I know about hip-hop culture, whether it's graffiti writing or DJ-ing or being an MC.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Graffiti has an interesting relationship to the broader world of hip-hop: It's part of the culture, but also in a weird way a stepchild of the culture.
Hip-hop is a cultural expression - it's embracing.
Rap is a gimmick, but I'm for the hip-hop, the culture.
My graffiti really comes more from a May '68, sort of Situationist vibe than the hip-hop world. I think a real graffiti artist would find me a poser.
I don't care what anybody says, there's nothing like the cultural influence of hip-hop. For me, hip-hop culture is involved in everything - it's in me, in who I am, in how I dress, how I talk. It's in my son and my wife.
Graffiti writers were the most interesting people in hip hop. They were the mad scientists, the mad geniuses, the weird ones.
I was a rapper and a DJ, and if you wanted to be involved in hip-hop, you had to be involved in the sonic, the kinetic and the visual aspects. The visual was graffiti.
When I was growing up, hip-hop was still a pretty specialised thing.
The thing about hip-hop is that it's from the underground, ideas from the underbelly, from people who have mostly been locked out, who have not been recognized.
I try to get the hip-hop aesthetic, most times without an MC. I don't use a rapper or a DJ to give it the hip-hop style; it's strictly the band that makes that music, which is a lot harder to do.