This weeks Podcast is with a true pioneer in international Graff & Street Culture as we know it. Not only was he one of the first artists in the UK scene to break the regional mould, he was also the first writer to specialise in graffiti realism. He also went on to work in music production, bridging he abstract world of Trip Hop with the street of UK Hip Hop, inspiring the likes of Roots Manuva to create songs like “Witness”. This man is PART2 aka Keith Hopewell, and today we are talking strictly music and street culture to help get you through your day.
Documenting the Graffiti Artists of History past, before their critical acclaims and contributions to the urban arts. Disclaimer: This presentation is for documentation and educational purposes only. No hard drive copies, footage or records of any interviews are held by Killa Kela and once uploaded to the outlets listed below, those are the only records in existence. Any illegal activity discussed is neither encouraged, supported or incited.
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PART2 ( UK GRAFFITI WRITER & MUSIC PRODUCER ) KKPC #147 TRANSCRIPT
KILLA KELA: West, West Side West considered best but that’s debatable. This is the Killa Kela podcast live and direct Central London or as central you need to be alright. big shout out to Graffiti Kings and yeah right getting into this thing on a beautiful morning a friend of mine that I have known long enough, he pretty much was a part of my introduction to the music industry and I had been a fan for decades. Before pretty much, he was a pioneer in graffiti realism, styles for days, producer, artist in his own right, the mighty Part 2.
PART 2: Mighty.
KK: C’mon.
PART 2: Good to see ya. Good to see you, Mr. Kela. Long time.
KK: How are ya?
PART 2: I'm good I'm good thank you yeah that's kind of come from one point in London it was sunny gone on a tube popped out the other side straight out the womb and just pissing it down, can I swear?
KK: Oh, you can do whatever you want mate. There’s ya, there’s no parents in this
PART 2: the occasional may alternate.
KK: I’ll put the sensor on, no parents in the room. Um bro I always I was watching the rain come down and I had to say, I was like, I hope he aint walking right now and it was literally like night and day.
PART 2: yeah, it was really coming down, but I was in a safe space. I was thinking as long as that stops before I get off if there's no overhanging rooftop on on them Kensal Rise station because I couldn't remember if there's a roof on there or not.
KK: Yeah, you see any pieces there?
PART 2: A lot of track sides yeah.
KK: I noticed that you know, I've seen a lot of colour.
PART 2: Quite a few colour ones, yeah. Yeah a few big things as well can't remember the names as much I think it's more of a newer generation.
KK: Yeah, it certainly is yeah.
PART 2: Yeah people of my age we kind of um phase out of it a little bit; we don't know who people are anymore.
KK: Well I think it's a case of being there and watching but like yeah it often like you say we discover things when we are being in trenched in a scene and thing isn't it, like yeah if you if you tap out of it for a second, it’s like woah, what's all this?
PART 2: I think I've slowly kind of um pulled away from any scene I've kind of gone into my own kind of solitary space with things where even a lot of artwork I do or painting wise. I kind of I don't really try to promote it in any kind of scene some ways, I’ve backed right out of self-promotion because I don't have too much interest in the kind of social media internet thing and as the way it's shaping our kind of culture in general, just all culture, seems to be taking over. I don't like the fact all my business is just completely at whim to corporate control space.
KK: Like social platforms and things like that.
PART 2: Yeah, the space I walk in is the I space I walk in, the people I meet down the street, like yourself will whoever, it's my universe that’s kind of mine, its mine to own not the kind of data miners to own and ship around and make profits on it. So I just find it a bit like well we know it’s corporate control space we know, everything we eat everywhere we go out, every party you may go to or everything you paint will do or whatever you listen to, and you post your little YouTube clips and whatever it's kind of um yeah we can stuck in this corporate control space I'm a little bit wary of it just from a personal point of view.
KK: Isn’t there's an an anarchic approach to graffiti and also street culture as a whole how much of it you feel like nowadays we all almost feels like we fall in line, I know I do by no other choice because not only is it the way that you're forced to go, but it’s the way the audience consumes shit now you know like do you feel like we fall inline a lot.
