1 20 3 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. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 02:50:02 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview BUTCH 2 Crespo, Pastor, Jr. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed BOM 5 Location The location of the interview The Bronx, NY OHMS Object Embedded OHMS XML file https://oralhistory.bronxhistoricalsociety.org/viewer.php?cachefile=OH-BAADP.20230413.xml Interview Format Audio or Video Video OHMS Content Content of OHMS Index/Transcript for searching (Hidden) 5.4 Interview with BOM5 OH-BAADP.20230413 2:50:02 OH-BAADP Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project Bronx Oral History Center This oral history is brought to you through the support of The New York City Council Cultural Immigrant Initiative. bxoralhistory BOM5 Butch2 and Pastor Crespo, Jr. MP4 bom5-oral-history-baadp-2023-04-13.mp4 Undefined 1 https://youtu.be/dFNow4M61Po YouTube video English 0 Introduction PC: Welcome to the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project. My name is Pastor Crespo, Jr., Research Librarian and Archivist here at the Bronx County Historical Society. And I am joined by pioneering graffiti artist Butch II for this oral history. Today is Thursday, April 15, 2023 and we have the distinct honor of documenting this oral history with BOM5. Welcome BOM5, please introduce yourself. BOM: Thank you. This is BOM5 from the boogie-down Bronx, which we used to call the burnt down Bronx. Interviewers Butch 2 and Pastor Crespo introduce themselves and give a chance for BOM5, the narrator of this oral history and pioneering graffiti writer to introduce himself. Bom 5 (Graffiti artist);Butch 2 (Graffiti artist);Oral history Bronx;Bronx (New York, N.Y.);Bronx County (N.Y.);Graffiti;Graffiti artists 0 57 Family History and Background B2: Ok, BOM5, talk to us about your family history, background, where your parents are from? BOM: I was born in Puerto Rico. My father is African, My mother's Puerto Rican. My grandfather came to Puerto Rico for work. He found work in Puerto Rico and brought his kids over there. His kids met my mother and started having kids in Puerto Rico. Then we moved to New York and my brother and sister were born there. There's 10 of us all from the same mother and father. When we came to this place called New York, they just had to change their paperwork and stuff because New York when you came from Puerto Rico you could get help from the government. BOM discusses his family background and early life. He was part of a large family, on of 10 siblings. His father moved to Puerto Rico for work and settled there, meeting BOM's mother. The family moved again to New York, where again his father found work until he was murdered in a racially motivated attack. This left only BOM's mother to take care of all 10 kids. He also describes his daily life, including music listened to in his house and meals cooked, as well as loading all the kids up into the family station wagon to go to Orchard Beach. Arts, Puerto Rican;Cooking, Puerto Rican;Murder victims' families;Puerto Rican young men;Puerto Rico Bronx;Children and violence;Hate crimes;Hate crimes--United States;Violence--Sociological aspects 0 916 Schooling PC: Take us through the schools you attended and take us through each of them from public school on up. BOM: Yeah I went to school at 174, I had got––I went to the school for a while and then got kicked out and had to go to P.S. 105 at Pelham Parkway. I was getting into too much trouble and my mom got me into that school with an address with my cousin... so then my brothers and sisters younger than me started going there too. BOM gives a history of his schooling, from Public School, one of which he got kicked out of, to eventually dropping out then finally getting his GED, which he passed immediately. GED tests Public education series;Schooling 0 1174 Getting into Gang and Graffiti PC: Do you remember when you first saw graffiti? Was it in the staircase, at school, the train? What was it, and how did it influence you at the time? BOM: First of all I didn't even know it was graffiti. I was in a gang. My cousin SEE 2 S-E-E 2 and uh, he's the one that got me into the gang. I used to look up to my cousin, he was almost five years older than me but my cousin was my cousin he was like my brother. He is my first cousin and he was a badass. I mean I'm telling you when I'm 9 years old and joining this gang, and this guy is already 13 but he was like stocked. I'm like yo! He said "Pushup! Pushup! Pushup! Chinup! Pushup!" I was like yo show me! Show me! I remember him having muscles like we was 10 years apart! This dude was always built like that! ... I found another family in the street. You know in Tiffany Street, and they gave me the name Spider. I had to go through the whole thing to join the gang. The main thing I remember when I was proud when Hollywood said, we're gonna pass you a name, you're fast, your hands they can see it you're a fighter" there's a lot of things they test you. I had to rack up in the summer some quarts of beer for them. They said, "Go in the store and bring us something!" And like what am I gonna bring? They said to bring something me like to drink. I went in there and racked up two quarts. So what I did was I went in the back, looked around, make sure no one is watching, and I ran out. The first experiences BOM5 had with graffiti was within his outlaw gang, the Savage Skulls. He would put up his gang moniker, 174SPIDER, as well as SAVAGE SKULLS, and the block name with paint stolen from the superintendent of his building on the rocks outside. Soon, he was introduced to other writers who opened his eyes to the wider writing culture, which BOM quickly took to. Savage Nomads (Street gang);Savage Skulls (Street gang) Gangs--New York (State);Outlaw Gang 0 2024 Technique and Development PC: I wanna take you back to when you first started writing. What did you use? What markers? Did you do homemade markers? What did you do about that? BOM: That's where the next part comes in. As a gang member I was doing good, but as a human, I was not doing good. So my cousin said, "look, you got too much skill. You dance good, you draw good, you got like opportunities. You're getting too bad, you're gonna end up hurting someone bad and you're gonna wind up going to jail and I don't want that for you. You know that's not in your life." And I was angry with him because it took me almost 4 years and now I'm in the gang, and I'm with the gang. It's going into my fifth year and I'm strong, I'm better, and you know I just love my life in that gang. Never brought the colors to my mother's house, never wore it around my mother, out of respect for my mother. Every time I got home I would fold it up and put it under the staircase or on the roof. So now he forced me, you gotta get out or I'm gonna beat the shit outta you. I didn't have to fight to get out of the gang because my cousin said, "let him go." ... I see my cousin Chino at a birthday party, at a family birthday party, and he's got a shirt like painted. And that's like with a shirt like painted? I'm like oh, yo, what's that? I could do that! BOM's cousin kicks him out of the gang in order to protect him from getting into serious trouble and encourages him to find opportunities with his many talents. Chance encounters lead him to focus seriously on graffiti where he learns from established names the tools of the trade and where to find the Writers' Benches. One mentor BOM was introduced to at this time was BILLY 167, an Irish writer who took BOM under in wing in a number of ways, including having BOM over for dinner. It surprised BOM the degree to which racial animus lessened (but by no means disappeared) among writers, and his friendship with Billy helped heal the wound of his father's death. Education in art Graffiti;Graffiti artists;Mural painting and decoration--Technique 0 3890 Names B2: What other tags have you written, and do you still write any of them? BOM: My tag started from my gang name, 174SPIDER, and then my first graffiti name was from a movie I saw at the time, it was called SPARTACUS, with Kirk Douglas. I loved how he was strong in that movie, and I wanted to be that strong guy. Not in a gang way anymore but in a writing world way. So I got SPARTACUS. The name was too long! So I cut it down to SPART 174. After I got that name it felt good. I had the name. But then I started noticing at the time a lot of writers was replacing letters for characters. So I was like, oh! I need a name with an O! So I started looking. And I said oh, BOMB. I told BILLY and he said oh, ok that's good! But when I went to see my cousin CHINO, he said wait, I go to school with BOMB1! My cousin went to art and design and I went to music and art.I'm like what, ah man. He said no no no! I would go there after school and meet him after school over there After briefly using the name SPARTACUS, BOM wanted a shorter name and something with an O so that he could draw a character in place of the vowel. BOM settled on the graffiti name BOMB, but was discouraged when BOMB1 (Al Diaz) continued writing the name after agreeing to retire. In order to differentiate himself, BOM omitted the final B and added 005 to the name, becoming forever more BOM005. Anonyms and pseudonyms;Anonyms and pseudonyms, American Graffiti 0 4361 Layups/Yards B2: Which stations did you get into