Joust GSA NSA GND

A few weeks ago, I met up Keon to give him some decks for a project we're working on. While we were chatting, his old friend Joust's name came up. Next thing I knew, Keon had Joust on speaker phone and he was introducing us. Joust and I exchanged numbers, I sent him some questions, and the following interview unfolded. 

How did you first get into skating and graffiti?

My first memory of seeing skateboards was walking with my family after a dinner in Chinatown... 2 black kids came thundering down the sidewalk, one in a crouch holding a broomstick out at arms length. My first skateboard was a fiberglass Hobie with a waffle texture on top and clay wheels with loose ball bearings bought from the Rockaway Beach Surf Shop. I skated for a while on my own. I would practice riding down the hill of my grandfather's driveway, taking the turn onto the sidewalk and just going up and down my block. 

Joust and his brother at Paved Wave skatepark in Oakhurst, N.J.

The first graffiti I noticed were the tags around Newkirk Plaza, a couple of blocks from my house. I began to try to do a name I came up with on all my notebooks, but never actually on a public wall. This early skateboarding and graffiti writing was done on my own. They were just a tiny part of my kid life, while I was going to school, playing sports, being a cub scout, dreaming about girls, listening to the radio, having 45 rpm records by the Beach Boys and The Isley Brothers, watching the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family on T.V., riding bikes, throwing tops and yoyos, flipping baseball cards and having little electric race cars. 

Joust tag in the background.

How did you get your tag?

The name Joust was given to me by a guy who wrote Pawn 1, who also went to Murrow H.S. He really never got up, but he had written with Shadow & Deal early in their careers. His style was incredible. Not only did he give me the name, but he would draft amazing styles to spark my imagination. I didn't even know what the word meant till I looked it up. He was also a skateboarder and was there for the first time skating the big bowl. Which was a monumental day, though I got a serious ear infection from cutting through the swampy stagnant slime in the deeper end. He rode an aluminum KONA board. Thinking of him reminds me of something else we used to do called a "catamaran." Two guys would each sit on their own board facing each other with their feet on the other guys' board and your hands on the other guys' shoulders. There was a steep hill entering some kind of parking area at Brooklyn College, which is where we used to do this. It almost always ended in a wipeout, and that Kona board with its metal edges was deadly. There were so many good times. 

JD throw (aka Joust)

When I went to high school is when they (skating and graffiti) started to play a bigger part in my life. First writing went to the next level. I was being educated by a handful of kids who knew more and had better style than me from different neighborhoods. There was a click I became a member of. I started to carry a marker and was motion tagging everyday to and from school. By the end of 9th grade it came to a quick end when a friend and I were caught by the police and brought downtown. My mother was so disappointed in me that it made me quit writing. 

I started to ride my skateboard to school and met a few kids with boards. I started to learn tricks. Around this time is when I met Charlie (Keon). We met at the Flatbush Frolicks Festival on skateboards. We became fast friends and soon found we both had interest in graffiti as well (though I had quit). While hanging out Charlie and I would often do crazy pieces in chalk on my street. A small pack of guys would meet up after school or on weekends usually in front of our house and would practice tricks and try to show off to passerbys. I was constantly looking for interesting places to ride in the neighborhood. I found two buildings with drained fountains (the Big and Little Bowls). I found a maze of huge smooth brick inclined walls on the campus of Brooklyn College (the Flower Pots). 

 

 

Joust's quiver.

 

One evening my Dad, my brother and I went to the Baskin and Robbins on Flatbush Ave. The guy working there had a longboard with a WAR tag on it, and he had long hair. He told us about Manhattan skaters that met by the Alice in Wonderland statue near the Central Park boat pond on Saturday mornings. We went the next weekend and maybe a few more times. Skaters started showing up near the statue doing tricks. A kid named Andy Kessler (with a KESS tag on his board) determined the events of the day whether it be ride the "Highway Hill", skate uptown to Scandinavian Ski Shop or ride downtown to Paragon Sporting Goods. The city skaters would be grabbing onto bus and truck bumpers flying to the destination while the rest of us huffed and puffed... blocks behind. We did bring skaters from N Y.C. to our spots like Jaime Affoumado (RUST). I remember on the little bowl, there were some carving lines and also we would go up, hit the coping and do a kick turn. Jaime hit that coping so hard, he came down with a huge chunk of it, wedged under his board. At a Brooklyn Heights street fair I won a slalom contest by pumping my way through the cones and took home a case of soda. 

Keon and Joust up on the Prospect Expressway w/ Bishop Ford H.S. in the background

One guy I met who was both a real skater and a graffiti writer who got up was SIE1. We met on the Staten Island ferry heading out to New York's first skateboard park. There was a bus from the ferry that went right there. It was indoors in a warehouse, made entirely of plywood. I heard "We Will Rock You" for the first time in that place. After that, there were some ramps and half pipes, but eventually I returned to my street skating. Keon and I would just skate our old streets like veterans holding nose wheelies for entire blocks and hitting our old skate spots. 

 

As my teen years were running out I had come out of my graffiti retirement... Charlie and I had thrown a couple of pieces around the neighborhood, and we had also done a bunch of nice tag spots in Greenwich Village. I rode the train by myself down to the Sheepshead Bay station in the middle of the night with a shopping bag full of silver and red cans. I walked off the platform and caught throws on every sleeping train car. I kept up for over 2 years, always tagging everywhere I went, and piecing trains, highways and walls every weekend. I wasn't an all city king, but I now could quit and be satisfied. 