PART 2: I think a lot of it falls inline and those of us who don't wanna necessarily tow that line end up kind of um you know having to remove ourselves so we find ourselves kind of almost been removed so like I say like in general I just feel like everything is… you know saying to you on the phone the other day that um you can go to Shoreditch and a look of the place if there isn't a wall painted with a with an artwork on wherever there’s tags, throws ups, whatever everything is, it looks like Ladbroke Grove back in the day, but yeah it's not that it's almost like an advertising colony for corporate companies to to kind of all let's pay, let’s pay 50K for a company's wall, but then that company gets land and they pay the artists something like 2K or something and you just got this is quite it’s quite disturbing on anything.
KK: Do you think it’s like quite back scratchy?
PART 2: It's not what, it’s not what, it’s about I mean I come from a grassroots level of that part of culture in terms of I mean, I don't even like to use the G word followed by ratt you know f. Graffiti and all that. And street art, I’m not really interested.
KK: Yeah, yeah. I mean you cited on the phone you cited.
PART 2: Spray practice
KK: Yeah, yeah.
PART 2: Because I just think the medium is bigger than all of it is transcends any boundaries you can try and pigeonholed things into and like I say people think street art to some degree is part of an art world it's not even. Well they're not sitting next to Anish Kapoor in the white cube or wherever you know it's not kind of on that level, it's million miles away from it, you kind of it's almost like its own little ghetto, we'll call our urban art and them the gatekeepers will say who gets in the who doesn't.
KK: Because at the end of the day, it’s the gatekeeper model isn't it.
PART 2: That's it
KK: And it's who garners the most money.
PART 2: Exactly.
KK: That’s street art.
PART 2: I mean I gotta make money but I try and keep it a safe distance from it at all and you know I try and do a lot more writing, than at it because I think we're a lot at the time we fought with the can or with the paint rather than I'm actually looking at what it is we are doing and or trying to put some context out there. So if we can all complain ah they don't understand it, ah these people outsiders don't really know what it's really about they don't know what’s real, end of the day, if we don’t write things down in some kind of theoretical context then we're not taking control of it.
KK: Woah, that’s deep. You’re fucking right. For those of you that don't know enough about this man he’s there's there's a visual element to what Part 2 does and there's an audio, it's not there they're not indifferent, they’re the ,the same it’s like you you very much on on the quest of stylistically on your in your own lane but at the same time there was this fledgling broken be trip-hop, new wave of music coming out in the early noughties that I don't know, I just felt like your sound along with you know the New Flesh crew originally New Flesh For Old along with with Juice Aleem, Toastie Tailor big up the boys big up Dave Budgeon as well you connected reconnected.
PART 2: Oh yeah yes Dave.
KK: He's like fuckin Cilla black in this piece.
PART 2: Bass guitars.
KK: Oh totally. These connectors and and dude like you’ll sound it almost feels like a visual equivocal of great like graff.
PART 2: Well for me, I'll try I see it is the same thing, yeah. I'm sound, visual sonics you know. almost looking I'm not see synesthesia, I don’t have synesthesia as a condition but I see it all in that context like you know, a painting may have a kind of sound to it or waveform to it and sound can create kind of images or whatever and some people you know can look at a painting you have the actual condition and they can hear it you know and there's different types of that condition synesthesia but I see synesthesia is almost like um almost um, like a healthy way of looking at things rather than everything being pigeon-holed into different categories and boxes. I see everything is like everything is everything and it's kind of what you make of it because for me, I may do things with permission, not permission from an art point of view, I may do illegal things, I may do legal things, I may do stuff that's more art based stuff maybe stuff that's more type based term, I don't really want to define myself in one particular box so that’s why it's easier for me to just define a culture as spray practice cos that don’t make no difference to me whether you bomb in track sides pain in trains doing gallery shows painting commission's or doing graphic design or just interior design, spraying furniture, everyone’s using that medium for something. And back in the day as well we didn't have all these Belton's and Montana's we had car paint and the occasional bunt like when you felt like it.
KK: I had this conversation with a lot of people all the time right, particularly on boards like sometimes I see people pipe up on a boards saying about the old school thing and how you know cos do you have any idea like how hard it would be you know like a NEMA and the pieces that he used to do like on trains.
PART 2: NEMA Brighton.
KK: Yeah, yeah like the levels in which he was creating and like you say fucking with PART 2: Letters like with quality products, it seems unfathomable. I mean some people just want to put put a name up, yes basically about stamping the ID, yeah it's a tag is an ID and identity which is more or less what the whole thing was about at grassroots level, finding your own identity for using a medium that was another never designed to make artwork with, it was designed for touching up cars and whatnot, you know. So, in the 80s that was kind of what we were doing, making do with what we had, it was very DIY it wasn't a career on the table like these days. what were we doing it for? that's the thing we just did it yeah it was a necessity we just did it.