for layups? BOM: Oh, boy. Wow, so many. They had underground layups. The 6 layup, you know. St. Lawrence, 223rd-225th. Sometimes they'd lay it up in Bronx Park East on the Pelham Parkway. For the Bronx. Then we had 183rd, we had Kingsbridge, we went to Kingsbridge many times the G boys I got down with them. But I even went to like, layups on the 7 Line, Junction Blvd (Jackson Heights). My story don't stay in the Bronx. Early on I was traveling. I started going to the different writes bench in Queens, in Brooklyn. I befriended one guy, my brother who passed away STIM 1. BOM lists the layups underground and elevated, and yards he liked to paint in. A favorite was Esplanade where the elevated section of the 5 train heads underground between Morris Park station and just before Gun Hill Rd. Station. He would travel to other boroughs to find new lines to paint on, including Junction Blvd and different layups in Brooklyn. He went as far as Long Island and Staten Island. This travel, enabled often by relatives such as a cousin in Jamaica Queens who introduced him to Grandmaster Flowers and Pete DJ Jones. He also speaks about difficulties in getting in and out. Early on it was just walk-in but later as policing became heavier there was a lot of difficulties and chasing. Sunnyside Yard (New York, N.Y. : Railroad yard) Graffiti;Law enforcement 0 4951 Crews B2: Alright can you talk to us about the Mad Writers, how did that begin and what were they most known for? BOM: That was a crew I made in 1978. But before that in 1976 I made my other crew. ... I saw a movie called 5 Fingers of Death. So I made a crew called 5 Death Writers. And Death was a big word back in the day. People say "Oh, Def you don't know nothing" Oh? how do you spell it? "D-E-F" No it was D-E-A-T-H back in the day. To be Death you wrote the whole word out. So sometimes I would write SPIDER174 is DEATH. So after I saw that movie it influenced me to make a crew but it was just me. I was like alright I gotta get five friends into graffiti! So I finally got five friends together and we had a crew called 5 Death Writers. BOM speaks about his experience creating crews, first the 5 Death Writers and then the Mad Writers. He goes into the history of the word Death as a positive adjective (later shifted to Def). 5 Death Writers;Mad Writers Graffiti artists;Graffiti crews 0 5132 Piecing B2: Walk us through your process of doing a piece. Do you plan it out in detail? Do it in the blackbook? Do you wind it? do you get help from other people in your crew? BOM: Goes like this: When you become a writer, most of the time you go with one other person. Unless you go by yourself. Then, the whole thing doesn't matter if you're with a crew or not. It depends on what you're gonna do with that crew, if you're gonna do a production together... Sometimes not all the colors work out to do the exact production you want to do.So you just go racking. The main thing: you get your paint. Because you already know your sketch if you're already writing. You've practiced you past sketches your outline you got stuff. Even Pathmark had spray paint at one time. BOM lays out his process for completing a piece. For BOM, the piece starts when racking––what colors can you get? He details a lot of his routine for racking. For a big crew production they'd need an army duffel bag to hold all the paint. Then transporting the paint which is difficult itself. Then comes the outline which you already have from experience. Having a fat cap was also a necessity. Mural painting and decoration, American;Mural painting and decoration--Technique 0 6796 Zulu Nation PC: We're gonna switch gears on you. How did you become involved in Zulu Nation? Tell us that backstory. BOM: It was all the influence of being around Sisko King and all them guys. The first time I ever met Bam was I was in the Savage Skulls and they tell me about Bronx [inaudible] and I'm from 174th they have a Bridge that goes over to Bronx River Projects. So I knew about Bam through graffiti first he used to write BAM117. So I met him on the Bridge. I didn't have colors, he didn't have color and we met. He's taking a tag, I take a tag, we meet on the bridge and we become friends. The funny thing about that. Two days or three days later I'm riding my bike through Bronx River and I see him with a group of dudes. They got the Black Spades colors and I'm walking around with my vest on my bike Savage Skulls. And I'm like, that's that same guy that motherfucker! So I start throwing bottles at them, and they start throwing shit at me and they started coming at me. So I had to get back on my bike and ride my bike away. They were throwing like rocks at us and stuff, so I had to get away. But I threw bottles at them first because I was like, I thought you was my friend, but you know he was someone I just met. I just wrote my gang name on the bridge but I didn't put no SS. BOM speaks about meeting Afrika Bambaataa and how he was present for some of the early conversations involved in the founding of Zulu Nation, despite some initial friction due to Bam's Black Spades affiliation. BOM was involved in Zulu Kings, the B-Boy group of Disco King Mario, the Black Spade DJ, which also became affiliated with Zulu Nation when that spun up. Afrika Bambaataa, 1960-;Zulu Nation B-boy;Hip-hop 0 7172 DJing & B-Boying PC: Now DJing: What drew you to become a DJ and do you still spin? BOM: Yeah yeah. Still spinning still doing my thing. I slowed down for a little bit because I got the tinnin–tinnining? PC: Right Tendonitis? [note: Tinnitus meant] BOM: Yeah that's from years of having the headphone on and being in clubs. You know we'd have these jams rocking with loudspeakers in these small community center rooms blasting the music. Going deaf but you're not feeling it! When you get older all of a sudden you got a ringing in your ear. BOM speaks about how he got into DJing. He met some mentors and was able to prove himself. Some of his biggest mentors mentioned were Disco King Mario, Junebug, and DJ Hollywood. Later on, BOM would have something of a falling out with Hollywood due to Hollywood not wanting to be associated with the juvenile Bronx hip-hop culture, insisting on a mature harlem disco audience. BOM gives a lot of credit to the disco DJs and makes sure to give them their due credit in contributing to hip-hop, but he insists that what Kool Herc and other early hip-hop DJs were playing the music differently, even though the line between disco and hip-hop was very blurry early on, with many hip-hop crews (including BOM's own) incorporating "disco" into their names. D. J. Hollywood;DJ Kool Herc Disco dancing;Disco music;Hip-hop;Hip-hop--Influence 0 9058 Hip Hop Culture Courses PC: Now tell us about the hip hop culture courses that you give at area charter schools. Are you allowed to talk about that? BOM: I could talk about just what I've been doing my whole life! Ever since the 80's I've been going to centers teaching about graff, about the culture of writing. My culture when I talk is first about the Bronx, and then about how I spread it in New York. And my spread went from New York to all around America, and then when I got tired of America then I went overseas. BOM speaks briefly about the classes he gives to student-aged community members in schools and community centers about hip-hop culture and graffiti. He emphasizes how the culture mirrors himself in ever more expanding opportunities. It is rooted in the Bronx but took him all over the city, then the country, then the world. Culturally relevant pedagogy;Education in art 0 9579 What does the Bronx mean? PC: We like to end the interviews with this one question: What does the Bronx mean to you? BOM: My family. My family, my community, the place that made me who I am to this day. And that's a good person. 'Cause I had been a bad person in another way. So it made me a good person and gave me knowledge. All the education and things I learned from the Bronx I can spread through the world. The Bronx holds a personal meaning for BOM as the community which made him a good person, which educated him and put him in a place to educate others. He attaches this fact to his Afro-Puerto Rican identity, but says that his experience with members of all ethnic communities in the Bronx also convinced him of the unity of the human race. Bronx 0 9655 Tag BOM5 does a couple of passes at writing his tag for the Bronx County Archives 0 Oral history recorded for the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project on April 13, 2023 with BOM5, a graffiti writer and artist. BOM5 was born in Puerto Rico and migrated to the Bronx with his parents as a young child. In his oral history, BOM5 speaks about his family's migration to New York City in search of work and a better life. He discusses growing up on 175th Street and Hoe Ave in the east Bronx and his families adjustment to their new home. He speaks of his first experiences, as a 9-year old, writing gang graffiti as a young Savage Skull member, interactions with other gangs, both good and bad, and learning how to tattoo. BOM5 recalls racking not just spray paint but also food items and clothes to help support his family of 10 siblings. The interviewers Butch2, a pioneering graffiti writer and community historian for the The Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project (BAADP) and Pastor Crespo, Jr., research librarian and archivist for The Bronx County Historical Society. 