 

 

Trike posted this photo and story - do you remember that night?

I love this picture. I don't remember this roll-up gate, but we did so many in so many neighborhoods. I remember walking, bombing and laughing. Trike and I hit different train lines, and when we partnered up, there was a buzz. The streets were our coup de grâce. 

Do you still keep up with skating and graffiti?

In graffiti, I will take note if someone has a nice tag or throw. In skating, I'm very excited about some of the new wheel technology. The bearings, the urethane, the cores in the wheels. I've become way more of a crafter of boards. I still hit the skatepark, but mostly, I ride trails and streets. 

I would say what drew me to both skateboarding and writing were that they were purely invented by kids and required skills and creativity. They also gave you a certain credibility on the street. They were not part of main stream society. Now 40+ years later, I still love skating and doing graffiti pieces on paper. It's in my blood. 

Keso ICS GSB TVT MP

 

Today, Wriders travels to the New England section of the States to bring you our first chat with a Massachusetts-area skater & writer: Keso. From riding for his favorite skate company, to completing several hundred full-color panel pieces in under a year, Keso is unquestionably accomplished on the board and with the paint. And despite sustaining a serious injury, Keso is determined to maintain his presence in both cultures. We have no doubt that he will.      

 

What did you get into first, skating or graffiti?

Skateboarding. I have an elephant memory (long term) and I remember the first time seeing both skating and graffiti - it was at the same time . There was an old, abandoned gas station in the town I’m from. Skaters would skate the pump island curb and the building had graffiti all over it. Apparently looking outside the car window at a red light had enough impact on me to change the course of my life because since that day, those two things have been my entire life. 

I started skating in '92/'93; I was very young when I started. I started painting graffiti around maybe '98. I had zero knowledge, so I was just doing toy things/toy letters. Before social media and internet being accessible, I had zero reference. I consider my real start to be 2003. That’s when I did my first piece on a freight. I still walk by it in yards here and there it’s super cool to come across that. It has dicks toyed over it. 

 

Keso's first piece on a freight.

Who were you psyched on in your early days of skating?

Boston scene, for sure. Robbie Gangemi, Mike Graham, Vanik Hacobian. A lot of New York skaters, Zoo York Mixtape had a big impact. Trilogy, obviously. Lavar, Creager, Gino, etc.

Who were you psyched on in your early days of graffiti?

I grew up in close proximity to Boston and Providence. As far as Boston, at the time Flush, Aroe77, Rjay, among others, had the city smashed. They were all skaters, as well, so I was always looking up to them. Providence back then had a small but really good scene with writers like Lead, Seaz, Hence, User, Juner etc., crushing shit. Both cities had more writers than I mentioned getting after it but those stood out and had big impacts on me. 

What would you say are the differences between Boston/MA graffiti verses NYC graffiti?

Up until maybe 15 years ago, there were regional style differences. Boston is just a lot smaller, and they take it seriously. It’s a felony and they will charge you. A few writers have gotten caught in other states and they send them right to Boston. Some writers have done up to a few years for graffiti. 

 

How did you get your tag?

I wrote Seak as a toy. Caught a juvenile case that I beat, but I didn’t want to write the same name, so I wrote it backwards and dropped the A. Originally I wrote Kes, then just added the 'O' as a lot of writers will do.

 

How did you get on Western Edition?

Since they started, Western has always been my favorite company. Loved Ian’s artwork, the whole jazz vibe etc. Many years later I ended up in SF staying with Jabari (Pendleton), who introduced me to everyone at FTC. I became friends with all those guys and I guess maybe Ian asked me (to ride for WE). It was natural and although it doesn’t seem like a big deal as an adult, when I think of it, having a board on my all time favorite company is pretty awesome. I’m grateful, and thankful that Ian, Ando, and Kent allowed me that opportunity. 

 

 

Keso with a 5-0

What happened to your eye?

It’s a legal matter so I don’t want to say much, but I had an over-pressurized can of Rusto that was jammed. Shaking it did nothing. So I was tapping it against a railroad tie and the bottom blew out, which created a rocket that went into my eye. Basically obliterated my eye. They did emergency surgery but it was a wrap. The cone of the can was flattened by skull. It’s the same old story: Rustoleum quality has drastically gotten worse; they cut corners to make more profit. That all-American Greed. It was the worst couple months up until surgery - really can’t explain but excruciating. Mentally gnarly because as accepting of things I can’t change as I am, it’s gnarly looking into the mirror and there’s a hole in your face. I have a fake eye now. I had a great surgeon. I adapt. Took a bit with painting, being a depth perception issue, but I figured it out. Ended up being my most productive year painting - I was just on a marathon of mayhem. I painted just shy of 500 full-color panels in a year while losing an eye. I don’t go down easy. Skating is next to get back on. This year I want to focus more on that. I miss it a lot.  

Photo by Bobshirt

What is it about these two cultures that they attract a lot of the same people?

It’s different now, but years back they both  seemed to attract the type of people that were kind of anti-norms, or outcasts in a way. Just maybe people that thought outside of the box and thought for themselves. Nowadays... It’s a lot different, everything’s watered down, woke, and pretty corny to be honest. 

 

In skating it's not cool to film at skateparks. In graffiti it's not cool to paint legal walls. So are legal walls the graff equivalent of skatepark footage/what are your thoughts on these two "rules"?

