TRAPHOUSE TALKS GRAFFITI AND MENTAL HEALTH

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TRAPHOUSE (TATTOOIST/GRAFF WRITER/MUSICIAN)
Todays podcast is with a Graff Tattoo Music hybrid, part human part machine, the artist namedTraphouse. Representing street culture to the fullest with an eye fully focussed on his creative executions we get deep on Graff, his transition into Tattooing, music, clothing and more. If you’re in a dark place, this is some heavy inspirational talk for you! This is Traphouse’s Podcast. Documenting the Graffiti Artists of History past, before their critical acclaims and contributions to the urban arts.
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KILLA KELA

TRAPHOUSE (TATTOOIST/GRAFF WRITER/MUSICIAN)
podcast transcript
KILLA KELA: Ladies and gentleman this is the Killa Kela podcast you know where it's at central London or central as you need to be alright Killa Kela Watchtower be sure that the graffiti kings and yeah it gives me great pleasure. Oh by the way subscribe, share, tell friend to tell a friend. Okay this is the weekly business this is a graff special, as we do and I'm here with a favorite of mine at the moment. He's doing his thing hard and heavy goes by the name of Trap House, how are you brother?
TRAPHOUSE : Living well, doing well.
KK: Moving well, moving well. I mean you know your south, I'm Northwest took a little bit journey to get over innit?
T: Yeah yeah.
KK: Been bit of hot stint of weather as well.
T: I like I like the cold I like the wet man, I'm not, I'm not like a summer fan.
KK: mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean who isn't in, in this climate of graff, you know you need to have the weather on your side don't you. I've been watching your trajectory for a minute man and I have to say like I mean branding on point the whole the whole anonymity, not just within graff which is just, that’s a given. Everything to do with what you're about has this mystique and you're able to adapt and I want to get into so many topics with you because you've got so many arms to what you do, you mean.
T: Let's go, lets go.
KK: It's going like where, where do you begin in creating the brand that makes that I mean ATG did a real fucking good job at it. Where did you begin with the whole trap house project. where did it all begin?
T: Um fuck, I think everything I've been doing in my life had all been accumulating to craft the fucking skills that I'd then put to use 2016, early 2016. I think mmm February, January, February. Yeah, boom around then I fucking I broke up with a girl in a severe way.
KK: It’s always a good start. I swear to god.
T: Live and direct, yeah. It fucked me up quite a bit because I wasn't expecting it and and and a lot of the things was, was, was about my lifestyle which this bitch was completely aware of in entirely before we was together.
KK: It’s like they don’t know what they are signing up for.
T: Bruv, But it's deeper than that it's deeper than that but work what, what, what I'd always dabbled with was all the things that I'm now doing in a much more serious manner.  Do you get what I mean but, I think like I was um not that I was a chat shit guy but I, uh I always thought that you know. Like I had in my head somewhere that you know like do this music thing. I liked tattoos I've consumed a lot of it growing up and I had a mad interest in it. So, I always thought that I was gonna do that ,as well as gonna do these enough things that are there but I never actually did all I was doing was crime do you know what I mean. and the way things ended with her was that things, couldn’t work out with that being my lifestyle. and it was it, was it, was you know in a fucking proper shit way that got to me the, the things she said you know fucking in emails I had time to fester.
KK: Oh no.
T: That’s proper horrible isn’t it, do you know what I mean.
KK: harsh.
T: sat there on a laptop.
KK: Cos they can list that shit as well.
T: Ah man its deep. definitely be in a conversation, you  could forget that quicker, my mom looking at
me I'm reading it and it's things like it starts to attack who I am as well “like you'll never be”.
KK: Those are fighting words to me bro.
T: You'll never be a tattoo artist. You’ll never fuck you, you'll never make it in music, your just full of shit, you're gonna be nothing but fucking gangster your whole life and that's not someone I can be with. And not saying I did what I did pursuing the creative life out of trying to get this bitch back, but it was more out of spite that drove like the initial let me fuckin’ let me prove this bitch wrong.
KK: Yeah, yeah.
T: Good part of life which is nice of me because I'm very petty of spiteful as well. I believe highly in a revenge. It’s one of the best things in life. I think, I think it was like a year or two in intellect being successful with with these creative things or seemingly successful to, to the outside world. Fucking she finds me on Instagram, hits me up says like she's been watching my journey from start. Obviously, all girls do this, if you don't know all girls that you fuck with have a secret Instagram that they watch you with. You never know they, but they have it this would.
KK: Right, every single like, girls come on now, be honest there ain't many of you out there that don't love a good Inspector Clouseau program, some sort of like detective forensics.
T: All of it. everyone's, that everyone, has that that backup would that they, get them to investigate you don't mean, let me let me spy.
KK:  As if she wasn't the one that done that the ditching. She then becomes the one that does the probing. That’s mad yeah that's what they do. That's what happens to a lot of, lot of exes.
T: Yeah, her life took a turn, I don't think a good one. I think when, when we parted ways my trajectory
was up, her’s was down and I was very happy to revel in That makes me happy, now still.
