Some Graffiti writers thought it would be funny to “Turn their Swag On” via writing “Twitter” style status updates on walls this weekend

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Baybay shouts outs the shooter and co….

ARA isn’t back in the building but this is prolly funnier than they were anyways…
People are writing “Not A Real Abortion Clinic” on Home Pregnancy Centers.

Read more here.–Feminist Avengers

Looks like graffiti writers fucking with Dipset is not just an Ohio thing. The homie Wands sent me this wall by Sest ID repping for Cam’s new album “Crime Pays” out in Los Angeles.

After the jump peep footage of Bucket doing a Cali freeway spot in L.A. with “Reppin Time” by Jim Jones in the background. (more…)

PBJ members Syco & Level thank Bea Arthur for being a friend along with the homie Desto.
Characters by Sucko PBJ/BSA
There was a graffiti jam in Dayton. Columbus repped for the Golden Girls.
see the rest of the wall here.

Unrelated, I would like to send a special shout-out to whomever has written Bea Arthur’s name on High Street about ten times from like King to like 12th.

photo taken from some random girl’s blog, Suzy 234

Maybe I am getting old & out of touch but I have kinda thought illegal Columbus graffiti bombing had strongly decreased.
Seeing Skum replacing PBJ as the posterboy for the news’ annual spring graffiti hysteria report pretty much confirms not much is going on in my mind.

Don’t get me wrong, Skum is really amusing to me because the moniker conjures the backdrop in like an 80’s vigilante movie or someone who might’ve threatened Crocodile Dundee or the robot from Short Circuit. So the idea of Skum written on things prolly should bother people.

Anyway…ladies & gentlemen!

FEAR SKUM
Channel 6 & Channel 10

For bonus fun, read the saga of Shred’r NBR on Omnimix.com.

I guess Channel 4 figured covering swine flu was enough and passed on all of this.

Cincy writer Gamble in Italy. Heatrocks.

Some dood named Russell Jones(no odb) wrote a book called Inside The Graffiti Culture:Why Graffiti isn’t Art.
Jones used Ohio graffiti writer Ask as his coverboy.

Here is the Amazon.com description:

Product Description
Illegal graffiti is disconnected from standard modes of visual production in fine art and design. The primary purpose of illegal graffiti for the graffiti writer is not the visual product, but “getting up.” Getting up involves writing or painting one’s name in as many places as possible for fame. The elements of risk, freedom and ritual unique to illegal graffiti serve to increase camaraderie among graffiti writers even as an individual’s fame in the graffiti subculture increases. When graffiti has moved from illegal locations to the legal arenas of fine art and advertising; risk, ritual and to some extent, camaraderie, has been lost in the translation. Illegal graffiti is often erroneously associated with criminal gangs. Legal modes of production using graffiti-style are problematic in the public eye as a result. I used primary and secondary interviews with graffiti writers in this book. My art historical approach differed from previous writers who have used mainly anthropological and popular culture methods to examine graffiti. This analysis enabled me to demonstrate that illegal graffiti is not art.

Bay Bay posted this on omnimix.
Three Way Action in Third World America.

I have been huge fan of the domestic dispute R+B song going back to Sparkle and R. Kelly’s “Be Careful” all the way up to  Kell’s “Real Talk”. The newest wrinkle in the domestic dispute genre is the irrational woman  doing something illegal song. I don’t know if Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” put some influence out there on the industry but being a crazy bitch has really sprung its wings whether its “Fight A Man” by Rihanna or my current favorite song “Bust Your Windows” by Jasmine Suillivan.  Ms. Suillivan basically sings about how she gonna vandalize some doods car. The video is kinda tame compared to Carrie Underwood’s. Jazmine never really fucks up the car. The closet thing she does is shake up a can of spraypaint in front of doods fake Basquiat paintings and then put a line thru them. Maybe MTV has a double standard when it comes to black woman vandalizing vs. Country stars.

As disappointed as I may be with the video. One thing Miss Underwood didn’t have is response jawns. Trey Songs, Skillz, and Gorilla Zoe have all weighed in about how they feel about a woman fucking up their whip. Trey Song’s  has him singing overthe instrumental letting her know what happen when you mess with a players ride, while Skillz and Zoe prefer to have a dialogue with the deranged R+B singer. Skillz is funny cause he complains about not having insurance. My favorite response record is this remix with the Dream. Cause he tells her its dumb shit and makes fun of her for breaking the window on the side of the car she sits in.

MP3:Jasmine_Sullivan_-_Bust_Your_Windows_Dream Remix

While looking around the internet for responses to the tragic death of Camu Tao. I came across this on the War 42 site:

It’s armed soldiers getting up in Iraq. Thats your Tax dollars at work. While I am against the war, I do support our troops.

What’s even weirder is that the soldier shouted out Texas PBJ/IOK/BK member, Bryer who painted on this years’ Daymon Day Wall, as well as the Industry Standard Wall.  Click for more photos’ of US soldiers painting graffiti in Iraq. 

WAR 42 is a DVD series that showcases graffiti intertwined with clips of really disturbing behavior like home footage of naked strippers smoking meth out of broken lightbulbs.

DARK repping iok and fst stolen from Art Crimes.

Columbus graffiti writer and national treasure, Hery, has a piece up in the new issue of Catch Me If You Can. It’s a production he painted with I.O. cats in the Nati on the back of Club Clau.  It looks like molten lava and alien ovulation.There is also a good interview with Rhymesayer Entertainment C.E.O Siddiq about how they built such a nationally prominant label in a Midwestern town not known for Hip Hop like Minneapolis.

Photos By Danielle Kline

Cleveland often gets a rep for being a location of pure misery. But things may be looking up. About 4 Years ago it quietly the Land started standing out as the best city for graffiti in Ohio due to the efforts of the Droids, BHS, and TKO. William “Upski” Wimsatt predicted this would happen in his book, Bomb the Suburbs. More recently, Mick Boogie, Chemical Kickdrums, Chipper the Ripper, and Fat Al, have started an upswing in Cleveland Hip Hop. So when I heard Diplo was coming to Cleveland to redeem himself for the worse show experience in his life, I was mad curious. Do people actually have fun in Cleveland these days?

Detox, the roadtrip only homie William,myself and Dkline hopped in the whip, and headed up to see how C-Town Rides in 0-infinity.

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Above is an interview with Tony Silver discussing Style Wars, the PBS documentary that captured Early 80’s Graffiti and Hip Hop culture. Mr. Silver co-directed Style Wars with Henry Chalfant. The film perfectly details this buoyant era. Style Wars first aired on National TV in 1983 and basically spread this NYC culture beyond the coasts. Places like Birmingham, Alabama had new graffiti problems . Kids in the sticks picked up cans, writing names like Mare2 and Daze2. The video was just so dynamic. It had the writers painting in the Subway yards, then later seeing their work run all of America’s most populated city. It had the beefs. It had graffiti entering the gallery world as the hippest things out during Blondie’s heyday. It had Mayor Koch and MTA fighting against graffiti. All the players of this time are shown in a quite beautiful, spellbinding manner that earned Style Wars the Grand Prize for Documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival in 1984.

Tony Silver passed away last Friday from the culmination of an ongoing brain condition.

Watch Style Wars:Here