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 support of The New York City Council Cultural Immigrant Initiative. 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= 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 BOM 5 Description An account of the resource Oral history recorded for the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project on April 13, 2023 with BOM5, a graffiti writer and artist. BOM5 was born in Puerto Rico and migrated to The Bronx with his parents as a young child. In his oral history, BOM 5 speaks about his family's migration to New York City in search of work and a better life. He discusses growing up on 175th Street and Hoe Ave in the east Bronx and his family's adjustment to their new home. He speaks of his first experiences as a 9-year old writing gang graffiti as a young Savage Skull member, interactions with other gangs, both good and bad, and learning how to tattoo. BOM 5 recalls racking not just spray paint but also food items and clothes to help support his family of ten siblings. The interviewers are BUTCH 2, pioneering graffiti writer and community historian for the The Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project (BAADP), a project of The Bronx County Archives at The Bronx County Historical Society Research Library, and Pastor Crespo, Jr., research librarian and archivist at The Bronx County Historical Society. This oral history is brought to you through the support of The New York City Council Cultural Immigrant Initiative. 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 2023.04.13 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context OH-BAADP.20230413 BOM 5 graffiti Savage Skulls 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. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 2:01:55 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Crespo, Pastor, Jr. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed SEN 1 Location The location of the interview The Bronx, NY OHMS Object Embedded OHMS XML file https://oralhistory.bronxhistoricalsociety.org/viewer.php?cachefile=OH-BAADP.20230118.xml Interview Format Audio or Video Video OHMS Content Content of OHMS Index/Transcript for searching (Hidden) 5.4 Interview with SEN-1 (IBM), Part 2 OH-BAADP.20230118 2:01:55 OH-BAADP Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project Bronx Oral History Center This interview made possible through the contribution of Columbia University's Oral History Archives at Columbia (OHAC) and will be dual-listed in a collection there. bxoralhistory SEN-1 (IBM) Crespo, Pastor Jr. MP4 sen-1-part2-oral-history-bgadp-2023-01-18.mp4 Undefined 1 https://youtu.be/d5lPgnlVIIY YouTube video English 0 Introduction Pastor Crespo (PC): Today is Wednesday January 18, 2023 and we are at the Bronx County Historical Society Research Center at 3313 Bainbridge Avenue, The Bronx. I am Pastor Crespo, Jr. the research librarian and archivist, and I am joined for Part 2 of an Oral History for the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project with SEN-1 IBM also known as George Morillo a legend within the graffiti community and an original member of the Incredible Bombing Masters IBM. His art has transitioned from NYC subway tunnels and yards to sharing fine art gallery space alongside renowned international artists such as Pablo Picasso. Interviewer Pastor Crespo, Jr. introduces himself and the narrator, SEN-1. Artists--Anecdotes;Artists--United States;Artists--United States--Biography;Contemporary artists;Graffiti 0 91 Afro-Caribbean heritage SEN: The Afro-Caribbean thing is because if you know your culture and you know your history of the Caribbean, you know that the slave trade of America was the slave triangle, which the slaves that were brought in from Africa were transferred into the Caribbean prior to coming to the Americas, so you had the slave triangle and then back to Africa so the ship routes. So the Caribbean is highly influences by our original Arawak people, which people like to say Taino and different tribes, Ciboney and all these other tribes, but when it comes down to the bloodline, our bloodline runs through South America, Central America and so on, and Africa of course, and being that melanated people originate from where? Africa. So also in my blood trait I have the sickle cell anemia trait. Sen discusses his family and ethnic background, how the history of the Caribbean from its indigenous peoples and importance to the Atlantic slave trade has had an enormous impact on his personal consciousness. Arawak Arts, Dominican;Dominican Americans;Dominican Republic;Dominican Republic--Biography;Dominican Republic--History--1961-;Dominican Republic. Policía Nacional (1936- );Haiti;Haiti--Boundaries--Dominican Republic 0 251 Upper West Side/Harlem PC: So what neighborhood did you grow up in? SEN: I grew up in what's like the borderline of what the beginning of what Harlem is. Even though a lot of people consider 110th Street to be Harlem, but my area like 96th Street and Broadway was the Mecca for Afro-Latin Jazz growing up. So pretty much I was born on 95th/94th Street and Amsterdam, I was living in a tenement there, and I would move up to 93rd Street and Columbus. But that area was always under what they would call "Urban Development." So we went through the burnt-down stuff like the Bronx did obviously that was a way of clearing out areas and taking also---people also don't understand that when New York was burning down in the 70s it was part of a bigger plan of taking away property from people of color. Sen describes his neighborhood and its changing landscape over his lifetime. He speaks about how the Upper West Side above 90th Street was more connected to Harlem and the Bronx ("Uptown") than is commonly understood. He speaks about how urban renewal changed his life significantly while living in the neighborhood, as well as why he believes it took place. Its location makes it a unique neighborhood, being equally close to the Bronx as to Midtown. New York (N.Y.). Office of Development. Urban Renewal Unit;Urban renewal--United States Cosmopolitanism;Gentrification;Harlem (New York, N.Y.);Upper West Side (New York, N.Y.) 0 462 La West Side Familia PC: Can you talk about your association with La West Side Familia, how did that begin and your various roles and involvement with them? SEN: Absolutely, that's a major part of my life from youth to now, to this day. So La West Side Familia just to give a quick breakdown is an outlaw gang. It was an era in New York when every community had an outlaw gang. So up here you had everything from the Savage Skulls to the Ching-a-Lings and on and on. The entire city was carved out in sections. The reason this happened is originally, as people of color migrated in a lot of these communities they were not received properly. It was really hostile. Whether it was an Italian community, a Jewish community, whatever it was. They didn't want us there. Sen discusses his relationship with La West Side Familia, an outlaw gang he is a member of. Founded as an offshoot of the Brooklyn La Familia organization, it was part of an era of New York City where there were outlaw gangs in nearly every community. He credits part of its endurance to the fact it was a "mafia-type" organization where members were vetted over a very long period of time before being "made" as members. Its activities, however, extended far beyond the criminal, and included a radical political milieu including the legacy of the Young Lords. Young Lords Party Crime;Crime and race;Gang members;La West Side Familia (Street gang);Outlaw Gang 0 1726 Cyril Innis, Black Panther Party, Politicization PC: Now, an individual you know well. How did you meet Cyril Innis, and what was your involvement with the Black Panthers over the years? SEN: Oh, man Cyril Innis that's Bullwhip man. I got goosebumps. I have many teachers. I've been blessed in my life and cursed in a lot of ways because I've been put into situations, even with La Familia and different things and even with the Graffiti thing, and going further back. I've come across many souls that are amazing, and that's probably why I'm still here. Even when I was a kid and not having a father figure like I said and being on the streets young. I've met people that have been killers. You could consider them from the 70s hit men. You could probably consider them serial killers that are no longer with us. But they were the ones that would see me as a kid in the street and educated me. That taught me things that told me things. That knowledge is something that I carry with me forever and it's probably the reason why I'm alive through everything. Not probably, it's definitely the reason why I'm alive. Also knowledgeable about the stuff that's around me. So getting into that Cyril Innis is an original Black Panther member and Black Liberation Army member from the New York chapters. So he was in the front lines with Afeni Shakur and that whole generation... Sen speaks about his introduction to Cyril Innis, an original Black Panther, as well as their joint role in founding the Black Panther Collective, which SEN was a member of for nearly a decade. SEN also speaks broadly about the relevance of the 1960s and 1970s revolutionary movements to his own politics and the culture at large. Innis, Cyril;Shakur, Afeni;Shakur, Mutulu;Young Lords Party Black Panther