Talk ain’t cheap…

This article was posted by Mode2 9 months, 3 weeks, 1 Day, 21 hours, 23 minutes ago.

A really quick one this time…

Just scrolling down the blogs and news and whatever, I can’t help noticing that very few people ever have a comment to make about anything that comes up on 12oz Prophet; however remarkable or unusual a particular post might be.

Have so many of you become scared to voice your own opinion? Scared of not fitting into a certain type of accepted norm? Scared of not being “real” enough, because many eyes are watching?

Back in our days, mid eighties, Covent Garden, London; it was a strictly “no shame in my game” ethos, where we spat our ish straight out, because it came from deep within. It was us as individuals talking, throwing our two cents into the mix, enriching our common whole, and absolutely not frightened of affirming our own identity and originality. We didn’t shy away from voicing our opinion on any given matter; right or wrong. And if we were wrong? Well then, you would expect somebody else, just as open as we were, to shoot straight from the lip, and prove us wrong. However humbling or even humiliating that could end up being on the moment; at least we learnt something from it… Each one, teach one, if i may put it that way…

Mighty quiet out there these days, though… as if everybody’s worried about their public profile. Facebook this isn’t, over here…

Peace, and power everybody (Skinny Boys “Get Pepped”)

There are 6 comments...

I dont think it has anything to do with being scared to say something, I think it has to do with how we have been conditioned by the internet. Meaning although we digest content we rarely personalize ourselve with it. News and links are dealt like fast food and consumed as such. Rarely do we take any time to weigh in on anything. I think this is especially true when it comes to comments. I don’t think for fear of speaking our mind, just laziness and our need to consume something else before we need to get off the computer. Our attention span is so small in today’s media heavy internet.

I read your full initial post and am glad you are taking the time to write again, but unfortunately the days of engaging in debate or casual commentary I feel have passed. You might change that by taking a more personal approach like you have, but even the greatest articles now days get consumed and thrown to the bottom of some feed. Welcome Back. We are listening just no longer speaking.

I agree with Poesia’s point, just checking Tumblr, Flickr, 12oz has become a full-time job, let alone participate. However I also feel that forums in general have very heavily paid the price of sterile debates, threats, pre-and post-adolescent bravado and a general lack of the ability to accept and dish out criticism in a semi-intelligent manner. The debates you mentionned Mode, unless I am mistaken, also involved as serious sense of street ethics, knowing how to act and talk and each actor’s place in a particular scene. As a user of 12oz for quite a while, I had to witness too many pathetic debates ( which led to threads like Burners and Style, where talk is not encouraged) which I feel have discouraged many from engaging in potentially important discussions.
Also, some of us here actually like to read, so please rant on, I’m still digesting the last one, and it was a pleasure to read and re-read.
Serval

Unless it’s beef or something in this vein (take TAGMAG around 2000 or SASTER.NET in the last years ) , its hard to get the discussion going on..So ye as Servalito is saying, its mostly pathetic debates that will flow more easily.. Its only when you ran into a post by Futura or Phase2 back on the third rails (and its been a while that it didnt happened) that ideas and concepts will be discussed… the process is like you’ll get a reply and then nobody will go on.. Take for example the Inwood wall controversy , just one comment, and its over, (and this guy did talk).
Honestly i feel like this day, the only comment you will read everywhere will be the same, like ‘you a snitch’ or ‘you have no style’ and its over.. I remember when the discussion was hard at the time of the newsgroups, Espo and OmarNyc were at war…. but just like a red bird out of Jackson Av’ ,these times are truly over..