KK: And I love that. you were listen this is for documentation you were one of the original the buck stops fuckin here interims of photorealism on a wall, like you were pioneering that shits, so early doors like and then it nowadays like you say the technology and graff and paint and things and how how people consume it becomes an abundance.
PART 2: It's just like anyone back in the day learning to use an air brush you can buy an air brush figure a few things out get a bit of advice and you're off.
KK: Part 2 was the one. Part 2 was the one. Alright.
PART 2: Well I kind of regret it all now when I look at the global kind of saturation of that kind of stuff, I kind of wish it hadn’t happened but uh for me, you know, I mean there was a pops100 doing the odd bit of, we did he was portraits really, then system did a few, there was freedom in New York tried a few you know, it wasn't quite on that level yet but then I just kind of got into it around the same time some me and pops both saw a Marilyn Monroe in Sheffield under Kelvin flats which is like a brutalist estate which is now knocked down knocked down a long-time ago. I think Ann Widdecombe knocked it down something we now learn now the people who used to live there there’s watched as they demonized and criminalized this whole estate.
KK: what?
PART 2: they were like bang on this is our home we all know each other we walk along the balconies every day. Yeah, yeah kind of like I think there was a thing I found an essay by somebody and he's talking about how he stood there with the crowd watching them knock the one of the walkways down and he and he's describing it as wow, he can't help but think but how are we gonna get to the other bloc know because he was so.
KK: In shock.
PART 2: He still felt like he still belonged there and when it was knocked down it was and ANN Widdecombe operating the thing, slamming the ball on it and I mean he said everybody's cheering like hey, like it's a big event and. He's like hang on there's knocking down our home! But going back to subject cos I strayed off the point.
KK: No, no it’s everything to do with this podcast bro.
PART 2: Yeah the, yeah there was a Marilyn Monroe it was only the guy only did it once something as a called Mercury he used to write realism out of Sheffield TDK, ACT and them guys and yeah, I think um, we were influenced by that but I think after a while by about 1989 it was he was doing a Roy Ayers, I did a Roy Ayers, just for a nightclub backdrop for fun jazz funk night and I did a Roy Ayers, and almost said joy, and that's when I really kind of found it I found the tones using really rubbish car paint cos yet they he was kind of quite watered down so he could I could blend the tones and and for me at the time I think by 88 he seemed to feel like in the mid 80s we had a scene here and he had its own style through Chrome angelz, non-stop, all-star kings this kind of more technical refined kind of a style. It was a bit more kind of futuristic you know look at the more Goldie pieces, like future world machines, you know it had something there but I think by 88 it started to regress back to this New York-style yeah and it started to feel a bit light as acid house came out a lot of people stopped writing. Country had house raids all-over the country and a lot of people gave up and the only left doing it with people like myself well, whatever. And you know, it was a lot of select people in different cities across the UK would dislike and I'm just getting good at this. Yeah it was a thing like I kind of felt like I'd done all the lettering and I’ve done every kind of angle on here and I just want him to go okay, well I'm not really bothered about scene anymore because there isn't one. So that’s there’s no scene and everyone's out raving, piled up let me um wanted to see what else you can do with this paint can you use it like a paint bush can you can you can you use it to such you know a level.
KK: And nowadays it's so seen, it's so seen opposed being like then not the norm because it's not an easy thing to-do but with everything that street art encompasses hmm it's almost seen as dare I say slightly dirty that you don't put your tag or a validity t yes they’re almost like it's almost like street art just allows anyone to do that anyway without any sort of validity that's it.
PART 2: that's it.
KK: I got there.
PART 2: No, you got it. The thing is well you're all access to all this paint most of them got paint sponsorship, you got all these different caps and nozzles, where back then we had to make the caps ourselves. I remember making the first stencil tips with a Stanley knife by blading off a lids so you got the middle blading off the top so you can put your finger in say slots back on the cans, you know the middle of the lid. You cut out all the outer so you’re the middle goes on then you just pierce a hole in the front, and we were done they sell them now.
KK: Fuck.
PART 2: It’s the homemade nozzle from the eighties.
KK: That's mad. That’s mad.
PART 2: and everything, in Birmingham was doing mixing nozzles just using the wd-40 tubes when you turn one upside down from the bottom can goes up into the.