KK: Is that an aggression from a from a males point of view. I mean, I'm obviously don't get me wrong, that from a female point of view. I think it's if you're the one that's been dumped, there's two things that come into play there. First of all you have this,  I will prove you wrong, because you don't think, I'm good enough, but the flipside of it as well is people galvanized to people that have been dumped, rather than the person's doing the dumping. All friends, they all come together and it's like the energy becomes on you because you've been dumped. You know what I’m saying.
T: hmm, yeah I've always kept like my my private like relations and that very very short and not secretive but like I wouldn't I wouldn’t like to discuss like I if ever asked it mean what happened with you and so so.
KK: Yeah, it’s no business I get that.
T: fuckin’ yeah focusing energy on, on something positive is, is, is the best the best solution to everything really.
KK: yeah and just to go back a little bit you saying about, do, do, do, you right, just go back on what your sayin. Sorry I’m choosing.
KK: there’s a lot of tangents there bro. So yeah this is my intentions. I’m chasing my roots on this one because I don't, I don't want to get, deep on any of the things you might have done. That would have alluded to her breaking up with you. But, but do you feel like there wasn't you was, you we’re creative but there was an idleness to that because you were busy doing other things and as soon as you broke up with her that idleness and wandering mind and being preoccupied and other things you suddenly had that focus. like pin prick focus.
T: All right cool, it's not that like
KK: that was alright wasn’t it?
T: That was all right. Well one thing that, I wanna, I wanna make clear is that only never like I was never like lazy. If it came to what I was doing I believe that I did that very well and very effectively and that's, that's why when I transferred that knowledge and experience and work ethic into something else, it allowed me to go the way that it went. Fucking if you if you have come from that life you possess all the knowledge skills and experience in the real world business and how to you like what, what I think a lot of people, that come from the same like background and life is that they think that being legit is like something super difficult, do you know I mean but when, when, when you actually like put it on paper and you look at like what you're doing on a like on a CV, like how it looks like in the corporate world or business or something like that, you actually have like a lot of fuckin skills and experience. That puts you ahead of someone that doesn't like, someone for example, you can, you can go to college, university, study in business and like studying um, entrepreneurship, you can get a degree.
KK: it's a thing yeah that's right.
T: But you can go to school for as long as you want nothing beats education better than experience.
KK: A thousand percent,
T: If you have the experience. You, you have a better chance at succeeding in in business, than the kid that went to university, study in business.
KK: there's no, the conventional way going to school is completely undermined by the kind of levels of lessons, you learn in in just approaching life with vigor you know just going for it right.
T: yeah but I think, I think on the main, the main thing that, that maybe I looked at that that held me back in and told that I guess that catalyst that that turn things around or the point where I wanted to do something else, I was in was I just always, always thought,  it was like um beyond me, do you know what I mean. I think fucking it takes, like fucking it usually takes for a lot of people something to happen or like Something, something, some , some ..
KK: trigger
T: Some trigger yeah for like some behavior to change do you know what I mean.
KK: I think if you, I think that's a good thing though isn't It?
T: For sure
KK: Something that ignites like that.
T: Yeah, you can trace it in everyone like everyone that ever, ever started doing something there was there was like a reason why that’s why it started to happen. I mean and that’s usually like. It’s usually like I would say in equal weight to the amount they do it. Do you know what I mean. 
KK: uh. no explain.
T: Okay so I like um, if it's something really massive and dramatic like you hear a lot when someone someone has like a massively dramatic or traumatic event in their life yeah then all of a sudden like equally they.
KK: Come out of the ashes.
T:  Yeah, yeah and they have that that weight of power towards whatever they're doing yeah. Whereas like if you kind of like, if you kind of like poppin through life and things ain't really that bad,  they're not really that good and you just coastin in like the mid range, that's why there's a lot of people that just cost for the mid range. You might not go through any of.
KK: and put that there and, and some downplay. Other people play up to the trauma or something that they've suffered which, which sometimes is the wrong attitude to embrace isn't it. So I guess it's different for different people innit. I mean and also it depends what you'll you're basing your, your reaction how you're basing your work rate on that like if you if you're doing writing if your doing graff this is only an assumption like you have a traumatic moment or something goes down that just mmm that just elevates the attack and the aggression and it.
T: Oh,100 think, I think um, I think like writing is like the fuckin is it it's the same as like fucking I know like the Blues are something isn't that like just, sad music yeah like you had to have something sad happen for you to make the Blues like for.
KK: Ah it's just the creative blues, yeah. Oh my god, that's cool.
T: Listen when you think about like the most up writers as all the times that people like the most active in there and is it career? in your writing journey? was usually like in a bad time. Do you know what I mean like when, when things are at like the worst your writing the most - I mean it, it restores like I think a lot of like fucking self power.
