las patronas

eric mack audio clip

YY 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwIxPYoXnYM

I have been concerned with style, not fashion, because fashion seemed to be only accessible to those with money and connections, but style could come from anywhere, and often was possessed by those dispossessed in one or more ways.

NYers love their sneakers, because it’s how they get around

BF 118-204-406, 421-505, 508-520, 529- 605-614

TikTok is Ruining our Minds 1:25 - 235, 253-426, 436 - 440

I love style as a refusal, as an assertion, like graffiti on a billboard. Sometimes the assertion itself was enough, but I was even more impressed when the street graphics caused a double take, when the handmaidenterjection had just as much power as the big budget demand. This was before styles changed yet again.

I liked the response that can’t be called a response because it asks little of them and gives something to us. There was a time before Obey was a brand.

2:50 “for niggas that don’t understand, obviously this wasn’t made for you, so…” — Big Jus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siAvviocv50&ab_channel=paulallen360

Mr. Lif- Wanted “this is the same adversity that caused slaves to be strong, robbed of their language yet speaking through song, the same adversity that got X outta bed in the middle of the night with thoughts racing through his head, the same adversity that consequently gave birth to HipHop, a culture of Blacks left in poverty to rot and I’m often gettin’ chased by the cops, but it’s only temporary that I’m leaving my spot…

slideshow from https://streetartnyc.org/blog/2015/06/10/no-longer-empty-presents-a-timeline-of-handstyles-signatures-from-the-1960s-to-present-day-across-from-old-bronx-borough-courthouse/ Lady K

https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/309.html

The subculture of graffiti transitioned in NYC from neighborhood wall writing into doing signature pieces (thanks to BARBARA 62 and EVA 62)

http://www.subwayoutlaws.com/History/History.htm

straight letters,

throw-ups (thanks to PHASE2),

masterpieces http://www.subwayoutlaws.com/History/phaseee2 blade copy.jpg and burners on train cars moving through the boroughs (thanks to DONDI, Super Kool 223 and many others).

Part of what attracted me to the subculture was the idea I had that writing was a response to the lack of creative outlets for youth, and the aftereffects of a borough and city in economic turmoil. I heard that during the blackouts many electronics and audio stores had things liberated, which would provide fuel for the growing hip-hop movement. Graffiti of course predated the hip-hop movement but early on, many participated in both. Writing messages or your name on things without permission has been an activity for thousands of years, but it hadn’t been done in this way before, with this intent.