I had my blog open for comments in the past, but after countless anonymous attacks and spams with viagra etc
i decided to close it, i simply couldn’t keep up reading and deleting them at a fast pace, if someone
wants to take an argument, feel free to email me direct(at least i can see and respond back) this forum is
filled with keyboard gangsters….I been trying to contribute both in the forum and blog with quality content
for years, the debate and the new generation rarely speak up or post anything interesting, weak comments
they can keep for themselves…

Actually that’s a good point, the evolution of beef and competition in general could be part of the issue as well. Going back to the Covent Garden days, if I’m not mistaken, a lot of the discussions also occurred because there was a serious competition between groups and individuals. Live2break vs London All-stars, or the beef that led to the painting of the World Domination wall.
Beef now rarely involves a competition over style. add to that the fact that most writers who have been active for a while know each other and are in contact, it makes both competition difficult, but also other forms of criticism which could be more constructive.

It’s been a very busy summer, and I haven’t found the time to post anything new as yet, though I HAVE been writing a new topic at the back of my current sketchbook. I can’t really call it a black-book anymore, because it doesn’t have lots of lettering in, or invited guests.

I guess we could say that this is another sign that times have changed for some of us, when we rarely meet other writer friends, because it’s somehow safer to stay clear of the scene and look after my children. Still, I’m on the odd jam every now and then, and in any given debate about art or whatever, I WILL throw my two cents in, live and direct, and defend this culture that has permitted me to become what I became.

I could have followed other paths in life, but the drawing and painting would still have been the major player in the equation. It’s just that what some journalist called “Hip Hop” came along, and I chose to run with that instead. I still think to this day that it’s the most incredible youth culture that has ever come to be, and as the 20th century was so short, and internet and globalisation have more or less killed any chance of new “hands-on” cultures coming along, I would open my big mouth (yet again) and claim that what we had been offered in the early eighties is still the most complete counter-culture blueprint at our disposal.

As such, I do tend to be very defensive about it, and I cringe every time I hear that bullshit term “Street Art”; another journalistic invention which relegates “our” art to some kind of primitive folk-art pigeon-hole, while giving some newbies who can’t draw letters to save their lives the status that they don’t deserve.

Seeing as we do not comment, do not talk, do not take risks to open our mouths and say what we truly think to be right, all that other bullshit just keeps on consolidating its position, with regards to the wider audience out there. Of course we only really cared about the opinions of those who worked letter-shapes the way we did, or still do, but we don’t live on some kind of fantasy island or parallel universe. We are here, we have responsibilities, we need to be able to feed and house ourselves and our families, preferably without having to either resort to crime or compromise our form of expression. And yet, while taking care of these mundane things, we still have to remember the debt we owe to those who came before us, and who didn’t get anywhere near to the point of getting what they deserved from all of this.

I will therefore carry on speaking in their name, though I know very few of them personally, and I will comment where I feel that I should. I therefore would like to thank those of you who did respond to my post, though I must also add that I try not to spend too much time trawling on the web for stuff, which is why I am also not so often here. The tags, throw-ups and pieces that I like to see are the ones that I see on the streets or on the train-tracks, and even on the trains, live and direct. I prefer this kind of relationship with the culture than that of having to go virtual; though of course the internet provides also limitless access to information and images… if you know where and how to look.