KK: Yeah
T: Do you know what I mean? I think that's originally, why like a lot of like people in a situation, I found myself in what I was born into you do, you mean when you're from like a low income fucking family area everything and you kind of feel like I knowingly or unknowingly if you feel like you don't have much power you don't have much control over your life you don't have many options with Graff, you can take control of.
KK: Make your power.
T: Yeah you can make something of it, you can make a name you can feel bigger than that. yeah that thing that you've given it's now like a whole you're choosing the name, that you write you're choosing where to put it you're like you the amount you go hard with that is what you get back.
KK: Yeah yeah, it's a fine line, isn't it? because we're kind of talking mentally from a retrospective point of view that comes with a lot of looking inside yourself what you're talking about now is you know there be people that are watching this I've gone through that and I've not shaking and nodding their heads with you. You know there's other people that may not have even got to that point yet.
T: But graff is there for them.
KK: Yeah, yeah but graff is there for them.
T: Yeah, exactly. That's it is whenever they come across it is when they come across it, I think fucking is it something like fucking I think I'll always have love for writers Because, I, I have a understanding.
KK: Yeah yeah
T: I get it. Do you know what I mean. Whoever it is, whatever they are doing. I mean even writers that I don’t like... I still have a level of respect for them because they.
KK: Totally.
T: They are part my thing yeah. I mean, you're part of the thing that I found out of like some sort of like fucking some pain do you mean .
KK: It's pain, it’s pain and you know what but it's so fucking, I ask people this all the time I say to them yeah. Oh, did he graff save your life and nine times out of ten they say, yeah. and what's awesome for me when you think about it is regardless of the pigeonhole that people put writers is in or what certain people of classes, think of it generations, think of it the amount of people, it's saved in lives way out numbers the consequences of if they weren't doing graff it could have been so different. it could have been so much more, worse but this thing this culture this community this scene governors of how much it may have cost a taxpayer over the decades it saved lives, lives, do you know what I’m saying.
T: yeah, yeah for sure.
KK: shit’s crazy
T: sure, I think fuckin I'm seeing it as well now like through, through what I'm doing, I'm, I'm traveling I'm going to places all around the world and I find fuckin good people immediate like fuckin well where was I fuckin Melbourne Sydney making graff meets.
KK: yeah they've got great scene over there's as well.
T: Like it's a beast that's probably been to Korea as all but that's pretty fucking far away, it's like one of the furthest places to go a distance wise from here. and to find like someone you immediately fuck with through Graff. I mean just through graph you're gonna find like it's a lot of common ground. I mean it's a very like if you've a writer you see graff everywhere and you think it's this big thing but really, it's a very small fraction of the population. I mean especially like who's up, who's actually, active it's very like these are very not only a handful, it's more than that because there's a lot of people who write it but it's not in terms of how many people there are in the world, how many people there are in that city, there's only like a very, very, small few scene you are like you're part of a very tight community. Like whether you know it or not you're all part of like a one thing, a one very small thing.  I think you could probably fuckin you can only fit, like if you thought hard enough you could probably like name the active in your head right now.
KK: Which is amazing, and I'm always surprised by how many people check this podcast internationally you know you don't realize it from a UK standpoint how broad it goes. With beatboxing can only really refer to and people say why you always going on about beatboxing?? it's the truth right? I thought I can only really refer to this but with a scene like that it has a very similar um infrastructure like you go to another country there's no I there's no language. it's beatboxing so you see these kids talking to themselves like beatboxing is fucking batshit crazy. but it's amazing the only difference though that I feel with the graff side to this, because it's still an anonymity to that the design and the pieces. Like your styles yours, you know I mean they're doesn't talk, you know you speak with what’s on the wall you don't have to talk. You see it but it's by design that you you are elusive and you're there's a there's a way in which graff writers carry themselves, that it's solitude. It's like that's my, this is my shit you know, it's not there is a connectivity like beatboxing or like what you're talking about but I just feel like there's a level of respect that is just the unwritten rule of like that's your style, that's your thing.
T: but with that that comes on that's it that's like some social psychological shit.  Yeah a fucking an outlet letting something out is a a vulnerable intimate thing to share so for you to share music, you to share are you to for you to bring anything from inside creatively out and share that. There's a super, super like deep thing you you as as the sharer of have an emotional connection to that thing and with other people's experience of it that's why I like, I can speak for myself someone who goes over my shit. I cannot help the feeling of wanting to hurt .
KK: because you're giving it voluntary.
T: something I feel like way about I mean this is my thing. yeah um fuckin the same the same we like fucking music, like you you listen to someone that shares something about themselves and you you build that like familiarity in connection with, with obviously like… music's a lot more direct because they can actually verbalize the fucking things they're talking about. You build that closer connection you like ah like I relate to this guy and you have that respect in that connection.
KK: It’s personal.
T: through that that thing that they've shared together and I think like with, with graff you but if it's difficult to, to articulate it as well because it it's a thing that's like I've always seen. It's quite like a hard thing to do not like in difficulty wise but you know quite like I know, I think when I come in to graff it you couldn't be a pussyhole, do you know what I mean. You couldn't fucking you, wouldn't survive as a writer if he was a nick if he was gonna get fucking someone goes over your shit, don't go back over it because you're scared of what they might do, something like that then you're fucked.