KK: that's right
PART 2: now mixing gets out. Dupli-color.
KK: Yeah, Mear explained this to me.
PART 2: Colour and making our own pinks in them if you do it for a while you can use it and go tone thing then you can take the same kind of mix a bit more and keep changing the shade, very very subtle, in vary in degrees.
KK: Is there really any worth in it doing in that happening that way now or is it really.
PART 2: Well you can buy mixing nozzles now but then again you know all these brands have got a million shades of everything anyway. So yeah, I hope you don't need it, but it's be like music you know everyone’s using the same software, everyone’s on logic so if all the music starts to sound the same. walls you just walking around wherever Shoreditch London wherever you are going, Birmingham.
KK: It all starts to seem linear.
PART 2: And this thing looks like I'm just looking at surface is just full of coloured acrylic yeah and but back in the day I liked the fact you could have like car paint but then you'd have a bit of bunt lac which is a bit more matte and then you'd have an outline with like I always feel all the paint are different textures from glossy to to matte and and different kind of strength and I kind of liked that.
KK: Yeah, me too,I swear to God I went I went down Brick Lane the other day and I thought that very same thing I was like I almost felt like.
PART 2: I could peel it all off make yourself a plastic chair or something. Melt it all down.
KK: I just felt like it was so, so intense and I don't think the intensity of like what the location has changed it has always been like that, but the paint. You can hear when someone's used Ableton you can hear when someone's used logic it's the same thing with.
PART 2: Yes so, everything is like beyond the aesthetics of what a particular genre is saying like it's a broken beat of Drum n bass, dubstep or whatever at the end of day it they all sound like sort of the software the software kind of rules.
KK: How do we fix this Part 2.
PART 2: You've got joy ride that software, I’ll start pulling out all the analog machines again which the pain in the backside ,then you gotta start doing outputs on a desk and it's they're so easy to jump on logic and just keep everything in in the internal plugins.
KK: Yeah quick and easy.
PART 2: Mix it done. I don't even need to go outside this machine you know um you kind of got to get all the old analog stuff out and start kind of like oh yeah does the old Akai 3000 still work can I get that old sp12 , how do I use it?
KK: Yeah, yeah, because, yeah, yeah. How did I used this thing?
PART 2: All these kinds of modes and switches.
KK: Yeah. Yeah. Lights and beeps and shit. Wouldn’t it be, maybe novel actually in maybe in a negative sense. I don’t know but wouldn't it be amazing if like an ATG crew came out again but this time that you know quote naive style that people kind of put into the street art back in that time so yeah and say little clause there cos, I fucking love it but you know they go one step beyond and actually go back to fucking up roots and literally do that with nozzles everything is like a code of practice everything is for the end result being so like so like personable, yet dangerous and hardcore, you know.
PART 2: Even more I'm crazy is if people can do that that’s worth a lot of respect because you try and find that car paint now.
KK: It's like, it's actually role reversal.
PART 2: Is it might find some and you might find three out of five canons free of them the pressures gone or something.
KK: yeah, yeah.
PART 2: I mean if you can find any of that stuff but uh yeah it's trying to get it back to that kind of analog I mean I don’t know I mean I'm kind of doing you know I do do my own little are experiments that nothing to do with a painting in public space obviously I’ve always worked in public space but not so much lately but um some of the experiments I'm doing I’m kind of doing these things were just making paintings out of them just um rolling cans.
KK: Uh, explained that.
PART 2: You put an elastic band around the can so it’s going off as you roll it, so you get a straight-line and you just get completely impossible gestures.
KK: Oh, that’s crazy.
PART 2: That you can’t get with the hand.
KK: That you can't repeat. cos It’s done there.
PART 2: and you got the the emotion.
KK: Of course.
PART 2: You're getting trajectory, yeah, yeah, yeah.
KK: Can you do a hanging you know cos some people you get the buckets with the paint and they spin around.
PART 2: And do it like Jackson Pollock.
KK: That's crazy.
PART 2: So, everything got to be a flat environment, yeah that’s me playing around but that for me as much as people may think it’s arty or whatever I don't really care what anybody thinks for me some more primal. Going back to not even writing your name anymore. Seeing what things do by nature.
KK: Who do you think, I am, I'm gonna do this you know.
