinyl, we do contract for all the stuff that we do, we do lectures. And you got to show going on right now too, right? Right. I did a show at Wall Works too, the place is called Crete Hub. And I asked Crash to do-- I wanted to do a show there in 2020, thinking that I could do a show in the next couple of months. He said, "Yeah, let me look at my calendar." And he said, "Okay, 2022 of February." I said, "Wow, that's like two years from now." I said, "All right. Let's get it. Let's get it, so." But it did give me more time to produce some really great paintings. I actually dedicated a painting there for Big Pun. Steven Payne: 02:06:51.622 Yeah. I saw that. BG 183: 02:06:52.370 But this is the month that he passed away. He passed away February 7th. So it was perfect to have that particular piece in there for people to see and enjoy. I also did a self-portrait of myself, drawing. And I also do a hydrant. That's my signature that I've been doing it for the last fir years. I also found these two hydrant pieces that was laying on the floor and then I was like-- and it kept telling me, "Why you don't put it in your show?" And I kept saying to myself, "I don't know what to do with it. I don't know how can I create something with this?" So, in the end, after like a week and a half before the show, I came up with the idea and that's what I came up. I think it was a really great idea of how I did it. And this is a show that, again, I just wanted to show people, my fans, my family, that I really love art, and this is something that I was born, God gave me a gift that I'm still using it. And doing a lot of positive things with it. BG 183: 02:08:04.000 And in the end, I'm proud of the show because know, again, we got the COVID. And it was amazing that I had a leaf 250 to 300 people showing up in that show like you know. People calling me like," Y'all, I can't find parking." And it was like, for me it was like incredible that people still like the stuff that I do, I have a lot of support and a lot of people that still love what I do. So I actually have two more upcoming shows and I think it's like more like a pop-up show I'm doing and I think a lot of people are also reaching out to me, they want work to be done on canvases and I think because in the beginning we were mostly street artists that was doing street art advertising or street art mural but a lot of people don't know that I also paint canvas and now after this one show people are reaching out to me and if you guys had any more questions-- Kurt Boone: 02:09:13.068 Oh, just the last couple of questions would be to talk a little bit about the Muriel kings and how do you feel about this whole Mural movement around the world and you being a patriarch because you travel with the world and you guys are maybe the inspiration to this whole Muriel movement now because way more than tagging, it's a whole global movement called Mural. So how do you feel about the name Mural king said your courier way back and then this whole global movement called Murals being made by artists all over the world? BG 183: 02:09:51.533 Okay so when I started doing the graph you had like all this like Lee, Lee was doing incredible mural back down in the 80s. He did one that was in the train station that was like my Internet . Back then the way you saw murals is you had to travel by train. So we had one that was from, I think from 34th street to 14th street there's an abandoned four or five train station. I think it's on 27th street that's abandoned, so when the train is going slow you can see the bandit and he had this mural that he painted this Egyptian guy on a camel. It was a silhouette, so he did like yellow and orange sky and he did like some beige into browns for the sign and on the tip of the-- on a mountain of the sand he did like a camel with an Egyptian like silhouette and then he drew this like the shadow of the camel to silhouette and it was so amazing like wow, I didn't know you could do that with spray paint like you could do art like you know like people was doing art like you had like the hand of doom was Seen and then Lee did another one that I think it was the 2001 mural day, there was a lion and that was so crazy and then Lee did another painting that I saw on the train and then you had Sin doing top to bottom with colors . BG 183: 02:11:47.255 So this inspired me to like wow it's more than a piece on the train, it's like a it's a whole production that you could do. So that brought me to the thing and then in the early 90s we was traveling a little bit around the world, we traveled to France and we met a crew called Mac crew and they C crew and they were one of the best crew out there. They were doing top to bottom crew and so we needed to change our name from TAT, so I came up with the idea let's do-- I'm going to call myself the Mural King because at that time we were painting so much mural. We like, "Yo, we call ourselves the Mural King," so then we took it and we did it for our company name. "Oh, let's do The Mural King as the company, and when we started traveling, these people was doing side of buildings incredibly. Doing style, doing character, doing some stuff that it was amazing, and I don't know, it could have been from the subway art book that inspired everybody to do this graffiti. Could have been, again, the only way you saw graffiti was through graffiti magazines. You had a lot of graffiti magazine that was out there, and because of these graffiti magazine-- and again, there was getting done here. There was one or two magazine in New York City, but a lot of the magazine was coming from overseas, so they was also producing, so they took something that somebody started back here, let's say TAKI 183, and then you had the Phase 2, you had the COCO 144, the Snakes, and I was writing, but it just took off. You know what I'm saying? BG 183: 02:13:50.770 People used to interview me and say, "What do you want graffiti to be at?" and I said, "I want graffiti to be