KK: you already out
T: again, this isn't for you, you know what I mean.
KK: it's all that competitive edge yeah, that’s right
T: I take something quite like tough but essentially, you're putting pretty paintings on the wall I mean it's not it's not that tough guy stuff.
KK: it the back stories, it's behind the curtain it's like retaliating if there is if necessary, it's the it's the, the athleticism that comes with it.
T: When you look at like on like rap, rap is quite like you consider it to be quite hard as well. As I mean it's like aggressive subject matter. Might be about fucking crime and but there is poetry. You are like poetically rhyming words in rhythm it's a lot softer in like really. Like if you're sat alone in your room like writing words that rhyme and expressing what's on your mind and getting it out and that's a super like creative outlet. that's a super like emotional vulnerable thing to share.
KK: so where does edge come from?
T: like what do you mean?
KK: like well like in in context, eh like a in context of a rap like you say it's poetry. There's different forms in that ship but where does that narrative kick in? whereby people suddenly think that shit is dangerous, how does that come about it's branding, right?
T: hmm I don't know like people will always be dangerous and you're getting a you'll get a fucking a madman in an office that's a serial killer, do you know what I mean. just cos he types documents all day. Yeah, but the difference is with creative outlets like music and things are more connected to more people so they're more of a high profile thing. If they do, do violent sort, if  that does become dangerous.
KK: and I guess that filters down into the you know with every one bad man, there's, there's another four or five imitators below that kind of you know, they adopt the the attitude. Yeah so if then formulate it turns  into a bad thing like I guess maybe Punk did back in the day.
T: I'm not too savvy about Punk. I don't really know anything about but what, what I do know like in behavior on like people is the same way. I think everyone has a certain desire for power at some level whether they admit it or not everyone wants some sort of power in general and if you if you're looking at someone that seemingly has more power than you and that's the thing that you desire. I can completely understand why someone would emulate aspects or do you know what I mean. Characteristics of the person with power. They admire all the people with power. They admire if you look at like I don't know again like fucking, low-income areas and you've got powerless youth looking up at seemingly powerful people that do certain things, behave a certain way yeah. Be centered and emulate that of course, they're getting bigger than views, they're getting money they're getting, they're getting more control, they have more power of course like you're gonna you're gonna do what you know and if that's what you know then that's what you do you mean.
KK: I think it's very hard thing to consider. I was thinking about this only a couple of days ago um in the gym like at the alpha male behavior. I mean I'm one of those people that kind of like to try and sit within the middle, I'm not really like I don't have alpha tendencies like that but sometimes you've watched these people in those close environments you know and yes some people they they're attracted to the alpha male. They really gravitate to it and you see the behaviour in certain situations, and this is it's a real thing isn't it .
T: When you say gravitate to elaborate.
KK: Well they're the alpha male of the of the gym or the street you know people gravitate to it almost like prospects to the idea, that they want to that's the way to be it's very hard to remove yourself from that and remember that the, the positioning of things and that you know you don't have to be like that or if you are going different route about it or do you know what I mean, just know yourself.
T:  Whether that's, I think that's that goes down to the same thing, I saying like everyone, everyone has and inner desire for power in some form. Yeah and you will like you are attracted to everyone, everyone is too I mean. Well I think like people's behavior is definitely or like it's a reflection of what's going on inside. Alot of people that if they behave anyone that behaves in a sad or negative way or does anything harmful or disruptive to anyone or anything else is sad inside. Something is broken inside something's not right, that's why there doing that and I think like that's why that combination of being broken and unhappy and power leads to like bad things. Yeah I mean you don't see someone who's happy and powerful doing bad thing.
KK: its hard to keep control of your own self if those are the emotions you're feeling isn’t there hmm um back tracking a little bit.
T: Anywhere you wanna go man.
KK: yeah, wicked cool.  I want to go back a little bit cos you were talking about the aggression side of things. Um you've had an aggression with graff still do.
T: fan art, fan art. I’ve  never done graff.
KK: Fan art, with fan art naturally and we're talking in retrospect here by the way.
T: go on.
KK:  but with your tattooing, do you still attack or the same aggression. Cos this is this is some awesome shit by the way, you know. I love the adaptation of that and I do celebrate that with graff um but yeah do you attack with the same aggression in your tattooing is there is there an attack to that there's.
T: the most simple, equation is the more you put in the, more you get out. It that simple as I guess like when, when 2016 March I, I rented a hotel for two months, I bought smartphone downloaded the Instagram, twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and I was attacking all social medias with the same fucking hyperactivity. I mean if you if you post six times a day, you're you're gonna just get more results. It doesn't matter if each individual post, doesn't get as many interactions that, are overrule you like hyperactive do you know what I mean. I think in those in those two months the way that I spent my time was, non-stop like as soon as I woke up. I was either drawing new designs or I was tattooing someone or I was doing
something in that direction. It's getting every single motion and movement and I was sleeping a lot less which is it's not cool but I don't advise it. Sleep is vital if you damage your brain and your mind and mental health if you don’t. But when I was in that mold and I wanted to achieve what, I wanted to achieve, I spent a lot of time like and I think to sit for eight hours in pure, consistently design after design after design is mind-numbing for two months back to back and that's just that's that's the eight hours of drawing let alone.