I would never have painted a legal wall up until recently, or walls in general (I do very little). My association with graffiti has to do with my love for trains. For the most part I have zero interest in most of what comes with graffiti other than freights and the act. The gossip, politics, or meeting writers, beef - don’t care for it. The majority of writers are cornballs with insecurity complexes. As I get older though, I can enjoy a wall, legal or not, and relax for once without looking over your shoulder. Plus, I still paint illegally on a daily basis, so street cred can’t be questioned. If you only paint legal walls, do you. I think it’s corny, personally, but who cares what I thin? Do what makes you happy; it doesn’t bother me.

Any skaters or companies you're psyched on right now?

I pay almost zero attention to current skaters, but I still watch the old classics. I try to stay up on a few of the younger Boston skaters: Will Mazzarri, Ben Tenner, Sway, Brian Reid - all kill it. I try to keep up on Dick Rizzo and Zack May. I don’t pay attention to much currently as far as skating. Too much to keep up with.

 

What writers are you seeing up who you like?

I see a lot of AMFM stuff, all quality writers. Always enjoy seeing any NSF stuff: Dever, Enue, Arek, Pear, Stoe - that whole crew. My Queens boys Dego, Mesk, and the GTK crew crush it for sure. Blasting out end-2-ends. Pier & Grisle, all of the GFR guys put out exceptional graffiti. Gravy has been continuously crushing it for years under multiple different names. Lead & Vism. Anything AOK or RIS is a treat. Always like seeing Altr from Canada. For the most part I pay attention to the real hardcore freight guys that we’re doing it before it was popular. There’s tons of dog shit out there but it just makes the classic styles  stand out more. 

 

 

Any shout outs?

Shout out to anyone that’s ever showed me love, patience, forgiveness, gratitude, appreciativeness, and was genuine to me.  I’ve been very fortunate to have met some really awesome people in my life within my hobbies, and as well as outside them. I’m very grateful for that. Shout out Pope, Ian Johnson, Ando, and all the FTC guys. And my crews ICS, GSB, TVT, MP. Peace.

OJAE FYC

 

To set off 2024, we bring you OJAE FYC. From painting in the early days of the Freedom Tunnel, to skating at opening-day of NYC's first skatepark (Mullaly), OJAE's history in both graffiti and skating runs deep. And, if you ever wondered if his tag was skate related (I sure did), read on to find out.   

What did you get into first, skateboarding or graffiti?

I got into graffiti first, but skateboarding kind of at the same time. About 1986 I was returning home to the Upper West Side from living in a bunch of different foster homes on Long Island, and the first thing that I saw was graffiti. And it really piqued my interest. Then I somehow wound up with a skateboard. First I was into BMX because everybody in the neighborhood had a bike. That's how we got around as kids. And we made little ramps and stuff. Originally I'm from the Amsterdam Projects, then I was living on 78th and West End. I went to P.S. 87 - if you're from the Upper West Side, you know what that school is. I had a skateboard and there was this young woman who took a liking to me and started to tell me about her boyfriend who was very much into skateboarding. Her boyfriend turned out to be Andy Kessler. They both understood that my life wasn't in a good place, so they kind of took an interest in me and took me with them to do things. It got to a point where I'd spend weekends in Andy's house. One day Andy and I went to Mullaly Skatepark. I was about 12 or 13, and it was like day one of the park opening. There was a contest going on that we went to check out. At the skatepark, I ran into this dude Greg from midtown Manhattan. Greg was with this quiet white kid, who ended up being Kaz. Instantaneously Kaz and I formed a bond. Since Andy was a lot older and mostly skating ramps, and Kaz was my age and lived relatively close to me, Kaz ended up being my "in" to the skate world. He'd come up and skate the Museum of Natural History with me, and this shallow flat bank on 96th & Columbus and Lincoln Center and all that. Then he would take me to all the Midtown spots: Fuji, Paine Webber, CBS, the Bubble Banks, and other spots. 

 

From writing to skating, OJAE stays up on walls. Marriott Hotel, 1991

 

And of course there was the Brooklyn Banks and the whole World Trade Center area and the Wall Street area. Back then, that area was dead as a door nail on the weekends; all you saw was skateboarders down there. It kind of paralleled the video game 720: you go to a skate spot in the game and it would just be kids skating around. That was the start of it all. As I got more immersed into this with Kaz, I kind of piqued his curiosity with the graffiti. We already formed a relationship with skating, so in a sense he became my graffiti partner. We skateboarded and wrote graffiti together. This was at such a golden moment in NYC skateboarding because at that moment from what I remember skateboarding didn't really exist anywhere. You were kind of an outcast if skating was your thing. It wasn't understood and there wasn't much of it. The irony of it is that it was already so big while it was underground. You know, there was OD's skateshop in Midtown, then SHUT emerged, then Benji's skateshop. At the same time Skate NYC and SOHO skates were both on their way out. You had pockets of kids from different neighborhoods with the same interest who knew about all the same spots. So like on a Friday or Saturday night when you'd go to the Fuji building, there was no more LES kids or UWS kids, it was just straight up one big motley crew of skaters. I don't think I've ever seen any other sport or activity where people are such individuals yet so welcoming and mentoring of one another. There was no "you suck, get out of here!" We might make fun of you, but it wasn't done maliciously. It eventually formed this ill skateboard community that was long in existence before Zoo York (the board company) came along and really blew things up and put skating on the map. I grew up a couple blocks away from Eli Gesner, who I skated with a lot. He was sponsored by Z, so he'd hook me up with boards. And you couldn't buy them in NYC, so for me that made it a little extra dope to have them. 