Speak again soon…

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Mode2

I was born in Mauritius in 1967, spending my childhood under the sun of the Indian Ocean, before moving to the UK in July 1976. Punk had just started its own cultural revolution, while reggae and dub were ever present in the neighbourhood “blues” parties, as well as from the first real booming systems in the cars that would ever so often drive casually through the streets of Lewisham, South-East London. I did all of my schooling there, drawing since as far back as I can remember, spending my youth deep into comics, sci-fi and fantasy literature, as well as role-playing games such as “Dungeons & Dragons”. I can’t forget to mention what effect the release of Star Wars, in 1977, had on my vision of the world around me. Before even getting into J.R.R. Tolkien, this movie was definitely a milestone in my childhood, and stoked a fire for science-fiction and fantasy which would have me look at the world around me in a totally different way from before. All these influences, as well as the music coming from the radio, the TV and the street, were reflected in what I drew or painted; from comic strip characters to lead figurines, even to the odd oil portrait or landscape painting. After my school exams in summer ‘84, I started hanging out in Covent Garden, the hub of the London Hip Hop scene, which I had discovered the year before, walking through it with my mother and the younger of my older brothers. My drawing ability led me to pick up the marker and spray-can, doing anything from painting banners for the “Alternative Arts” centre, or customizing the trousers or jackets of some of the other people hanging out with me, whether they were dancers or Mc’s. I was soon trying to make a name for myself, along with my partner Scribla, then with Zaki Dee, Eskimo, and Xerox as The Trailblazers, and eventually as part of a crew called The Chrome , which I formed in the spring of 1985, around the time of a seminal gig called The Rapattack, at the Shaw Theatre in the Euston area of London. From summer ’84 on though, everything else came second to Hip Hop, and to that frantic rush to empty as many cans of paint as possible in the most beautiful way that I could, while filling up black-books full of letters and characters. I would take days off of school just to travel to Paris, with money earned from my first commissioned jobs; and there, alongside the legendary Bando, I became part of that small group of first generation European graffiti-writers who set down the foundations that others would follow. We honed our talent for sure, but I must admit that we were also lucky to be in the right place at the right time; surrounded by a lot of inspiring stimuli, and even more inspiring people. Then, in 1987, the cover of “Spraycan Art” exported my name and my characters to every corner of the planet where the culture had taken hold. I had told Henry that the New York writers were the ones deserved to be on the cover; but he explained that the publishers, Thames & Hudson, thought that the character I had done in Paris in September ’85 was the one that would best represent the content of the book to a wider audience, while underlining the global influence that the writing culture had acquired since 1984, and Henry and Martha Cooper’s previous book, Subway Art. So that was the end of that, and the beginning of disproportional fame, which did not actually bring that much recognition to my work, but instead made some friends’ attitudes towards me change somewhat. Still, I used what I could from this new status and moved on. Passionate about culture in general, I had started taking photos back in 1985, capturing the freshness, the vibe and the energy of the evolving Covent Garden scene around me, taken by the uniqueness of this phenomenon known as Hip Hop; where music, visual art, spoken word, percussion through the turntables, or corporal expression through dance all fed off of each other. This other passion has gone on ever since; burning rolls and rolls of 35mm film in compact cameras, trying out digital too, but not finding a digital compact camera which could do what light does to film emulsion. I spent loads of money on all of that, but haven’t made much use of my archives, aside from a few photos in the “Never Too Late…” book printed by the Lazarides Gallery in London, or else for one-off projections on certain events, beginning with one of the “Toxic” parties in Paris, back in early 2004. More recently though, I got the chance to have twenty prints made of my archive shots, for a show at the Galerie Issue in Paris; showing how people used to socialize before the advent of digital cameras, internet, and the mobile phone. The Hip Hop scene, no, not the rap crap, has always remained a source of inspiration for me; whether being on the edge of a circle with b-boys and b-girls going for theirs, or else having the luck to witness and hear a freestyle cipher in full flow; at Balboa Park for the B-Boy Summit in San Diego in early ’96, or earlier still outside the Def Jam Christmas party down on the waterfront district of NYC, in December ‘93. This is why I’m still doing the posters for the Battle Of The Year, for instance, while also sitting on its committee and remaining active for the promotion of dance as an art form in itself; not just an accessory to the video for some new dance track, or for some product advertising. Speaking of dance, I must also add that meeting Swifty at the end of ’96, when his studio was part of the “Progress In Work” show at the Blue Note Club in Hoxton, was also another turning point in my life. It got me back into the London scene again, though from a different perspective than in my previous years in Hip Hop; making for instance flyer illustrations for the Monday nights at Bar Rumba, which led on to other collaborations with the likes of Ross Allen at Island Blue, and Jazztronik in Japan. Though not at the forefront