VUE

pretty outlaw for the first part of my career. When did you start getting recognition for your work in a conventional sense? When were you first commissioned to do an art piece? Well, I had a little frump with the law on the subway cars and so I started promoting and painting backdrops at a local nightclub in my neighborhood. I brought early rap groups there such as Public Enemy, KRS-One, Big Daddy Kane, and I would do the background of the stages and the signs. With the notoriety I had in the neighborhood, in '85 I think, the first big mural that we did was for a book called Spraycan Art by Henry Chalfant. Henry just finished a book Subway Art which is the bible of graffiti in New York City subways. That put me and a lot of other graffiti artists on the map where people started commissioning work. I started doing it but I wasn't someone who jumped head first into it. I felt like I had another medium to tell my story and we started a rap band called the Lordz of Brooklyn. We made a name for ourselves with that as well but I always felt like it didn't matter what medium it was, that graffiti was a state of mind, it was a way to make a mark on whatever you were doing. Eventually I was asked to start painting canvases or whatever commission pieces for people. What attracted you to tattooing? Like these outlaw arts, tattooing was another one that was considered underground art, but in our neighborhood very noble. When you were coming of age as a young man, your tattoo was something that was sacred and embodied you and was another form of reinventing yourself, a creative outlet to make something personalized, so I always dug that about a tattoo artist. It was a profession where you can actually get paid to do your art and there's no bullshit in between. You did your art, you did your service and you got paid for it and it was nice to see people walk around with your artwork on them. So instead YOU CAN CALL IT STREET ART, YOU CAN CALL IT GRAFFITI ART, BUT IT'S REALLY RAW FOLK ART. V U E N J . C O M 69

• Cover