 

50th Street 1 train station. 1991

 

How did you get your tag?

There was a neighborhood guy who originally wrote Chooch 156. Crazy dude. I met him when I was like 9, and he was like 15 or 16. Later he changed his tag to Ment TDS. You know the documentary Dark Days? Well, there's two younger white dudes in it. One of them just comes home from jail, and there's a scene where he's washing in the water falling from above. That's Chooch 156/Ment TVS. So if you go back through that film, you'll see I've got tags in his room underground. And he's the one that opened the door for me, graffiti wise. Like Kaz pulled me further into skateboarding, Ment pulled me further into graffiti. A lot of the first dudes I met in graffiti were from 156 crew: Praise, Design, Chow, Omni. Jon had already gone to Paris. But there was also the CM crew from the neighborhood. I went to school with Kev CM, whose brother was NICEO. So that's who I really first linked with, you know NICEO, Devs, Kev, Bens, those are really the first people I started venturing out writing graffiti with. But Ment saw me with the skateboard and it had OJ wheels, so he gave me the name OJ. Originally it was just the O and the J. Briefly it was OJAY. Then a very old friend of mine, Dos AOK, would give me all these hand styles, and he started writing it with an E, and it stuck. 

 

OJAE tags in the documentary Dark Days

 

I was going to ask, but you just answered: did you ever ride OJ wheels?

My first board was given to me by Andy Kessler. It was a Sam Cunningham Blockhead with 179 Indys and OJ II team riders. And I loved those wheels. 

 

OJAE ollies the CBS ledge. 1991

 

What's unique about your throw up is that you do the second letter first. Like Smith does his M first, you do your J first. How did you come up with that?

Progression. If you look at a lot of my first throw ups, the J goes behind the O. Or it's squished in and the proportions aren't right. Over years of doing it, I finally realized that I should do the J first to make it stick out and look like a J as opposed to getting shoved behind the O and you're like, "what is that?" 

What's the story behind your crew FYC?

I got this dear friend that I met in high school, he writes Care HR, IBM, his crew is FY. He was much older than I was, and I thought FY was so dope. I wanted to be down, but I wasn't going to ask, "can I be down?" So I made FYC, kind of in my head like, "fuck your crew, I'm, making my own crew." At first, me and Kaz had BHC. Big Hooter Crew. Big Hoochie Coochie. But then I formed FYC and I stuck with it. Now I think the oldest FYC tag is from '91. FYC is not a traditional crew where you have a gang of people who are affiliated and they hang out. If someone pushes FYC, then I have formed a brotherly bond with them and consider them family. There are many people who push FYC who have never met each other, and they are all over the place: Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Florida, other countries. Ultimately, FYC is a representation of me: Forever Young and Crazy. 

 

OJAE and Kaz up in the Freedom Tunnel

 

Who did you look up to in skateboarding?

I'm pretty sure my first skate video was Public Domain. That first scene with Ray Barbee and them... I still have that song burnt in my head. When I was young, I recorded that song ten times in a row on a tape, and I would play and skate as fast as I could down Broadway, weaving around people, ollieing off and up curbs. So my first major impression was Ray Barbee. Also Mike Vallely and Ray Underhill. Then when H-Street's Hokus Pokus came out, that seemed to really blow the doors off of things. The Donger was insane; he was more my style of skating. I liked to skate big and fast, I wasn't the best at all the technical tricks. But I was good at gaps, steps, handrails, ollieing trash cans and shit like that. I used to like skating the steps at the Museum of Natural History and ollieing the chain to the drop, which was easier than the steps, but scarier. 

Who did you see up a lot when you first got into graffiti?