Party;Zulu Nation 0 2412 Return to Art SEN: The universe is funny this way. I had hit a low in my life in which everything was falling apart. My mother had passed away, I was losing the job I was at, my marriage was falling apart. Basically everything was coming back to me, the dirt, the karma you could say, was coming back at once. I was at a really low spot. And what happens is my brother gets married for the third time and his wife is a top designer for Diane von Furstenburg whatever her name is and who built that whole campaign for her. And because her name was so hot as a designer, her name is Heather Harlan, she ended up getting this deal with Rachel Roy who was a big designer of color. I hate using black and all this stuff. Back then considered to be the biggest black designer, woman designer, at the time. I like to say melanated. But she was Damon Dash's ex-wife. She was also the one who was also like Michele Obama, Oprah, all them was wearing her dresses, outfits, they were really expensive high end. She got a deal it was bloomingdal---or Macy's deal she ended up getting a deal to make a low, what they would consider a lower end type of fashion which was more for the population that could be in their reach. And she got a complete deal from shoes all the way to bags, everything. It was a complete deal with everything in it. So Heather got hired and the brand was called Rachel Rachel Roy line. She got hired as the top designer because as you guys know these people's names are brands and not necessarily the designers they have people that actually design the stuff for them and they just get credit for. So Heather has this idea, this is back in about 2009, has this idea about graff. Graffiti wasn't hot the way it is right now. Especially not in fashion at all Sen talks about his reentry into the art world through a commission by his brother's wife to paint graffiti for a fashion line sold at Macy's which began anew his art career. Fashion and art;Macy's (Firm);Macy's, Inc. Graffiti;Graffiti artists;Harlan, Heather;Roy, Rachel 0 3104 Developing an Artistic Voice SEN: They were like, the subways of that era to give people an idea. Because I don't think people understand what we was dealing with. Like people nowadays look to a street, let's say graffiti piece, whether it's on a freight train or whatever. Even the ones that come from out of town and they do the New York City trains, these are all clean trains. These are all like, clean canvases. We didn't have that. I'm from the last generation with trains. We had a couple decades of trains being bombed out by the time we got it. Not only were they bombed out they were old they were falling apart, they were rusty. And they were being acid washed by Koch. Every week they were being acid washed so the trains were actually being eaten away by acid and then you had pieces under pieces underneath for decades and tags and all kinds of stuff. You had to actually, like, if it could be visible you couldn't go over it really. That would cause a conflict that was the rules of the street. And there was also a priority. Tags were at the bottom, throw-ups were basically, people didn't really do throw-ups. That was to us, especially out of IBM we skipped that part. That was considered a waste of paint and a waste of space, doing those bubble letters on trains. We went straight to burners and that's why IBM was so famous: characters and burners. Sen describes his development as an artist, and how developing his art into a number of series, including graffiti abstracts and his flag series allowed him to become a career artist. He also describes at length how his experience as a graffiti writer, especially the unspoken rules and conditions of painting trains affected his artistic style. Abstraction Art and style;Graffiti;Sen-1 (Graffiti artist) 0 4454 Galerie d'Orsay Boston SEN: I was out there on a trip, I was with the girl I was dating at the time. She was on a business trip. We was out to dinner with a coworker... I saw them strategizing. These two women strategizing some meetings the next day that had to do with million dollar deals. I'm sitting here at the table and I'm like damn, I'm feeling the pressure! And the hustling comes out of me like damn I'm sitting at this table with these women and they're talking about how they got three meetings lined up tomorrow... I'm sitting here like I gotta up my game! I gotta up my game! The story of how SEN cold-visited Galerie D'Orsay in Boston while visiting the city and was able to develop a relationship with them to the point that they are now the sole distributors of SEN-1 work. Boston (Mass.) Commercial art;Galerie d'Orsay 0 5060 Becoming President of a Mitchell-Lama SEN: I actually ride the ride of, at this age I go with the universe. If it's something bigger than me that I'm supposed to be doing, then at this stage of my life I just do it I show up for it. And it's also my mother's legacy this is what she did. So in a way I think she's also guiding a lot of this madness. In a good way! But I'm proud of it actually! I'm really proud. I've been told we've done more in this short amount of time there than almost anything in the past. And I credit that to my experience in the Panthers stuff. The organizational skills and everything came into play. How Sen-1 became the president of his Mitchell-Lama program rental building. He saw a number of misdeeds being committed by the management and by advocating for his fellow tenants found himself being nominated and ultimately elected. He has been proud of the quick change they have already been able to complete. Mitchell-Lama;New York (N.Y.). Community Planning Board No. 7 0 5317 Community/Charity Involvement PC: Could you just touch on your community work with charitable organizations? SEN: Absolutely that's been part of my beginnings, because that's been something, like My neighbor had Goddard Riverside which is a community center but I had a summer camp when we was kids. It also has legal housing, legal departments that deal with the community, so they have a lot of community outreach program stuff so I work with them and the beacon program. We created a program called arts on kick where we do the chucks [taylor]. Because of that curriculum I was able to open the center up for individual grants which now they use for individual artists. So they've backed me up a lot too even with the issues, and they're powerful! Sen outlines some of his recent work with charitable organizations in his community and beyond, volunteering his skills and time with the Goddard Riverside center to Tanzania. This has especially taken the form of art education to variously disadvantaged youths. SEN has been especially invigorated by his work in Africa, where he felt a "welcome home." Children's Village (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.);Children's Village (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.). Work Appreciation for Youth Program;Goddard-Riverside Community Center;Sierra Leone Art in education;Art therapy for youth;Arts and youth;Charitable giving;Charities;Charity;Poverty--Tanzania 0 5753 Thoughts on Hip-Hop and Street Art Going Global and Commercial SEN: I think when we talk about the graff I always see it as one big union with hip-hop. 'Cuz they all elements, well, what people know today, because it wasn't originally part of hip-hop. Hip hop obviously comes after these elements already pre-existing including b-boying b-girling. Like all these elements came together, right? But for what the world knows as the graff styles and even the breakdancing styles and dress styles that's all hip hop. Because the graff before hip-hop wasn't the same graff everyone fell in love with. The colors even the mentality. Sen gives his perspective on the significance of the globalization of graffiti, which he sees as a part of hip-hop as a global movement. Controversially among some of his peers, he's positive about the commercialization of hip-hop because of the opportunities and lessons it has given to youths often with so little. Break dancers;Break dancing Graffiti;Hip-hop;Hip-hop in art;Hip-hop--Influence;Street art 0 6442 Relationship With Brother SEN: My Brother, man, Ricky Mujica, we have different fathers, but we didn't know our fathers we was raised by our mother. So you will never ever hear us say half brother, ever. That doesn't even exist. He's seven years older than me. I'm happy he's still in my life always. My brother is my everything, man. He's been my father figure, he's been my big brother figure. He's been the one even when I went off the road a lot in my life, because I'm the black sheep, he's been the light of what I could me. And it was hard as a young kid because I was the one that couldn't learn things. Sen speaks about his brother, Ricky Mujica, whom he is very close with. Ricky's success was a guiding light for Sen even when Sen was struggling. Though, as kids, Sen found the comparison very hard because he could not keep up with his brother in school, athletics, or "coolness." Their mother would force Ricky to take Sen along to wherever Ricky was hanging out, which included the early days of New York Skateboarding with Zoo York. Sen also speaks about how their experiences differed, with Sen's generation being much more violent and pressured, whereas Ricky's generation were more mischievous at worst. Kessler, Andrew;Kessler, Andy;Zoo York