Graffiti: Glown of the Krylon Scepter
By: R.M. London
People all over the world have always been intrigued by the ancient scribbles birthed from the hands of Egyptians, Romans, Native Americans, and other ancient cultures. Stories, memorials, and primordial signatures plastered over rocks, walls, caves, and dwellings have kept archaeologists and historians busy for centuries, each attempting to crack archaic codes lying within pictures and symbols that told the tales of our earliest generations on Earth. Even long after the progression of man there still was a form of inscription that told stories from a generation.
Splattered over city structures, subway trains, brick walls, and tunnels are words and symbols covered in a rainbow's urination. Graffiti. A constant mobile urban storybook that is told through the hands of metropolitan Van Gogh's. An intense, dare devil art form that was born in the City of Brotherly Love in 1967 and (supposedly) simultaneously in the womb of hip hop, New York.
Hip Hop's most beautiful element first sprayed onto the scene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With touted names such as Cornbread and Top Cat leading the scene these cheese steak stuffed artists were throwing up burners all across their city. The number one goal: to cover the largest and most popular structures so their tags could be recognized by the masses and noticed by their rivals. The krylon scepter was eventually passed onto the kings of New York where subway train tagging exploded and became one of the most popular targets for writers around the city.
It was in New York, in 1971, where graffiti got its first nationally recognized spotlight after an in-depth interview with Taki 183 in the New York Times. Taki, a.k.a. Demetrius, was an inner city messenger from Washington Heights who would travel around the city doing deliveries while writing his name wherever he could. Using his marker, Taki would devour the guts and skin of subway cars, train stations, buildings, and anywhere else he passed eventually becoming a well known enigma throughout New York. After the newspaper feature, the lost children of the rotten apple fed off the attention Taki received after plastering his name all over town, and the train writing fad sky rocketed.
Throughout the 1970's (The decade of the 'Style Wars') the art form continued to bloom all over New York and other urban American cities. The pieces began to get more elaborate and huge. Marker tags turned into vast mural like paintings. Plain name signatures morphed into bubble shaped tags with shapes, stars, arrows, and flames hugging its corners. "Toys," or less experienced writers, began to flourish, but the graffiti revolution was still lead by the more prominent color kings.
For years, this enigmatic and "criminal" expression of art was misunderstood and loathed. However, despite the misinterpretations, graffiti continued to flow over city to city, train to train, and eventually spilled into American suburbs, rich neighborhoods, and overseas. The artful rebellion was about raw emotion, determination, and creative fortitude. Not only did these creatures of the night have to sneak their masterpiece on various forms of public viewed property, but it was heavily frowned upon and a crime punishable by law. Still, the colors floated via train from one side of the city to the other; contaminating various eyes with a mysterious beauty never seen before by many. As the trains traveled so did the tales of many neighborhoods, as well as their languages, names, pride, and souls.
As the 70's brushed by graffiti continued to be the art of choice in many urban settings. Eventually adopting it as one of its four elements, Hip Hop became the soundtrack to the effervescent force known as graffiti, and much like its musical counterpart, it has dazzled and pulsated through the streets to this very day.
Look out for Series 2 of 'Graffiti: Glow of the Krylon Scepter' coming soon!