When I first started writing, I lived a couple blocks from the Freedom Tunnels, which no one knew about, yet everyone knew about. When you walk down from Riverside Drive and 72nd St., and keep walking down into the park to the boat basin, to the right of all that was an old on ramp or off ramp to the highway, and there was nothing keeping people from going back there. But only homeless people and graffiti writers went back there. You just turn a corner and you're in one of the most sacred places to write graffiti and not have to worry. So I spent all my free time there. As I hung out there, people would come and go to paint, so I had the opportunity to meet so many different people. The first people I saw up in my neighborhood was Omni 156, Tao, Hangman, Seal, obviously Niceo and Devs, all them CM dudes. So that's all my very first influence. Plus, the 156 guys, but they were sort of on their way out. Trains were finishing up and benching the trains and wanting to go and do pieces was kind of fading away. Graffiti was transferring to the streets. I got to meet Chama WKS and Part TDS down in the tracks. Which at the time when I met them, I had no idea who these guys were. I was like 11 or 12 years old and they let me hang out with them the whole day. I got real cool with Chama, who was inspirational in a way because he was like, "when I come back I want to see huge tags, top to bottom! Throw ups on all the gates!" It's crazy how it came full circle, because I thought I'd never seen either one of those guys again. But more than 20 years later I ran into Chama and Part on Instagram, after putting in all this work, and they remembered me. Same thing with Kel1st and Mare 139. Around the corner from me on 77th and Broadway is a place called the Belleclaire Hotel. It was a shady place full of prostitutes and drug dealers. It was a weekly or SRO. Before it was a weekly, some people lived in there. I met this kid that lived in there. We became real close, like brothers. It got to the point where I would stay in his house instead of mine. His mom knew a lot of "it" people. The neighbor down the hall from us was this guy named Adolfo, and I guess he was some famous artist. We used to go to his house to chill. It was crazy, in the midst of this shit hole hotel, he had this ill four-bedroom apartment. He had these three friends that would come over all the time, who ended up being Mare 139, Kel1st, and Kel's girlfriend at the time, Debi Mazar. Now I'm hanging with those three on a daily/weekly basis. Kel spoke to me a lot about graffiti. I wish I still had all the outlines he did for me. So those are all the begining influences. Then obviously JA and Reas and Ghost. Then in high school and the late '90s I started meeting more people. Up in Spanish Harlem like Dreads NIW, Cue, Kep, ARS dudes. They're all derivatives of SM, Dobe, those guys, Spawn GNR, Jover, Aver, Joves, all of them dudes. And then what does skateboarding do? It brings you to the village. I met Cash and CA in the Freedom Tunnels, they were a little younger than I was. But I already knew Rast and his brother, AOS. Before skateboarding, my thing was ice skating. I would go to Wollman Rink all the time. And I knew Rast and AOS from ice skating, from when we were mad young. Now I run back into them in this RFC circle. It's crazy how these things come full circle. Another example, as I got older, I started hanging out with all these private school kids because of the building that I lived in. There was a dude who wrote Phed, I met him between 96th street and 86th street on the 1 train, there's a famous station called Ghost Town. I met him there one night painting by myself, and we became friends. Now with this circle of private school kids, I run into him there. Like, "oh shit, what's up?" Same thing with RFC. I already know Harold and Casper from skating, now I know them through RFC. Another person that I met early, early on, who I used to skate with all the time, was this kid named Ryan Sikorski. He's the owner and founder of Fat Beats. He and his buddies used to come over from New Jersey all the time and sleep at my house. The first time they came to my house-because I lived on the 15th floor-the first thing they wanted to do was throw shit out the window. We threw a skateboard wheel out the window and it hit the windshield of a taxi cab, bounces off the windshield and hits some dude in the back of the thigh and he dropped from an ill charlie horse! 

 

OJAE and Kaz along the Hudson Valley line. Peep the reflection in the puddle.

 

What is it about these two subcultures that they attract a lot of the same people?

Although the worlds are so far apart, they're also parallel. Most people who write graffiti and/or skateboard come from a shitty household or bad circumstances. With those two outlets comes so much; it's a big bang for your buck. It's therapy, it's a supporting community, you're a rebel, you feel like a badass, and it's an uplifting feeling to be a part of because no one else is a part of it. It's the mischievousness about it. Rolling around with a gang of kids skateboarding we were definitely terrorizing shit - running into people and running into stores and snatching shit and running out. Same thing with graffiti: bringing everybody together and when everybody's together everyone wants to wil' out and be bad. It was acting out against whatever circumstances you have going on. As you get older, it can be a positive thing in your life. It doesn't have to be so wild and outlawish as it was when you were younger. Painting and making art is therapeutic, as is skateboarding. You kind of get the same feeling of accomplishment out of both. Progressing and getting better at both makes you feel good. Another thing with both skating and graffiti, as well as being participants, we're also fans. I'm a big fan of other people doing graffiti. 

 

 

In skating it's not cool to film at skateparks. In graffiti it's not cool to paint legal walls. So are legal walls the graff equivalent of skatepark footage?

I stopped skating in 2004 due to a car accident. I went to press the brake at the point of impact. But the impact shoved the motor and everything in, which ended up wrecking my ankle. With that car accident, there goes skateboarding for the rest of my life. But I can agree in the sense that if you're going to film some skating, film something that's going to stand out. Film something that you found in the street so there's more substance to the content. As for legal walls, there's nothing wrong with them. I say it all the time: if you like to put stickers up, if you like to draw artsy fartsy shit, you like to paint legal walls, you like to bomb streets and tear it up, or if you like to film at skateparks, whatever it is you do, be true to it and own it. Don't paint legal walls and then talk about how you're up everywhere and kill shit, acting like you're a graffiti vandal when you're not. If you can't be true to what you do, then why should I give you respect for what you do? And that point applies to everything in life. 

Last question: will you hit my book?

Of course!  

Rebel SC

 

A few weeks ago, FCEE messaged me asking if I had ever met Rebel SC. I said I had not. FCEE then mentioned that Rebel also skated. Naturally, I asked if he would be down for an interview, and FCEE said he was certain Rebel would be. A day or so later, after FCEE made the connection, Rebel and I made a plan to meet up for the following interview.

Which did you get into first, skating or graffiti?

I grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and first noticed graffiti when my father took me to work with him on the RR train. I was really young, and the only thing that I really noticed was that the train lights kept going on and off, and every time they went back on all you saw was a purple haze of ANT ANT ANT ANT on all of the walls of the car! 

 

 

Ant insides.

 

I was probably eight or nine years old. Around the same time I noticed graffiti in our school yard and around the neighborhood as well. In 1985 I moved to 94th street and Gelston Ave (still in Bay Ridge) and I started making friends there. My mom worked in the city and had a friend at work that was getting rid of an old skateboard, so my mom brought it home for me. It was a red banana board and I loved it, but quickly outgrew it. A friend in the neighborhood had an "Executioner" skateboard and it was all the rage at that time! I asked my mom to buy it for me and she told me her friend Maria had one like it, so if I was good in school she'd get it for me. I ended up getting it, but it wasn't the the Executioner, but it was similar. (I forget what brand.) So around summer of '87, I go on vacation to California to visit my uncle and my older cousin. My cousin had a skateboard in the garage that I was skating. My uncle saw that and took me to a local skate store called "ET Surf" in Hermosa Beach and my mind exploded! When we got back to Brooklyn all I wanted was a real skateboard! When I got home I was hanging out on the block with my friend Peter talking about my trip and everything and he pulled out a white Pentel marker (which was actually pink because he put red in it) and was like "let's go tag the poles in the neighborhood." I told him that I didn't have a tag, so we started tossing names around but after a while I didn't like anything. Then he looked down at the jacket I was wearing, which was from my uncle's boat called the "Sloop Rebel", and he said, "why not REBEL?" 