Mujica, Ricardo Jose;Sibling attachment;Sibling rivalry 0 7167 The Bronx, Uptown PC: What does the Bronx mean to you? SEN: Ah man, the Bronx is everything because, like I said, for my neighborhood we only have a little bridge that separates us. I spent a lot of time in the Bronx as well. But the Bronx influenced our neighborhood tremendously especially when it came to culture. And because we had so much similarity from the burnt-down stuff. And again, like I said, Harlem, even when you listen to the Black Spades documentary they talk about their chapters with the South Bronx but also in Harlem. So it was never, we never had, when it comes to the other boroughs because Brooklyn and Queens and them were so far away, the Bronx and Manhattan was never, especially uptown, was never really divided like that. We would say "uptown." Uptown made---It was all in one. When you said uptown it meant north of 96th street up. Like, or the 90s up into the Bronx. Sen underscores the connectedness of his neighborhood on the upper west side to the Bronx, and how the creativity coming out of the Bronx influenced his life. Harlem River (N.Y.);Zulu Nation Boroughs;Bronx;Bronx River (N.Y.);Harlem (New York, N.Y.) 0 Part 2 of an oral history recorded for the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project on January 18, 2023 with SEN-1, who got his start as an original member of the IBM Crew (Incredible Bombing Masters) and has become a world-renowned artist commissioned by "Hip Hop U.S.A. and an umbrella of grassroots organization's including Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!""initiative. In this second part of his oral history SEN-1 speaks about growing up in Lower Harlem (now refashioned as the northern part of the Upper West Side) and his family's Afro-Caribbean roots from the island of Quisqueya (the Dominican Republic) and/or Ay-Ti (Haiti) as it was known by the indigenous Taino people. He shares his association and experiences with the outlaw gang "La West Side Familia", his rise to a leadership role within La West Side Familia, and other street organizations such as Natives-Chapter 50 of Zulu Nation and the trials and tribulations of "street-life". SEN-1 discusses his quest for knowledge and his 6-year association with The Black Panther Collective, an off-shoot organization stemming from the original Black Panther Party. He speaks of his reintroduction to graffiti and his crossover to fine art, the challenges of street art acceptance into the fine art world, his commissions from the Macy's Department Store, and the art expo circuit where he sold his first piece of fine art. Finally, SEN-1 discusses his entry into the world of fine art where his artwork, presently, shares gallery space alongside internationally renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso. 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= 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 SEN 1, Part 2 Description An account of the resource Part 2 of an oral history recorded for the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project on May 23, 2022 with SEN-1, who got his start as an original member of the IBM Crew (Incredible Bombing Masters) and has become a world-renowned artist commissioned by the likes of Michelle Obama, Fabolous, and Rita Ora. In this second part of his oral history SEN-1 speaks about growing up in Lower Harlem (now refashioned as the northern part of the Upper West Side) and his family's Afro-Caribbean roots from the island of Quisqueya (the Dominican Republic) and/or Ay-Ti (Haiti) as it was known by the indigenous Taino people. He shares his association and experiences with the outlaw gang "La West Side Familia", his rise to a leadership role within La West Side Familia, and other street organizations such as Natives-Chapter 50 of Zulu Nation and the trials and tribulations of "street-life". SEN-1 discusses his quest for knowledge and his 6-year association with The Black Panther Collective, an off-shoot organization stemming from the original Black Panther Party. He speaks of his reintroduction to graffiti and his crossover to fine art, the challenges of street art acceptance into the fine art world, his commissions from the Macy's Department Store, and the art expo circuit where he sold his first piece of fine art. Finally, SEN-1 discusses his entry into the world of fine art where his artwork, presently, shares gallery space alongside internationally renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso. The interviewer is Pastor Crespo, Jr., librarian and archivist at The Bronx County Historical Society. The Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project is a project of The Bronx County Archives at The Bronx County Historical Society Research Library. This interview made possible through the contribution of Columbia University's Oral History Archives at Columbia (OHAC) and will be dual-listed in a collection there. 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 2023.01.18 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context OH-BAADP.20230118 graffiti IBM SEN 1 SEN-1 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. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MP4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 02:38:55 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Boone, Kurt Payne, Steven Crespo, Pastor, Jr. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed TKID 170 Location The location of the interview The Bronx, NY OHMS Object Embedded OHMS XML file https://oralhistory.bronxhistoricalsociety.org/viewer.php?cachefile=OH-BAADP.20220815.xml Interview Format Audio or Video Video OHMS Content Content of OHMS Index/Transcript for searching (Hidden) 5.4 Interview with T-KID 170 OH-BAADP.20220815 02:38:55 OH-BAADP Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project Bronx Oral History Center This interview made possible through the contribution of Columbia University's Oral History Archives at Columbia (OHAC) and will be dual-listed in a collection there. bxoralhistory T-KID 170 Boone, Kurt Crespo, Pastor Jr. Payne, Steven MP4 t-kid-170-oral-history-2022-08-15.mp4 Undefined 1 https://youtu.be/JbUANB9wSxo YouTube video English 0 Introduction Steven Payne: Welcome to the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project. My name is Steven Payne, director of the Bronx County Historical Society. Kurt and Pastor you wanna go ahead and introduce yourselves? Kurt Boone: Yeah I'm Kurt Boone and I've been writing about urban culture for 40 years. Pastor Crespo: I'm Pastor Crespo, Jr. and I am the research librarian for the Bronx County Historical Society. Steven Payne: Great, thank you both. We're very happy, thrilled to be here with the legendary graff writer and world renowned artist from none other than the BX. T-KID, Terrible T-KID 170, goes by a few names but really most people know him as T-KID. T-KID's gonna get into all kinds of things, he came up during the golden age of graffiti and a force of nature really ever since in the graff world and beyond the graff world. Steven Payne, Kurt Boone, and Pastor Crespo, Jr. introduce themselves and the narrator, T-KID 170 world-renowned graffiti writer and artist from The Bronx. T-Kid 170 (Graffiti artist) Graffiti;Oral history 0 61 Family History and Background TKID: So, you know, my father wanted to take me for a weekend and he kidnapped me and took me to Peru. SP and KB: Oh, Wow! TKID: Yeah when they were separated, when they weren't together. Back then you could leave the country with no passport, but you couldn't come back in. My father's plans was to keep me in Peru. And there are pictures in my family archives of me in Peru as a little kid, you know, I wanna say I was about 2 years old, I think my mother was pregnant with my brother at the time. No bullshit, I was 3 years old then and my mother had my brother, now that I remember. And there's some pictures of me in Peru with some of my Peruvian family which I barely know any of. T-KID discusses his family's history and background in the Bronx. His mother was from Puerto Rico who came to the mainland in the 1950s with her mother (T-KID's grandmother) who worked in a fishing net factory. His father immigrated from Peru and moved to New Jersey, trained as an accountant and working as a house painter on the weekends, but dreamed of being an ironworker which he did eventually become. Shortly after they were married their two kids were born, T-KID and his brother. However the marriage rapidly deteriorated as T-KID's father developed a drinking habit and became physically abusive to his mother and to T-KID, leading to a divorce early on in T-KID's life. We also learn about how T-KID was taken to Peru by his father as a toddler while on visitation, essentially kidnapping T-KID as he did not have a passport to reenter the country, but an (apparently legally empty) threat by law enforcement scared his father into coming back to the US. Hunts Point Palace;Kidnapping;Kidnapping victims;Parental kidnapping Children of immigrants;Foreign workers, Peruvian;Immigrants;Immigrants in America;Immigration & society;Peru;Puerto Rican experience;Puerto Ricans;Women immigrants;Women immigrants--Abuse of--United States 0 792 Early Childhood and Education TKID: We used to hustle back then! And before I get into that story these are the hustles that we had: We used to go to the supermarket and carry the shopping