KK: stir-crazy bro.
T: actual like tattooing, do you know what I mean. and I was still serving at the time as well. there was a lot of activity going on. I was exhausted all of the time but after the first two months there was massive results. was it massive.
KK: I fucking love that. I love that, that's the shit I'm talking about. I love that, hype I love it.
T: But that's, that's, that's the same thing you see fucking anything if you go to the gym and you do pair weights every day, all the time. you're gonna be bland quick. yeah ,yeah a lot quicker than… .
KK: and the same science applies to every fucking, everything.
T: actually everything, so like when it comes to like, what I'm doing now, I'm spending my time on music which is a massive thing for me that's something that I'd been doing since I was a kid, but obviously i fucking I didn't pursue it in the same manner that I have done fucking tattooing, things like that.  2020 is my year, I’m coming.
KK: Fuckin’ watch this.
T: anyway. I'll back it up with some action and talk less about it, fuckin’
KK: your all good brother, this is a podcast man. you talk all you want brother.
T: graff and tattooing, all that for all these things. Like fucking all on my time now I spend
on those creative outlets, do you know what I mean. I have I have a fucking I have a destination in mind I have a fuckin, purpose and I seen like you can hear it a thousand times. You can hear it from there's many different people in in the same message, in different ways that are, you can be anything you want to be if you just fucking put your mind to it. And then you hear it in the end like, that message loses its like impact, do you know what I mean. Now like the way that like fucking, I have this super fucking, overwhelming confidence in the next ventures, that I'm gonna take is because I know, factually if I behave in this manner, its only a matter of time before I boss, do you know what I mean? Yeah it's only like a certain amount of reps until I'm at the goal.
KK: I know, exactly what you mean.
T: and that's just time and I'm patient as well. um I mean no rush and I think a lot of people are disheartened by the rush, do you know what I mean. People, they're fucking just I guess don't make it in time that's all it is they just didn't make it in the time that they thought they was going to. a lot of people, think I mean you're gonna fucking blow up and be a massive rapper before 20 and then they get to 20 and they're like well it didn't happen. So I'm gonna check that dream, do something else, whatever, whatever. do you know what I mean. I think fucking the the formula or fucking put in time, energy and effort into something super aggressively and like fully like committing and believing in yourself and that thing will fucking guarantee what you want out of it. a hundred percent it's just a matter
of time that's it.
KK: that's fire
T: that's it.
KK: I do take a lot of keys from writers and the aggressiveness in which they that post. You can take a lot you can take a lot from that and take a lot from gang and take a lot from rap, you can adapt anything to just work rate and just drill the fuck out of it until you find oil. people get hung up on a little shit like what time to post something or what time is the stars set with the third dimension to the moon open my fucking mind and all sudden I'm creative. it's like no just like a open fucking book and start, just go. 
T: action, action
KK: Its crazy how people operate isnt it?
T: yeah, but the thing the thing as well you got to clock like it might take you a certain amount of time to fucking to get on to someone, wanted to get on to, something do you know what I mean? like you could be doing this podcast another couple years before someone comes across it and then watches them all from the beginning up to recent. Doing like fucking, it's just,  it's just fucking you don't have can control, like not control. You can't like say that, I know this the destination. I'm gonna get to this, by this time, you can maybe make a guess or like a hopeful optimistic like assumption of when it's gonna happen but you, you never know man. There's, there's, there's nothing there's nothing to gain from trying to watchthat or trying to fuck you into me like, ah the way I got to do this is, this is, there's nothing and actually I should really listen to my own bars that I'm spitting out, now there's nothing there's nothing else to do but to do it.
KK: Yeah that’s right what else you gonna do.  What the fuck, this is what I’m saying. I feel and just you know bear in my we haven't really talked too much before we jump straight into this but I do feel that you are very self-educated in this and you if, you're if, anyone like me I take information I put it in a box in my head and I leave it and then all the sudden out of nowhere, I'll be in a state of flux or trying to figure something out and I remembered a thing in the box, oh that, yeah because you know schooling doesn't do that for you so much you have to find the information yourself and almost like form it in a way that works in conjunction with the way you know you operate. do you feel like you've educated yourself to a point like with the tattooing, that self-taught the music, self-taught yeah. is it case that you've you've really gotta be fuckin interested in this shit.
T: yeah.
KK: there’s layer to this.
T: a philosophy and we could talk about like the determinism and that and like was I just always predetermined to fuckin do the things that I'm doing. and did it,  do I have free will? that's the fuckin. but to to look at it like fucking what I'm an education and what what the way that I am in a way that I behave in and wounding one doing or how I'm doing it, whatever so how many of .I went to five different secondary
schools.