 

 

Rebel and his uncle's boat, the origin of the name.

 

It hit me and stuck and then we were off to the races! That was like my introduction to graffiti with my own persona. Not like looking at it as a fan and trying to understand it, but now as I had a name and I had to go with that. That October, right before Halloween, my Mom finally took me to our local neighborhood Skate Shop called "CS SKATES" and I got my first real skateboard! 

 

CS Skates in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

 

It was a Powell Peralta Ripper with blue Tracker Ultralite trucks and Slime Ball wheels! The grip tape was ripped up into little sections by the guys who worked there and put on my board and to me that was the beginning! October 27th 1987! 

 

Rebel's Ripper

 

 

Bay Ridge rippers

 

So skating actually started before graffiti, but I would say they were both so intertwined! So now we're skating and writing and taking trips to the city to go to the Banks and skate midtown and so on. We were meeting other skaters and writers and building our bond and our community. The Brooklyn Banks were bombed; you'd see kids skating and a pilot would fall out of their pocket and you'd be like, "Yo you write?" Yeah I write too...  That's how the conversation started. Sometimes you'd be in the city wandering at night writing and you would make a special trip to the Banks to bomb it so that weekend everyone would see it! I came off with tags in Thrasher magazine and in the Brooklyn Banks section of the 411 video from 93: at the end of the section, my buddy is yelling, "SETO SETO!" - that's my marker he's using! As kids, that's just what you did: write, skate, rip up parties and raves, and be out all night wilding! There was always something to do, a spot to hit, some girl's crib to crash at, a party... Common interests were the unbreakable bonds of our youth.

 

Rebel and crew getting up on a bus at a Banks contest in 1993

Who were you psyched on in skating back then?

There was a local church that had skate contests in the late '80s, and that's where you see the best local neighborhood guys. Dudes like Richie Rojas, Louis "Crunchy" Torres, a guy named "Duckie", John Gallagher, Steven Cales, Ryan Hickey, Ivan Perez, and so many others! In our crew we had a lot of different characters and one of our friends, "Trader Tim", was the kid who had all the skate videos. So we'd always go to his house to watch them to get inspired! We'd watch videos like "Future Primitive" and "Wheels of Fire". Guys like Vallely, Natas, Gonz, Mullen and so many others were influences! At that time it was everywhere! When you're young, everything is so fresh and alive! 

 

Rebel with his Barnyard Vallely

Who were your inspirations in graffiti?

Like I stated above, with the first experience on the trains to my local schoolyard, my first inspirations were guys from my block and the neighborhood: Kaves, Revlon, Ant, the TBR guys, and the stuff I would see in the streets. At that time, even regular kids who hung out had tags and handstyles. I worked for Kaves at his graffiti shop in the early '90s and I met a lot of people who walked through those doors. Then there was the kids in high school you chilled with who lived in different neighborhoods and had different styles. Riding the different train lines was always an adventure as well; soaking it all in while leaving your own mark, too. Then taking that inspiration and developing into your own style. Handstyle was always the most important to me, it all starts with your signature: "the tag." That's what you have to practice the most. I sit and practice all the time! It never stops! I've probably written a forest full of trees on paper in my lifetime! 

Kaves' shop

A friend of mine used to say that trucks are the subway trains of the streets. You're known for doing lots of trucks - what drew you to painting trucks?

When I started writing I caught the tail end of the train era. But I wasn't knowledgeable enough to really do damage. We were just really motion tagging. By the time I was hitting layups, the last of the graffitied trains had been sitting in the yards rotting away! People were still hitting trains but it was not the same. They wouldn't really run, so some people shifted their interests elsewhere. I was always into hitting stuff that moved, so early on I was tagging buses, trains, trucks, etc. We started taking it seriously and began seeking out truck yards. We'd dominate them by doing whole-side blockbusters! Then having your friends call you up and be like, "Yo! I seen your truck in midtown Manhattan! The Bronx! That fueled the fire! Desa used to catch them coming over the Manhattan bridge and send me flicks. We would be traveling to find truck yards - anywhere they parked long enough to properly decorate them! We used to check the registrations to make sure they would run! Our choice of medium was always American Accents because the paint had a flat finish, so in the colder weather it was perfect. We'd always outline with Rustoleum WoodSavers because it was thick and like spray glue and had teflon in it so water wouldn't affect it! So one night we go into the yard and there's this beautiful truck, but there's a Corvette parked next to it. I said to my guys, "we're not painting that truck." They were like, "what do you mean?!" I said, "If that was your Corvette, would you want mist on your car? We're not touching it." So we did every other truck in the yard, and left that one alone. You gotta put out good karma. For us the trucks were our subways of the streets!

 

 

What's the origin of SC (Style Crew)?