of the scene like before, while having to earn a living through commissioned work to support my family, and choosing to keep them away from curious eyes, I’m still present every now and again with the odd solo exhibition or group show, as well as doing painting performances on festivals such as Lovebox or Latitude, and even on the odd Hip Hop jam. You may have noticed that I’m also generally obsessed by the female figure, which I’ve always enjoyed drawing, mostly from my own imagination, though also resorting to life drawing, or from my own photos, and even the odd sample from the internet once in a while. I try not to have a fixation on any given body type or shape; trying to draw more natural curves, while also trying to push for an indeterminate racial type which makes it easier for the female spectator to identify with… While I may sometimes be expressing some rather harsh realities, or make use of some quite graphic and explicit imagery, I try somehow to breathe into it a hint of hope and positivity, trying to inspire and empower those who either discover my work for the first time, or else those who are already followers of my path since years. Through what I do, I try to communicate the kind of energy that could either help people to overcome some of the obstacles of daily life, or else to give them added vision in the search for answers to some of the questions that come up in life’s more long-term issues. Still, when looking back over the years, what had helped me to really make my name was what many would call graffiti, though it was actually called “writing”, by those who practiced it and made it evolve. Having taken note of the general disregard that the art media and intelligentsia have for this discipline, I am still striving to promote its importance in having democratized the access to expression with shape and colour, for many young people across the world. The tag, the lowest common denominator of writing, records the movement of he or she who executes it; revealing through its size and shape whether or not it was done from the wrist, the elbow or the shoulder; showing which can or marker had its perpetrator used, and betraying whether or not they had any sense of letter-dynamics, rhythm, and harmony. Ultimately, you can read how somebody dances through their arms or with letters, by looking at the size and shape and complexity of their tags or throw-ups… More recently then, I have been come back to these roots of what some may call Hip-Hop, and the links which bind its different component disciplines together; the musical, visual and corporeal language that they have in common, sharing similar notions of style, form and rhythm which dissociates them from other cultural forms of expression. Music, dance, and drawing or painting, have always been part of my life, and each of these disciplines have been there to support me when another was going through some trying times. This “reunion” is actually a logical step in my evolution; expressing the interdependency of these components which make up its whole. There is for me a direct link between a particular sequence programmed into a drum-machine, a particular sequence of steps, twists and turns which make up a dance move; and the way in which we weave letter-shapes one into the other, in order to form a tag, a throw-up or a full-colour piece. The notion of rhythm running through all three of these forms of expression is the same which binds them together within our culture; a vision of a world full of movement, of syncopation, off-beat and on-beat, of flow and of harmony; the sum of these elements being characterized by a driving force of positive energy, an empowering and healing force. Yes, I’m known for my figurative contribution to spray-painting, and my characters may be what have helped to make me famous; but I’ll always stick to the shaping of letters as well, not forgetting that many other skilled hands and eyes are out there watching and judging what I choose to put out there. As for the art intelligentsia and the cultural elites, those who attempt to pigeon-hole us, catalogue and categorize us; this all remains beyond them. However knowledgeable they may be about past and contemporary art forms, this is something that can only really be explained by those who practice it, and that means those who have practiced long enough or who are skilled enough to have a true understanding of its blueprint. If you haven’t tried to do it for a certain amount of time, you just will not be able to fully grasp its principles; at least not to the level where you can have the pretension to make assumptions about it. Ours is a “hands on” culture by definition, and, up until today, this whole spectrum of shape and tone and rhythm still eludes definition by those from outside of it; not that we wish to be exclusive, as communication and the act of giving are an essential part of our form of expression. I have always strived to build bridges between myself and those who are not from within the culture; finding the parallels that we have in common, and using those as bridges over which we can make an individual or an audience feel the energy that drives us. I have met restaurant and panini chefs, electricians and plumbers, who are more Hip Hop than certain individuals who either just dress the part, or have still not understood how deep this whole thing actually goes. Those who control the established and accepted art media will still continue to talk about what they don’t understand, using vocabulary which does not fit the form and dynamics of what my predecessors as well as some of my contemporaries have given me the capacity to express myself with. We, in the meantime, despite the plague of communication technology, will continue to evolve and refine what we do, choosing where and when we wish to reach out to the public, and give from what makes us feel alive.

http://www.mode2.org
Europe

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