KK: five.
T: a one a year
KK: secondary .
T:yes.
KK: that’s one a year geez.
T: I have through that through my behavior through all of these things have developed or was always hyper social, do you know what I mean.
KK: yeah yeah.
T: so I've always had like a vast network of people and by the time I
was 16. I'd interacted with a lot more people than average kid my age.
KK: which is so sick
T: then I was yes serving up times and I've got a job doing telly sells, telemarketing on the phone which means,  that I think on a day speak to from one to two hundred people a day, on the phone some then interact with more people more people more people.
KK: and you're selling, your in the selling game.
T: they, they pay for me to get a customer service, NVQ. that's the only formal education of I’ve got to my life. but um the, the, the other thing is I've lived in a lot of different areas in London as well, and I've moved around and created different social circles through doing that. so by the time it came to my business and things that I was doing all of that hyper, social behaviour on, knowing the amount of people that I did and all of that enabled me to do, what I did right. So then when something like social media comes along. I'm already well versed and experienced in interacting with a lot of different people at scale and I think, that I gravitated towards something that's like that is that's what I had been subjected to an experienced.
KK: which is life skills, in abundance.
T: so my education is more in people and understanding of people then I don't know, like in written english or whatever, science or something.
KK: your certainly a communicator. your people's person.
T: I love it.
KK: you do, don’t ya. I can tell, its good.
T:  I got to the point now, where I want to see I want to see if I'm…. I'm gonna test it. I'm gonna see if I'm right. can I fucking can I help this gonna help this person with their thing, just with the formula I've got in my head. can I help your business can I help it grow? like do this this this and this let me let me see execute that show me the results.
KK: that's fire.
T: and I like this point now, I've done it with, I can't incriminate myself.
KK: you don't have to go too far.
T: no, no some business legitimate businesses, illegitimate business is any like but I guess my involvement is is marketing I don't know what the corporate real world terminology, is me for what it is, but like my knowledge is for what it is and experience and advice helps someone's business because it's very it's very rare to find someone who's like inclined to do craft or a thing that is also super business savvy and super like social war like hyper.
KK: Fine line, I agree.
T: so I think I can find you so many like really fucking like talented people that are really good at a specific thing that they do. The reason their business is not at the top of where it could be is because they lack that business element. To it which is no fault of their own and and it shouldn't take anything away from Them. But like for myself why, why I blew up in Tattooing, the way that I did is because I could sell it better. Hands dow.  like there's that point when I when I popped off in 2016 up until like myself up now I'm still reigning champion I guess.
KK: who’s podcast this is yes come on, gas up.
T: yes, well fucking but it was definitely a point, like hands down,  I was the most popular most popping tattoo artist in the city,  do you know what I  mean and I think London is the biggest and best city in the world like as well.. Like if can pop up here the world is mine right, yeah that let me just fuckin dwell on that. that's fucking sick as well by the way that's it yeah.
KK: yeah for real.
T: sick,I just fucking threw myself off I was thinking I've got to gassed up on that.
KK: love it. do you think with the authenticity, that you collected through the
period of 2016 to now, yeah fuckin him working with A$AP rocky, Skepta this was
like they, they came through integrity, know what I'm saying? That plays a massive part in it and I don't think that always comes down. We all know the story, it's like 20 percent talent, the rest is work ethic and just hustle and a and a tiny bit of timing.
T: yeah, yeah.
KK:  that the likes of which could come to you on that level, do you think they in equal measure, respect how you,  did it?  did they respect all the work rate and ethic and you know? do you think that plays a big part?
T: in those individual?.
KK: yeah.
T: I dunno, I never asked.
KK: its an interesting idea tho.
T: though I'd like to think that fucking but,  then again you never know why people are fucking watching or not watching, sorry or have the feelings they have towards something. why they consume it ,yeah. I mean people 100 percent I guarantee there's people watching this now purely because they dislike me. Exactly, exactly, you can never tell why someone is consuming, what they are consuming but you can you can make a summation of like I mean the the fact is involved in and why the majority does.
KK: like Cosa, I totally admire his work rate. what he stands for we is as a he's the embodiment but I'm also like incredibly like drawn to Eine and how the Eine signs thing has come and is so like out in the public. And how he got to that point from where he came from and seeing him come up, like these two parallels, I mean I'm wondering if they can they work together simultaneously
T: it depends how, how they're inclined. Do you know what I mean, like he won't, who wants, what not everyone wants the same thing.They, I mean, I think fucking it it really depends on on where you want to go and where you want to be. Do you know what I mean, some, some,  people might not share he same destination. I mean studied like their, their will for that destinations. I mean so it might not make sense, I mean but I think fuckin I think, fuckin my destination on that Gary Vee shit. Happiness my man says it so well. I mean he says it's so on it's very very true. yeah I just think my man articulates it a lot better and I can right now.
KK: Gary if he's like a lot of people's fuckin stepdads, seconds dads.