When you're young and finding yourself, you always wanted something to belong to. As a writer, you may be in several different crews at a time. But just like in life you find comfort in those closest to you. So I stared the crew (SC) in 1991. We already had neighborhood crews, but I wanted something of my own. I never felt like it was competing with anyone; I just wanted to do my own thing. The original name was Society's Children/ Silent Chaos. Then I used it as an acronym:  "S"omething "T"hat "Y"ou'll "L"earn "E"ventually Crew. Which makes sense! 

 

Fiends who crave.

You mentioned Polo earlier. What is it about that brand that appeals to writers?

I can't speak for others, but what I will say is that it all went hand in hand for me in the early '90s. You always wanted to be fresh! In those days, "fresh" meant different things to different people. I remember when thrifting the biggest pants you could find and cutting the bottoms off while skating the smallest wheels was a fad. Rave culture had its moments, as did club culture. New York City has its own culture! When you skated, your flow had to be flashy with finesse. When you wrote, you had to have flavor. As an individual, you had to look the part as well. I remember being in nightschool wearing a POLO P Wing turtleneck and a black denim jacket. The P Wing was on the left chest, so it wasn't really that visible with the jacket on. I was just sitting at my desk tagging the books and this guy who sat in front of me turned around because he smelled the marker and was like, "Yo! You write?" We started talking and he sees that I have a P Wing shirt on and fucking looses his mind! Like, "Yo you got the P wing!" Then he shows me he had on a Sui turtleneck, and next thing we know we are trading clothes at night school so we could always wear something different at school the next day and the frenzy began! I wouldn't go to school unless I had some new Polo to wear. Everything at that time was an obsession! The crazy part was that in school you had to look fly & flam! But keeping the ink and paint off your clothes was a full time job while leading your double life! A lot of times we were not that successful and some good clothes got ruined! 

 

Zero & Rebel with the P Wing turtlenecks

Back in the 80's and 90's, skating and graffiti weren't accepted by the mainstream. Nowadays they are a lot more so. How do you think this warm welcome from the masses has changed these subcultures?  

When we started skating in the mid to late '80s, it was still kind of new - we had the magazines, then the videos started coming out. And we were getting chased out of spots and having fights with security on a daily basis for a multitude of reasons. People only like what's pretty and can be packaged well. Once they realized they could harness the energy of skateboarding and there could be a profit from it things naturally started to change. Now it's a global thing and there are skateparks everywhere, which is wonderful. No longer is it "unaccepted." Graffiti is kind of the same. Major brands are using graffiti to market products. It also has a global impact. There are murals in every city. Artwork is everywhere, which is amazing to see, but at the same time there will always be those people who fill up a marker and sneak into a lay-up to hit trains or pack up a duffle bag to go out street bombing. Same as there are skaters who still hit spots that weren't designed to skate and rock it! The adrenaline rush is not the same as when it is uncontrollable and in your face! 

Style Crew stylin'

In skating it's not cool to film at skateparks. In graffiti it's not cool to paint legal walls. So are legal walls the graff equivalent of skatepark footage?

Who really determines what is "cool"? It is always all about perspective. Same thing can be said about buying a marker - it's not as cool as making a marker. The thing is, when you film in the streets, the streets are always different - from Brooklyn, NY to Paris, France. The skatepark is built for you; nothing in the streets is built for you. With graffiti, when you're painting an overpass on a highway versus a legal wall, the energy is different. When you roll up to a legal wall, you can sit back and relax and paint and not have to worry about cops. Whereas when I was painting a truck yard at three o'clock in the morning, it was so dark I had to touch the truck to know where I was writing. And I couldn't step back because I was in between lanes. Then the next day you see it in the daylight, you're like, "oh shit, I missed that highlight." Again, the energy is so different. When you have the law chasing you, there's that adrenaline, like, "We only have fifteen minutes in this layup! Then we gotta run!" At a legal wall, it's just so chill. When you're filming at a skatepark, it's like, "I missed this rail 75 times, I think I'll go have lunch and stretch a little and maybe try again later." In the streets it's like, "Boom boom boom! Let's go! There's a car coming! Lookout for that lady!" The energy is so different! It's raw. 

 

Chez Rebel with OG Ripper and Barnyard Vallely decks on the wall

 

Last question: will you hit my book?

Absolutely!

 

 

 

 

 

Jaime "Rust One" Affoumado

 

 

When we were deciding on a place to meet up for this interview, Jaime suggested Washington Square Park because he had been playing jazz there often. As I rolled up to where his band was performing, I immediately recognized the song they were playing: "Watermelon Man" by Herbie Hancock. Of course my next thought was, "who skated to this?" Oh yeah, Guy Mariano in Mouse. What are the odds?

What did you get into first, skating or graffiti?

It was about the same time, but graffiti might have been before. I was only six years old. My older brother was three years older, and he wrote K 166, then he wrote Love 67, then he wrote Void ATB. He wrote a lot on the 1 train because he was going to Kennedy. He was also in the same class as Fuzz One at PS 80. Fuzz was already doing bubble letters back then and we all looked at that. And we were tagging around the neighborhood (Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx), but we also built a skateboard around the same time with metal wheels off of a roller skate. So it was basically at the same time because we built the skateboard and we were writing graffiti. 

Peep the Zephyr tag on the deck.

How did you get into skating?