on a plane, on a side of a boat, but now it's there already. People painted plane, helicopters. It's in movie backdrop. You see a lot of music videos, and it's all over. You know what I'm saying? It's a nonstop-- We actually did total of 29 music videos that we have out there that we did from the early '80s, so when people ask us, "How long you been doing business?" we've been doing business since when we first started. It's not like we started in the '90s. Yeah, we officially went and got a copyright. Yeah, TATS Cru is now a company, but we've been doing this from early, early '80s when we first started, and today Bio is-- He's doing his heart. He's all over with the heart. Nicer's getting busy doing his characters and doing paintings, it's incredible, and then myself, I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing, and then I think when us three get together it's amazing work. You know what I'm saying? Steven Payne: 02:15:12.026 Absolutely, yeah. BG 183: 02:15:12.713 Even the new school writers, they show us so much love, and looking at their work, they're like, "Wow, your guys are way better than other." "No, no, no, your guys are the gods," and then I said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you." Kurt Boone: 02:15:23.624 Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Steven Payne: 02:15:26.889 Yeah, for sure. BG 183: 02:15:28.872 I see myself like I'm not doing the type of work you're doing, but they're looking at me like, "You so good at it," because not only that we do-- a lot of writers, they only-- It's only a few writer that specialize in everything. There's a couple, right, that "I just do characters," and they can't do letters, and there's a lot of people that do letters, but they can't do characters, and a lot of people who do characters and letters, but they don't have a hand style, so a lot of people-- It's real different now, real different. It's a different movement, and I feel like whatever you have, whatever you have to give it's the best. It's not like you have to stop. You just continue doing what you're doing. I know we started traveling around the world, and we went to Mexico. And in Mexico, there's different art in Mexico where they-- again, the paint over there is three times as much over there because you take domestic money, and our money is about nine times, eight times. So over there, for them to get colors, this is like late 90s. BG 183: 02:16:49.193 So they take one color like a light yellow, and they take an orange, and they put two different types of cap on the spray can, and they put a straw between these two cans. So if this can is kind of empty, they spray this side, and they put a color that runs from one can to the next can to mix the color. Steven Payne: 02:17:15.351 Wow. Kurt Boone: 02:17:15.586 In Mexico? BG 183: 02:17:16.317 In Mexico. But oh, wow, this is-- Steven Payne: 02:17:17.105 That's crazy. BG 183: 02:17:18.282 You're over there and you seen this happening, like, "Wow, this is incredible." I would never guess to add two colors together. So they figured out-- so everywhere you go, it's always something new. And again, in Mexico, we noticed that there was a lot of-- the percentage of the women-- there was a lot of women graffiti artists. We were like, "Wow, this is incredible." In New York, you see them, but it's not so many. But in Mexico, about 40% of the women was graffiti artist, and 60% were men. And like, "Oh, wow, this is really awesome." So to this day, what I've been doing is just been joined almost every day. I took a trip to Brazil, and I remember there was-- 2015 or '13, I went to Brazil. And during that time, I'm painting murals for everybody from McDonald's to movies that's coming up brand new. I'm doing T-Mobile, doing AT&T. We're doing stuff for everybody, but it was like I'm doing something for someone. It was not I was doing something for myself. So it became a job. It became kind of boring to me like, "Okay, I'm doing this. I'm painting this." So used this color red, used this color blue. So it was like something that we had to do for us to get paid. It was all right, but it was nothing I felt was for me. BG 183: 02:19:01.684 So when I took a trip to Brazil, it changed my life. I'm seeing these artists. They're painting out of raw material. They're using brushes. They're taking a wall-- here in New York, we paint the whole wall one color. There, they just paint whatever image they want to throw on the wall. So if it's a person's face with a body, they're just doing a round circle and the body, and that's it. The rest is just raw brick wall cement. So when I went there, I painted with close to like 50 artists, and I'm seeing every artist kind of struggling because, again, pink costs so much money, and they're making something out of nothing. And they brought me back to how I started. And so when I left Brazil, I was a new artist. Wow. This opened up my eyes to saying like, "Don't take this for granted because you're good at what you're doing." There's always something that you always got to get there and same thing like a boxer. After a while you boxing, you winning, it gets boring. You know what I'm saying? So you always got to keep that heat, that energy in your body. Keep going. So in this solo show, this is what I did. I gave it my all. I didn't take nothing for granted. I said, look, people want to see more, I have to give them more. And that's what I've been doing. Steven Payne: 02:20:39.155 Absolutely. I got one final question for you which is, what does The Bronx represent to you? BG 183: 02:20:45.486 For me The Bronx represent everything, represent life, represent me as a person because without-- me living in The Bronx, it showed me different elements of life from being poor, from being broke, from seeing everything that was-- like when people say, "You live in The Bronx? Where? In the South Bronx?" For me it was life. We had the hydrant, we had sports, we had street games, we had everything