T: this guy he, he fuck. he articulates the message very well on very clearly and I think fuckin what, what I'm trying to say is said a lot better than him but happiness is the goal for me. and I think I think it is consciously or subconsciously the goal for everyone else. some people might be happy with it with a certain level that their life is out and what they would they've got I mean. 
KK: and I think fuckin happiness changes everything it makes things a lot
more, liveable. 
T: what we're talking about here like, what who makes a business out of what and I think before I threw myself off by like wanking myself off about what I've achieved and that is is that fucking I was able to sell something better. that's, that's, that's what I was what I was getting at because there is other tattoos that were more experienced they were better technically maybe conceptually. Their art was more interesting more people however, whatever but I sold it better. Therefore, I why moved in, I did it. I mean in the way that I did.
KK: trap house as a as a name as it comes with a it comes with Baggage. It comes with imagery, it comes with a thing. very current it's a very current idea yeah, the Trap House.
T: it has become popular it wasn't always. I remember I remember fucking shortening. that was something one you wouldn't really now everyone will be a drug dealer.
KK: a trap Queen, if they wanted. You know what I mean. you know this is this
is that and then you know coupled that with the heavy graffiti influenced, at you fan art that you've, you've been accustomed to receiving and acquiring and then and then marry that with the tattoo world the music you know and you've got yourself a fucking tour de force you know I mean.
T: yeah I think I thinkin time will telling it um, I'm planning to just bath in in all. Those suspects, someone, someone asked me a question that fucking just really help us things into perspective me, yeah was if you had it all all the money everything we could want. yeah if you had it all how do you spend your time if you like and like money, wasn't an issue so you never had to work. your house is sorted is paid for you never have to worry about rent.  like everyone else is fine you're, good everything's that you literally don't have to work how would you spend your time what would you do? like what would you enjoy doing if money wasn't the object if that was that was not the drive, hundred percent I'd I'd fucking graff all day long. I'd fucking tattoo you because that's what I like to do I'll make a shitload of music see if I can do that now why am I waiting for that money for.
KK: hey for real .
T: anything that's gonna come and I don't care about it if it does or it doesn't I'm still doing the thing that I would do if I was a billionaire.
KK: and those disciplines you talk about are you actually doing  these are the only other genres that mirror that beatboxing. Perhaps but skateboarding you know it's like these are thankless giving creative responses to things that you know a  looking skateboarders don't even expect to get sponsored lot of them burn themselves and they you know do their joints in before they even hit 25 and then got paid but they just love doing it there's such a beautiful fucking place in your head to be. 
T: had to be yeah I'm super interested in that. I wanted to fucking, I wanted to get um I
wanted to make a skate tape with the hated.
KK: big up the hated. all day.hold tight.
T: ohmy god I think fucking um I think tha, tha twhole that whole scene in that whole all
world interests me. Crazy I also like I like um I found myself like I don't know how it comes up maybe after I've looked at his shit. it comes up, a sponsor something I just see like a kate tape and it's done like I guess like a music video or something like way it's editing and that is done in the sec clips of like some other shit and so that I just bear interested in that yeah
KK: do you remember old school 411 skate videos back in a day. you may not remember they were like so it was almost like jackass meets like some crazy old 90s MTV
T: them lot was skateboarders in it yeah
KK: and so was all of dirty Sanchez, they were .
T: that was the birth of it. in it later skate tape right yeah cool that's that's not talking
about you so he was making skate tapes with funny shit in between, yeah then they then it became, like the, the funny shit became the more prominent aspect of.
KK: what I used to love the most was they always had their name as if like crediting  themselves .like it was worth crediting, you know. Silliest shit now. but respect this guy credit him yeah.
T: but that's the same as This as the formula they're skating mixtapes and that same formula. 
KK: yeah like I am a product placement idea which I kind of put it to a friend of mine who's in a punk band, you know or like we've always skated kids and guys going up and you Know, they'll go out and do like as as many takes on a skateboard as a person would do a selfie, these days you know I mean they make it till it's fucking great. They put it out but with all these videos that are now easily like recordable. you know people need to be sending their tunes m to these kids. Cos then they can just over either tunes and then the songs get associated with the skateboard videos and it kind of creates that vibe. that they used to when the videos back in the day
T: someone smashed it with um I think I think very similar that little nas X. he made that tune and then he made memes, then he then he, he put that song in different contexts and just release and then.
KK: flooded it.
T: one thing I always I always fought this yeah and I and I called it.  I don't know if I'm righ. I don't know if I'm wrong but there was that tune with Drake in the colorful thing in his bear memes with it. Hotline bling.
KK: that’s it.
T: and it was a dance that he did that. Went into like mad memes yeah and I saw that, mean bear time before I heard the tune. so I knew the song already through that tune. and I
felt like.
KK: they did that.
T:100%.
KK: me too.
T: that but that's super smart though it's like. I don't think is sneaky. I think if you know how to work the thing. Work the thing.