Well, we built that skateboard, then urethane wheels came out. In 1975 my brother was working at a flea market, and he saw a used skateboard that had urethane wheels, so he copped it. But the trucks were small and thin, so they broke right away. That was a drag. Then I hooked up with the Riverdale Boys, and they had pools. There was also the Upper West Side guys like Andy Kessler.  Then my family moved down to the Village, so I got to hook up with all the Village skaters. I was twelve years old then, but I was an old 12: I was streetwise, graffiti wise, and fight wise. I was a childhood actor, too, so I got to go to California to film a movie. I got to buy some Vans over there, and skate all the skateparks: Pipeline, Skater Cross, Concrete Wave. That was in the summer of '77. So when I came back I was kind of ahead of skating here in NYC.

 

How did you get into graffiti?

Just being in the Bronx - everybody tagged. Also because of my brother, and knowing Fuzz. I wasn't like this dude that was bombing every night, although I did go to yards with NE and Rasta. We had a click: The Mins. I was never a big time graffiti writer, but I hung out with the big time guys - MG Boys, RTW guys, The Rebels, Zoo York skateboard crew. So I got respect that way.  

 

 

How did you get your tag?

Rust came in '75. Before that I was writing Mine 2. That was someone else's name, but he gave it to me. But I really wanted my own name, and for some reason I came up with Rust. I don't know, I guess I really just like those letters.

How did you get down with the MG Boys?

One day I went to PS80 to play basketball and there was some guy there I didn't know already playing. He had combat boots on and spray paint on his pants, so I knew he wrote graffiti. But I didn't know who he was. So we started shooting. Then these three Puerto Rican guys showed up and jumped the dude. Instead of running away, I fought these dudes with him. I clocked one dude in the head, then I clocked another dude in the head. He was choking one dude and threw him on the ground, then the other two dudes jumped him and I hit them in the head. We ended up getting the better of them and they ran off. The dude said to me, "Yo, that was amazing. Here's my phone number. If you need anything, just call me. You got a lot of heart, man." Then he goes, "I'm Mark 198." And I was like, "Oh shit! That's you?" After that, we were boys! Mark was like, "anybody fucks with you... call me!" Because I had his back, he had mine.

What companies have you gotten skate product from?

Madrid, Kryptonics, Santa Cruz, Independent Trucks, Mike Smith, personally, sent me boards. Also, in 1985 we skated at a nightclub called Area. They had a ramp in there for six weeks and they paid me to skateboard. $500 a week for six weeks. That's three grand! 

Salba, Jaime, and Rob Roskopp

What writers did you have respect for back in the day?

Guys like Ali, Zephyr, Bill Rock, all the RTW dudes, Wane, NE. Of course all the original MG boys, those are my main dudes. But I wasn't this top-notch graffiti guy - I'd rather skateboard. But I still hung out with those dudes. They were my friends. They got into a fight, that was my fight.

Did you ever write with Andy Kessler?

Oh yeah! We did everything together. We skated everywhere, skated everything. He was better than me, then I got better than him. And he had a lot of respect for that. He was like, "dude, you surpassed me."

 

Where did the name Puppethead come from?

I was skating at the courtyard in Westbeth when I was like 13 years old with KR2, Fat Peter, Joker 1, and Me 62. I used to spin my head like a ballerina when I did 360's - I'd spot my head. Those dudes were like, "you look like a puppethead." Next day they called me like, "yo Puppethead!" I was like get the fuck outta here... And it stuck. I was meeting people I didn't even know and they'd say, "yo aren't you Puppethead?" I was like I guess, who are you? My name is Jaime. That's a nickname for certain people from this inside thing. But now it's 45 years later and it's still going. That's a long time. 

 

 

What is it about skating and graffiti that they attract the same people?

It's street culture. You got street art, and you ride in the street. That's where they meet - in the streets. Then you got style. Depending on someone's graffiti style, you can kind of tell who they are. Skateboard style is a certain thing, too. I feel like skateboard style and graffiti style have a similarity in which you could be a toy or a poser. We just carried around markers while skateboarding. You see, on skateboards you could bomb easier. You could go from 96th street down to 42nd street in like ten minutes and bomb everything on a skateboard. You could also use it as a weapon - if dudes try to jump you, you could hit them with your skateboard. It's a multipurpose tool.

Here's a story that relates to what you're talking about: I was on an audition in midtown, and Joust was a messenger. I had my skateboard with me, Joust sees me and goes, "you skate, man?" Then he sees the graffiti on my board and says, "oh shit, MG boys, you know those dudes?" I said, "yeah, I'm from the Bronx, but I moved to the Village." Next thing I know he's inviting me to come skate a spot in Brooklyn. I think him seeing the MG Boys thing made him comfortable - because those dudes were serious. So I called him up, stayed at his house one night, and we skated this little blue bowl in a courtyard on Neptune and 15th St. 

How has the acceptance from the mainstream affected the cultures?

Graffiti and skateboarding were rebellious in the '70's and '80's. Skating got accepted into the Olympics which kind of watered it down. The tricks got more difficult, which is supposed to happen; you're not supposed to keep doing the same tricks. Back in the day you could count on your hands and toes how many people in NYC skated. Now there are thousands. Why did that happen? Kessler opened it up with the parks, it got commercialized, and it just grew. Now it's in the Olympics. Great. Now it's ok? Now skateboarding is not a crime?

As for graffiti, guys like Keith Haring and Basquiat upped the ante for a price of a painting. But they were street art, not graffiti. Then Futura and Haze and dudes like that went a certain route. It was either addicts trying to get some money, or it was totally good dudes who knew how to do business. And they made millions. And good for them. They came from the streets robbing paint, to the mainstream making money. It's kind of what's supposed to happen if you're a smart businessman.

Last question: will you hit my book?

Yeah! Definitely, man. Bring it out!