that only in poor neighborhood would have. And we did. We had the crime rate, you had to protect yourself, you had your friends that was doing so much crime or you had your friend that passed away too early in the game that you didn't want to hear about that. And you had everything that-- like Kara once said, The Bronx keep creating it, and that's why we've been doing for many years. We create something out of nothing and that's what The Bronx represent. You know what I'm saying? If you are born and raised here, somehow you talented. And somehow and somewhere in your life if you want to be a dancer, you go knocking your next door neighbor and he's a dancer. You want to be a DJ, you go upstairs and DJ. You want to do graffiti, the wall right across the street has graffiti. BG 183: 02:22:28.755 So everything that you want is here. If you hungry, you go to the nearest grocery store. You want to go shopping, it's right there. You want to take the subway, the buses, everything is so close. The Bronx has everything. We got the museums. We have the best team in the world, New York Yankees. You know what I'm saying? You can't go wrong with that. You know what I'm saying? I support New York Yankees since the early '77 when they won back then. And the black guys. We had black guys. We have everybody. It's family. We as a Bronx family, we protect each other. If you have your son and your daughter, the next door neighbor is looking out for your kids. You know what I'm saying? People say that you got to be careful but here, I feel it's a safer place because mothers when they see something going on, they're out there, " Yo, you better be careful with my kids. That's for my kids." You know what I'm saying? So we have it all. You know what I'm saying? We have everything - You know what I'm saying? - from the board president, Ruben Diaz. He really went and he did what he had to do. He had all these people that come down. The Bronx is where it's at. Hip hop wouldn't start it because of The Bronx. Graffiti wouldn't be here because it was for The Bronx. So we make it even from breakdancing to emceeing, all-- Steven Payne: 02:24:10.270 The Latin Hustle, salsa. BG 183: 02:24:11.605 Right. Latin Hustle to salsa. Everything is all in The Bronx. You hear like when I travel the world and I say I'm from The Bronx, people will stop and ask me like 100 questions. Okay. You got the fashion that's got in The Bronx. You got everything. You know what I'm saying? How can I say? I'm glad again I'm here. I'm glad that I ran with my task crew, mash up to my wife, my kids, the whole family, the crash, the days, the lady pinks, the Lee, Mitch 77, one guy that I used to go and see one of his wall that he had by Yankee Stadium, on the wall that he had a Mitch 77 that was like my internet, [inaudible] early '80s. All the DJs that was out there, Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Grandmaster Caz, these guys are still current in the game, Grand Wizard Theodore. These guys are still making hip hop, making The Bronx what it is today. Steven Payne: 02:25:29.436 Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for sharing everything that you've shared today and I think we'll end Kurt with-- Kurt Boone: 02:25:39.632 Thank you all. The only thing we-- the last day we ask every artist is to do a tag for us. This stays in the music library. BG 183: 02:25:46.410 Oh, great. Kurt Boone: 02:25:46.980 So I have a marker. I have a marker. BG 183: 02:25:49.125 It's not a dry marker, right? Kurt Boone: 02:25:51.018 [inaudible]. Hold on. I 'll show you. It's a dry marker. Yeah. Yeah. It's a dry marker. Kurt Boone: 02:25:57.860 It's good. Okay. For a dry marker you hit it down like this and ink should come down. That's how you get blood. Kurt Boone: 02:26:08.122 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. BG 183: 02:26:18.627 Oh, see. It's already dripping. Steven Payne: 02:26:20.684 Yeah. There we go. [silence] Kurt Boone: 02:27:15.468 [inaudible]. CC-BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons) video Content may be utilized only for non-commercial purposes so long as equal sharing privileges are preserved and the following attribution is included: "Courtesy of The Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project, The Bronx County Archives at The Bronx County Historical Society Research Library." 0 https://viewer.mybcpl.org/viewer.php?cachefile=/render.php?cachefile= Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed BG 183 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with BG 183 Description An account of the resource Oral history recorded for the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project on March 1, 2022 with BG 183, a member of the legendary Tats Cru, one of the most prolific Bronx graffiti crews painting whole cars and trains during the Golden Era of the 1980s and trailblazers of the contemporary global street arts movement. In this oral history BG 183 speaks about growing up in the South Bronx along the 6 line, his love and aptitude for art from a young age, his involvement in the emerging hip hop culture of the 1970s, his early days as a graffiti writer, how he got involved in Tats Cru (originally T.A.T. Cru), transitioning more to mural work during the late 1980s and 1990s, his current work as a globally renowned artist, and much more. The interviewers are Dr. Steven Payne, librarian and archivist at The Bronx County Historical Society, and Kurt Boone, prolific documentarian of urban culture for the past 40 years. The Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project is a project of The Bronx County Archives at The Bronx County Historical Society Research Library. This oral history is brought to you through the contribution of Stephen DeSimone, CEO/President of DeSimone Consulting Engineers. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2022.03.01 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context OH-BAADP.20220301 BG183 graffiti TATS Cru