KK: you’ve got to give it like, like if, if you're in a position where you can laugh at yourself and just make that so incognito but yours.  and like fucking just let people run with it. I didn't actually understand well you get the joke but you to that its degree of like this is like one hell of a one-hit wonder meme going on. just keeps on giving to the point it just is like well you know it's, it's more than this like the crazy frog, it's like come on man.
T: but then it gets burnt into like into fucking, I guess that cultural history gets
burnt in that way.
KK: yeah it needs to harlem shake shit.
T: it happens like that.
KK: what's the plans, what's the plans for the future.
T: For the future for me is um I think that I've, I've got tattooing to the point where I've traveled the world.  I fucking,  I've done so much with it that I've accumulated a, enough experience and fuckin education in it these places I go. I watch the fucking artist that I think is sick. i watch him work or ask.Questions. I learn I'm always learning right so still the future for me is to continue to learn and evolve tattooing but the reason I speak about it, in that way is because I want my music to be, the the next thing I behave within the same way I behaved with tattooing right.  with the way that I behaved were tattooing I had my previous existing business financially support the initial come up. because I charged very little but I had high outgoings and I was paying for a hotel. I was paying for the equipment. As paying for the travel like although that was quite expensive and I wasn't making that back.  but I didn't need to because I had financial backing from something else. yeah now fully legitimate the home the music will be backed by the tattoo. yeah, in the same manner.
KK: love It, love it.
T: I've got I've got a clothing line as well that needs and deserves a lot of attention because I didn't want to come out with much. Honours, transparent for me. I think people build attention.  they're like right I can make a quick buck if, I just like get these like stock track suits. will be stock t-shirts and just bang my embroidery on it.
KK: I'm not into that.
T: I think for me like I want I wanna again I wanna test can I build a brand separate to this one separate. to trap house can I build a brand, a clothing brand that isn't that doesn't depend on my like do you know what I mean. like something that says trap house on it or like the amount of companies have had approached me they were like oh yeah get one of your like tattoo designs on a thing that's just like, I don't I don't think like as a tattoo artist that doing clothing in that way is right for me. yeah I think like I've always had an interest in fashion matter. fact I've tried to start off as a business at one point I fuckin failed, I didn’t work. but persistence with it and and now like I'm I'm very lucky to to have like and made the friends that I have that have the fucking the time and energy for me and fucking look like a like a major fucking shout out and thank you I have to give it to Sam weekend offender.
KK: weekend  offender. Yeah, hold tight.
T: he's very much very much gonna like my my clothing mentor in it, take me under the wing a littleand I think fuckin that is something that will surpass my tattooing name and my fucking my music producing and singing doing all, all that like a fuckin a fashion house can live forever you can you can move and whatever.  Tattoo ing is cool right, now everyone's into it that it music. My music isn't like it's not that all auto-tune pop music, hip-hop, trap,  shit it's not fucking it's not grime like I'm I say it's R&B; in it well obviously we're on the way I am is the hardest R&B; there is.
KK: love that. Man, I want to hear it.
T: but the journey that's gonna take is different yeah. I mean that's I could I could be pushing at that for five years ten years before.
KK: you can’t rush it neither. yeah you can do things prematurely and it feels flat on its ass you know when that sweet spot comes and you know it's time to do it y it can't come any
other way you know.
T: so I was like I said those three things I like doing that
make me happy. I'm gonna continue to bang out doing and I know that well, fucking music
 tattooing fashion and fan art. I'm always gonna do them things at some point each
one will take over as the financially dominant benefactor in my life.
KK: by selection it by natural selection it will start. and people, people have this tendency to like be impatient don't know they. They don't, they don't realize that once you hit a goal there has to be a thing that carries on.  you can't just say right by the time I'm I did it. I want X Y Z because it doesn't work ike that when you do if you do hit that mark and you hit successfully exactly you only what you gonna do after they don't people to realize that the journey just
goes on and on so you got to.
T:yeah like if you want to be fit you have to be going to the gym, you have to. and in it
then it then it becomes something that that's what you do now yeah that's what you do.
KK: that's what I am this what this is yeah.
T: no, I'm gonna go gym and fuckingnI want to leave fit in one session yeah, I mean I'm essentially on going to the gym for all of these things consistently, forever that's, that's just the rest ofmy life. That’s how its gonna pan out.
KK: I believe you.
T: what the fuck else am I gonna do.
KK: I cant believe it.  like an I'm excited .I'm excited guys that I do I do hope your comeback in the near future and fucking doing a podcast, never, never chat and see where you're at
bro.
T: please get me back man.
KK:  it's pleasure having you on my man.
T: I'm safe.
KK: enough respect, safe fun, are you sayin oh thanks for coming, ladies and
Gentlemen. Fuckin there will be a part two in this. Mighty Trap House inside the Place.
T:thank you very much brother.
KK: killa Kela podcast live and direct be shout to graffiti kings. everybody else insiders, check-in and sir every year, every week we out like in with out Fashion,  Stay lucky peace.
T: see ya!