bags for the old ladies. I'm not gonna say what race or whatever, you know, I'm just gonna say there were certain type of people who gave us a penny, the other people who gave us a nickel, the people just like me gave us a quarter! And that was one of the hustles, so I was always hustling. The Bronx Hustle, kid! I remember the hammer trucks. People used to get sodas, like soda water delivered to their houses. And trying to steal it, let me tell you they used to be like hawks watching those things. Cause you take a bottle they come running around and chase you up the block and stuff. Then I found out you could return bottles, you'd get 2 cents or whatever it was back then. T-KID speaks about his early education experiences and what activities he remembers doing at that time. Popular games included skellies, a popular board game played with custom playing pieces derived from various salvaged materials. Another game, Off the Point, involved bounding a ball off a curb and seeing how high it would reach. He also speaks about how as a child he was hustling for spare change, for bottles, to carry groceries, and so on. One time, a worker for the Police Athletic League lured an approximately 6-year old T-KID in with the promise of a number of bottles to return for the deposit, and attempted to rape T-KID, only thwarted by being walked in on by another person. T-KID reflects on this, noting how lucky he was and that was how his neighborhood could be then. He furthermore speaks about how he met his best friends because they fought every day. Adult child abuse victims;Skully (game) Ball games;Early childhood education;Friendship;Fun and Games;Games;Games people play;Games--Equipment and supplies;Games--Rules;Games--United States;Milkcap games;Rape 0 1510 Home Life: Food, Music, and Finances Ah, the music. Everything from salsa to whatever was happening. My mother loved music, my mother loved to dance. So she was constantly listening to music. My grandmother on the other hand she would listed to the old-school Puerto Rican music. What do you call aginando [sic] aguinaldo, the old jíbaro music she would listen to. T-KID's life at home as a young kid: the food Puerto Rican food he ate his mother and grandmother made. He especially remembers the Cod Fritters and fruit juices. His mother and grandmother had different taste in music, with his mother liking anything she could dance to but his grandmother preferring classic Puerto Rican jíbaro music. He also remembers the facts of poverty: manufacturing jobs shutting down, hiding goods so that welfare inspectors would not find them, and expansion of gangs. Guiro;Jíbaro (Puerto Rican identity) Cooking, Puerto Rican;Dance music--Puerto Rico;Folk music--Puerto Rico;Popular music--Puerto Rico;Popular music--Puerto Rico--1971-1980 0 1810 Neighborhood Gangs SP: So you mentioned the Ghetto Brothers already why don't you speak a little about some of the gangs you were seeing in your neighborhood in like the late 60s? TK: So when we lived in University I remember the Ghetto Brothers because the guy, this kid named Alex, or was it Tommy? No it was Alex. And he was a Ghetto Brother. And we used to play baseball in the convent, there was a convent next to my building and there was a little park. And we used to play baseball right in there. And I remember they used to call me "Johnny Bench with the Pussy in the Chin" because I had a cleft and I was always the catcher. And I had a cleft and they used to call be Johnny Bench. And this guy Alex used to call me, "Hey! Johnny Bench with the Pussy in the Chin!" So he lived in the basement right on the corner of 170th and University he lived in the building, in the basement, and his mother used to sell Limber. Now Limber is a cup of frozen, let's say kool aid, it's just frozen, it's an ICEE. Different flavor ICEEs. But they made it with let's say fruit juice and they freeze it. And that's it; it was a nickel. So we were always there. And one day we seen he comes up and he has these colors on. And we were like "oh shit what's that?" "Oh, I'm a ghetto brother blah blah blah" and we were like "Oh, yeah cool!" T-KID discusses the gangs he remembers, their rise and changing nature. He especially discusses the Ghetto Brothers, members of which he was friends with and became involved with eventually. Ghetto Brothers Gangs;Outlaw Gang 0 1927 Growing Up, Moving Around TK: So I remember on one trip, on one weekend, my mother, we were supposed to meet my mother at my grandmother's house on 192nd and Aqueduct, right? And I remember she decided, because she was still married to the guy in Queens, and I remember going there and she was like "alright let's go" and we took a cab from 192 and Aqueduct to Queens and she caught the man in bed with another woman! Yo my mother flipped on the dude, man. She fuckin' flipped! So you see my childhood was fucking insane! You PTSD bro I never stood a chance man. And I'm not even getting into the shit I saw that my father did to my mother. I'm not even gonna get into that. But I remember my mother taking a knife, man, breaking up all the furniture chasing the fucking woman out of the house, talking about how she wanna kill this mother fucker, man. And I'm laughing like "yeah you fucking prick!" SP: So he got his ass kicked by both your parents! TK: No but listen, listen, listen! So after that we end up back at my grandmother's house. And I don't know a couple of months down the road that's when she met Frank Payne, and that's my sister's father. An incident of abuse by T-KID's father causes his mother to move the family to Puerto Rico, beginning a period of turmoil in his young life. She goes back to New York and eventually remarries, calling the children to her in Queens. Eventually, an incident with his mother's new husband occurs and T-KID runs away to his father's house back in the Bronx. His father beats up his mother's new husband and takes both kids to the Bronx to live with him from then on. He gets a new group of friends and plays Ringolevio. During one such game he witnessed a kid get killed by a moving car. He also began attending the Catholic school system on his father's insistence. He would continue to see his mother on the weekends, who eventually caught her new husband in bed with another woman leaving him as well and moving back in with T-KID's grandmother (her mother). She eventually starts dating a man named Frank Payne, who worked for Con Edison and is the father of T-KID's sister. T-KID developed a strong relationship with Frank, who taught him how to box and supported T-KID. T-KID also describes the competitive relationship his father fostered between T-KID and his brother, which transferred into a competitive spirit in almost everything T-KID would do from then on. Pedestrian accidents;Tag games Family violence 0 2968 First Graffiti and Gang Experiences TK: Now I'm hanging tough in Harlem and coming home later and later and my father's starting to, you know. And I remember coming home late one day and stripping me naked and checking my body for needle marks he thought I was shooting up heroin. And that was a time in the couple incidents that had already happened where my father really got physical and abusive with me. At one point a couple of years prior he put a fucking gun to my face. He was drunk, you know. I think I walked in and averted a suicide. I didn't know it at the time. I thought I walked in, my father was drunk in the living room. He had these heavy curtains that darkened out the whole place and he had a recliner. I remember walking in and he had the Beretta in his hand, fucking bottle of whiskey there and shit. I turned on the lights and, "Shut off the lights" I go "Woah Dad what's going on" I saw the gun and oh, shit. We knew he had the gun. My father used to teach us how to shoot, shooting into the corner of the bed that's in the room. KB: That's loud! TK: Yeah and it was a 9mm Beretta man. You know? It was like, I remember I walked in on that and I remember he told me to shut off the light and I said no, Dad. And I'm like looking and I'm like, "what the hell is going on?" I remember he got up and he puts the gun to my face and he goes, "I don't know if I should blow your brains out and kill myself or just blow your brains out." And he put his hand down and said, "you remind me of your mother." And he went back and he sat down. T-KID and his friends became hugely into doing tricks on the swings, and competing with other crews who could perform the most impressive tricks. After a particularly impressive battle T-KID gets the moniker "king of the swings" and begins writing KING 13 as his first graffiti name. This is also when was pressed into joining the neighborhood gang. He was initiated at Monroe High School and was involved in the gang but did not appreciate the choice of who they robbed, including older people and a beloved local shop owner. Ultimately he left that gang and left the name KING 13 behind with it. At this point he started writing SEM 102 and gets in with a crew in Harlem called the Renegades. He also around this time walks in on his father, drunk and with a gun, which T-KID now believes may have been a planned suicide attempt. His father threatened T-KID with the weapon, scaring T-KID deeply, and so T-KID stole the weapon from the bedroom, hid it away, and kept it for himself. Heroin;Renegades of Harlem;Suicide Abuse;Family violence;Gangs;Gangs--New York (State);Gangs--United States;Swings 0 3892 Accidentally Shooting Himself TK: Anyway make a long story short, man, this is what happened, man. I ended up shooting myself with that gun. You know. I ended up shooting myself. You know I wrote a different story and I say a different story to everybody because it doesn't sound as exiting, but the truth of the matter is, is I did shoot myself with that gun and Satch saved my life. And that was in Crotona Park and I was 16 years old. September 26th it was like 2 months after my birthday. My 16th Birthday. KB: In your arm or your leg? TK: In my groin. KB: That's gotta be painful! TK: Yeah they said I wouldn't have kids. I got a daughter, I got a son. And I got another kid I don't know if she's mine or not but she says she is! She don't look nothing like me! Every time I go for a blood test they disappear, so. But she does get checks from me every once in a while. KB: So what did your dad say? TK: He disowned me. Nobody came to see me. Nobody from the gang came. This is when Lincoln Hospital was brand new. The new Lincoln Hospital on 149th. I mean it was packed in. They had a trauma center there was a lot of gunshots going on. Now this is between us here... but it's in the archives ok because if you really do the research you'll find out. T-KID accidentally shoots himself with the same gun he stole from his father to protect him and his brother. With the gun cocked T-KID goes to stash the pistol in his waistband and sits down on the bench, causing the hammer to release and hitting T-KID in the groin. When none of his gang members come to visit him in the hospital, he is disillusioned from gang life and swears it off for good. Crotona Play Center (New York, N.Y.);Lincoln Hospital (New York, N.Y.) Accident victims;Gangs;Gunshot wounds 0 4479 Creating T-KID, Leaving Gang, Becoming Dedicated Writer TK: They used to call me big T because I was tall and skinny. By now I'm tall. By 16 I just shot up like a fucking week, right? But I was skinny! When we used to play football on the block, 2 hand touch, remember that? I used to say oh! throw me the ball [spreads arms straight out]. Satch used to laugh "oh look at that big T over there." Called me a T and shit. And Kid because I was always the youngest. Everybody was older than me except for my brother so they called me kid. So when I was in the hospital I was doing big T and KID. And then I saw T-KID. So in 1977, right after I got shot, I came up with the name T-KID. And that's when I decided, that's it man. Fuck this gang shit, I ain't with this gang because all I could think about was nobody came to see me, we was supposed to be fucking brothers, ok. All I could remember was them fucking robbing fucking Cheap Charlie, a place that I liked! And then fucking stealing fucking welfare, not welfare checks, social security checks. They used to wait by the check cashing place and wait for people to cash checks and rob em. I dedicated myself to graffiti. While recovering in the hospital, T-KID comes up with a new graffiti game combining two nicknames he acquired: "Big T" and "The Kid." With not much else to do T-KID used the supplies his brother brought him to start sketching out this name, the tag, and a few pieces and resolved to make graffiti his raison d'être from then on. Hip 1 (Graffiti artist);John F. Kennedy Senior High School;Padre (Graffiti artist);Rep 2 (Graffiti artist);Set 149 (Graffiti artist);Tracy 168 (Graffiti artist) Graffiti;Graffiti artists;Pseudonym library 0 5021 Developing Technique KB: I'm always fascinated on you guys getting spray paint cans and being able to paint with it! Right, so how does skill get developed? Did you learn something from Tracy or did you learn by experiment. TK: You learn by trial and error, everything was trial and error. Like once I started hitting the fucking trains man I started to learn that if I spray with the regular cap it would take me forever and doesn't come out real cool. So what I started to learn was that there was these things called Jifoams and Niagaras and those were fat caps. You come in and do the outline and fill it in with those. And if I remember correctly the Jifoam were for rust-oleums and the Niagaras were for everything else otherwise the paint would go all over the place. Also for doing the outlines I learned if you let it get clogged a little bit a skinny line would come out. T-KID speaks about the process of trial and error in developing technique in spray painting. For instance, the process of discovering what caps work best for fill-ins: the cap from Jifoam oven cleaner worked best for Rust-Oleum paint as a fat cap, while Niagara spray starch worked best for other paint brands. Art techniques from pencil to paint;Paint--Testing;Rust-Oleum (Firm) Aerosol propellants;Art & technique series;Art--Technique;Graphic arts--Technique;Spray painting;Technique 0 5205 Crews and Prominent Writers, TVS KB: Now did you get involved in any crews? TK: I started my own crew man The Nasty Boys back in 1977 man. The Nasty Boys that was my crew I started that in 1977. But I was always Wild Style, Tracy [168] had put me in Wild Style. So I was down with Wild Style. And before that it was FTW - Fuck The World! Everybody wrote that shit, man. You know that wasn't necessarily a crew it was more of a statement. KB: So who was in The Nasty Boys? TK: The original Nasty Boys was myself, PESER, was PESER he also wrote INT 1 and he was down with TMT that was my connection to SKEME and them and CHAIN. The Magnificent Team. So that was my connection with them, was PESER. T-KID discusses the crews he was down with in his writing career, including two he played a foundational leading role in: TNB - The Nasty Boys and TVS - The Vamp Squad. Chain 3 (Graffiti artist);Peser (Graffiti artist);Skeme (Graffiti artist);T-Kid (Graffiti artist);TMT - The Magnificent Team (Graffiti crew);TNB - The Nasty Boys (Graffiti crew);Tracy 168 (Graffiti artist);TVS - The Vamp Squad (Graffiti artists) Graffiti;Graffiti artists 0 5664 Getting into Yards KB: You hit a lot of trains over the years, so what was your technique getting into the yards? TK: It didn't matter man! I remember when they came up with, they were talking about we're gonna start putting dogs in the yards. We were like, "how the fuck are they gonna put dogs in the yard?" You know? We just saw, like, they did it in the Bedford Yard, they had dogs in that area and shit. So all we did is come down from the top of the tracks where the dogs weren't and you'd jump into the track. When they did the razor wire, we invented wirecutters! What we learned quickly is when you cut razor wire it has the tendency to spring. So you gotta watch it. So you cut it and watch it spring. So you'd take a board and put it like that [holds an imaginary board in front of face/wire. You know we'd come up with whatever way. It was just your imagination you were limited by your imagination. If you wanted to get into a yard bad enough you could get into a yard. T-KID discusses how he and his crew mates would get into layups and yards after security tightened up. The dogs and razor wire wire turned out to be not too much of an issue, but when police showed up they were known to be caught. Koch, Ed Breaking in;Trespass 0 5739 Relationship to "Fine Art" Graffiti TK: He did an interview for that hip-hop magazine and said the T in T-KID stands for Tracy's Kid right after that's when he did that because he's been mad at me for that shit ever since. I mean Tracy's ego he wouldn't let me sign my name next to him, his ego was so big. And you know that's typical of artists, especially geniuses 'cause he's a fucking genius and I get it and I understand it but the truth is I heard this fucking ego so forever he's got this grudge. And one this I always tell him, I am Wild Style, you made me Wild Style. I will forever be Wild Style. You know? And Wild Style, one thing about Wild Style it's not about letters! You know these guys Zephyr and them think Wild Style was about letters. No, Wild Style was a way of life! It's how we live in the Bronx. T-KID speaks about his experiences with the move that his peers were making into the galleries. He was separated from the gallery scene, feeling that the move into the gallery was in effect the culture being hijacked by money. He nonetheless knew them, with Henry Chalfant at one point asking T-KID to narrate Style Wars, which T-KID eventually turned down due to beef with CAP. This is an attitude that T-KID now says he regrets, and was influenced by a bad headspace at the time and cocaine addiction. Quinones, Lee George;Tracy 168 (Graffiti artist);Zephyr (Graffiti artist) Commercial art 0 6529 "Ghost Yard" Story KB: So you got a couple of infamous stories out there that you can tell us what you want. First is this Ghost Yard story. That's the first one. Then this event with Cap, you and Cap had this fight SP: At fashion moda right? TK: Which story about the Ghost Yard there was a bunch of them? KB: Tell me about you running it? TK: Ok so yeah man the thing with the ghost yard was I found the perfect place to paint. And I protected it. Basically what I was doing is I protected it because at the time you had all these new writers, guys like COPE who would come in and bomb. Not only would they bomb which is ok, but they would break the windows, fuck shit up. You know they didn't give a shit. They didn't see it like I saw. Cause finding a good place, and I had beef with the Ballbusters in the 1 tunnel so I couldn't go in the 1 tunnel because they almost killed me there, right? And then I found the ghost yard and I was like ok, this is my fucking spot. So I protected it, you know and I was very limited to who I brought in there. And whoever I would catch in there, this is, by this time I had met MAC and them and shit man, and BIO and those cats, you know they came up to St. James park where I was hanging out and ask permission to go to the ghost. And I took em to the ghost! T-KID speaks about how he was able to control the "Ghost Yard", the 207th St. Repair Station which was the perfect place to paint due to the variety of trains that came into the yard, how it was typically inactive in terms of workers, and outside of the territory of the Ballbusters street gang. He decided who would be allowed into the yard and made sure they were respectful enough to the trains and the yard in order to make sure the spot remained ideal. He also was the one who let Bio TATS Cru in for the first time, who would end up being the next crew to hold a monopoly on the Ghost Yard. Bio (Graffiti artist) Graffiti 0 6864 Fashion Moda and Fight with Cap TK: Fashion Moda. So what led up to the fight with CAP was COPE. Little COPE2. So I remember we're hanging out in St. James' Park right. St. James' Park is right off of 192nd and Jerome between Fordham Road and Kingsbridge. And you got St. James' Park, right? That was my hangout because I lived in 192nd and Aqueduct. So we're hanging out, we're chilling you know. Smoking weed, you know. Suddenly, you know, there's a layup between Fordham Road and Kingsbridge, and we hear doors opening. Someone said it was COPE2. T-KID tells the story of how he ended up in a fistfight with CAP at a Fashion Moda (an art space/storefront that served as a hub for the international art scene's interest in graffiti) event. After cornering COPE2 coming out of the tunnels, T-KID and his crew demand COPE stop writing for Morris Park Crew (MPC) due to its leader CAP writing over everybody's pieces. After COPE tells CAP, CAP decides to confront T-KID and stick up for his young crew member, but ends up on the ground at Fashion Moda. Cap (Graffiti artist);Cope 2 (Graffiti artist) Fashion Moda (Group);Morris Park Crew (Graffiti artist group) 0 7268 Travel KB: Let me, before I get into the book, you travel quite a bit. When was your first trip overseas for graffiti? TK: My first trip was, I had mentioned it before, Henry had hooked that up. That was 1986 which was for TDK Cassettes a company called Newton and Godwin an advertising agency that had the account from London, actually out of Tunbridge Wells, UK. And they had approached Henry. At that same time was when they did the Freedom Train, right? And I was the only one who actually did a sketch for the freedom train. That's when CRASH, PINK... And I didn't get accepted for that Freedom Train project that they painted I think it was in Philadelphia where they got an actual train and Crash and Lady Pink and Art and Tracy and these guys they painted on that train. I was the only one excluded from that, and I was the only one that actually did a sketch! So Henry kinda felt bad so these people had reached out to him and he hooked me up with that gig. T-KID talks about the importance of travel to him. His first trip overseas was a mural gig Henry Chalfant hooked up for him for TDK Cassettes, which he got paid $1,000 plus airfare. He also got hooked up with the European graffiti scene. Bando (Graffiti artist);Mode 2 (Graffiti artist) Graffiti;Mural painting and decoration, European 0 7853 Creating the Book TK: I saw the interest in my artwork, and I met this guy named Nick Tarkov who said yo you should do a book. I said I got a bunch of shit. He said, "you got it with you?" I said no, I didn't come there for that, but if you come to New York I'll show you. Guess what, he came to New York. He saw my portfolio I said my wife was gonna throw this shit out. He said, "damn, bro you got a gold mine here! All this shit is from back then?" I'm like yeah, because I had this big giant portfolio full of fucking sketches, drawings, all my ideas man. I sold a lot of it, I have a lot of it, I have half of it from that portfolio but on top of that I have my blackbooks and all the artwork like folders in a box that my mother kept in Chicago. KB: Wow you blessed. You know how valuable it is! TK: Yeah I know. A lot of that shit is for my kids man. T-KID explains the impetus behind and the process of creating his "Terrible T-KID" book which showcases his art and writing. He wanted a book that was more than just a bunch of photos, and was able to create a book that showcased his developing art style and outlook on life with plenty of his own words. Books, publishing, and libraries information guide series;Folio art books 0 8592 Documentary TK: I was doing the book tour when I first met Carly. I was doing the book tour, I was in California LA, doing this shop. That's when you see me, I got the red devil shirt on? That was Carly interviewing me that's when I met her, I met Brian Grazer... So, you know she wanted to do an interview, she wanted to interview me, man. I'm lying I first met her in San Diego when I was doing the San Diego book signing. And I was heavier. I had just come back from Europe for the tour... She loved that interview so much she wanted to do a movie based on that interview. T-KID speaks about the creation of the T-KID documentary about 10 years after the publication of the book. He met the filmmaker while on the book tour. He ultimately never made any money on the movie due to the contract terms, but he's been able to use the movie in order to promote himself and his art. Autobiography;Documentary film experience American movies;Digital filmmaking series;Graffiti 0 8837 Graffiti as a Global Phenomenon SP: How do you feel about, kind of, graffiti becoming this global phenomenon now. I mean you know, I'm sure back in the 70s and even in the 80s you woulda had no idea it would've become this huge thing. But what are your thoughts toward the global nature of graffiti these days. TK: It's funny because like I said man, I thought graffiti should've remained underground and it became this big tool that's not just used as artistic expression, but to promote, to advertise. One of the things I always said is that graffiti is art and I've been a strong supporter of that, the fact that graffiti is art that it's pure expressionism, that it was for kids by kids. The graffiti that we did in New York on trains, not graffiti in general which is from the beginning of time. T-Kid reflects on how graffiti has changed since he started, having become a global phenomenon that exceeded the bounds of pure juvenile expression into a commercial and artistic tool for the entire world. He has somewhat mixed feelings. He's happy that it's kept alive but worries that it is in danger of losing its foundation. He also speaks about the Bronx and the culture of the Bronx with the enduring legacy of hip-hop. Advertising;Art collections of Europe Art and globalization;Arts and globalization;Graffiti;Street art 0 Oral history recorded for the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project on August 15, 2022 with T-KID 170, a legendary graffiti writer from the Golden Age and world-renowned artist. In his oral history T-KID speaks about his family background in Peru and Puerto Rico and how his family ended up in The Bronx, the various neighborhoods he grew up in, street life in his neighborhoods and early years, his involvement in gangs, and how he first got involved in graffiti. He also speaks about pivotal events in the graff world in which he was involved, including his famous Fashion Moda fight with Cap (MPC), and the many amazing places his career has taken him in the subsequent years. The interviewers are Dr. Steven Payne, director at The Bronx County Historical Society, Pastor Crespo, Jr., research librarian 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 Columbia University's Oral History Archives at Columbia (OHAC) and will be dual-listed in a collection there. 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= 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 T-KID 170 Description An account of the resource Oral history recorded for the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project on August 15, 2022 with T-KID 170, a legendary graffiti writer from the Golden Age and world-renowned artist. In his oral history T-KID speaks about his family background in Peru and Puerto Rico and how his family ended up in The Bronx, the various neighborhoods he grew up in, street life in his neighborhoods and early years, his involvement in gangs, and how he first got involved in graffiti. He also speaks about pivotal events in the graff world in which he was involved, including his famous Fashion Moda fight with Cap (MPC), and the many amazing places his career has taken him in the subsequent years. 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 interview made possible through the contribution of Columbia University's Oral History Archives at Columbia (OHAC) and will be dual-listed in a collection there. 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 2022.08.15 Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context OH-BAADP.20220815 graffiti T-Kid 170 Terrible T-Kid TKID