PART 2: Trying to get it back to some kind of almost like a rewilding kind of project vector back to nature or something. We are so unworlded now.
KK: Yeah, that’s right and you have to go back into a primal reaction to things that are the way and go against the grain of what’s going on man you've got a smaller margin that is.
PART 2: Because when you've got everything available yeah in an instant online or whatever and you're millions of people all over the world doing all these things and you don't even know who’s doing what where it was a point where everybody knew each other in a certain scene or even in UK in the 80s, you know I could talk amongst other UK writers and we know who's doing what in Paris, who's doing more in Amsterdam or Berlin you know we kind of knew those things cos where I come it was a grassroots see more but now just don't and it's just you know it's not even ours anymore doesn't even belong to us so another day. the only way to claim it back is to I have it's to just abandon all their kind of terms whatever they want to call it you know people might think graffiti is something, what were about we're graff but um for me I'm not interested in that word even if oh whether I'm doing artwork or art shows or even if I was doing trains or something, I'd probably rather be called a terrorist or something you know graffiti artist cos yahoo can imagine in it when you get them TV shows and you know someone like you can hear Phillip Schofield voice, I can hear it now saying oh we’ve got a graffiti artist in the studio today and how trivially you just feel a bit almost embarrassed to be called a slightly deflated from the get-go.
KK: And it's not like we’re suggesting here is you or I also single themselves out as being particularly you know, extraordinary. You can compare to the rest of the yeah but I feel what you're saying with beatboxing and I’m only using it as a relative, you know this my friends, well they do know is that when when it comes to beatbox right and there's a lot more people do that as well yeah and it dilutes it almost becomes a bit where turntablism went in the middle noughties, a bit of chin stroke, a little bit kind of geeked out should I say and the yeah you fall in line to that shit and you fall in line to it and what happens is everyone gets painted with the same brush and yeah you become the geek.
PART 2: We're not the same brush.
KK: We're not the same brush at all.
PART 2: We're not the same brush, you know everyone's like a different instrument in a kind of whole economy of whoever we are we're like um right noise yeah we're just different noises more meant to be making different noises per half the time everyone's making the same noise so you don't really play in your part it’s like I was into all that kind of jazz, stuff like anything you know would you say people are out of tune with the planet things like that and he’s saying you know the Earth's in the wrong key at the moment.
KK: See it true.
PART 2: saying God can come along and say okay if you got a key on the keyboard don’t work you can miss that key you say God can just miss that key. Get rid of earth it is cocking up the whole hooking up the whole orchestra.
KK: You know what you know I just thought of would you say that phrase, Les Dawson when well there’s a comedian over here in the UK called Les Dawson and used to play the piano wonky, he's singing wonky and play the piano wonky like comedy so like it's just I just thought of that because sometimes it takes a little bit of someone stepping up out of status quo. and be like well,
PART 2: I'd say Tim Vine, or something is it Tim Vine the comedian the vine is the one one of them.
KK: Um what's he does?
PART 2: This too is another comedian I think it's Tim Vine. he just does one liners then he does a little song here and there and he plays some stupid song there's one something like in hidden behind his ear and he keeps on having a pen and landing on the ear and the music in the background he’s already pre vocal already going, pen behind the ear. And it just repeats. And he keeps missing and missing and then if occasion he gets in the crowd cheers and then because it's taken so long, he like okay let's try with two pens, almost like slapstick.
KK: Yeah, totally and there's a guy that I chatted on podcast him it's not on yet, soon but um comedian Chris Turner he's, he freestyle raps like you know he's like kind of like quite, well-to-do it's very, very much like this yeah, you wouldn’t think your battle rap and then all sudden like be handing to, they’ll know you're our rap battle stuff but he'll be given stuff and he'll be rapping about it but he won't just for he’s so good like he's dangerously good and he'll raps in, raps within and talk about this in its context but he puts it in a comedic form so he's comedian first and a rapper that again like we're saying pushes things that.
PART2: Like observational rhymingly like here we are with Kela wearing the the glasses yellow, he’s putting things in with the cup of tea and I don't know we should we should be wearing masks, should we? With this corona thing going on.
KK: That's why I say to everybody comes on you know I say you see the pixilation, or the masts see the Coronas real.
PART 2: where's your mask?
KK: Yeah, yeah where's your pixilation man?
PART 2: And they were joking about its last night you could walk down south bank in one of them suits someone say oh and get a corona logo off the beer ball like made in Wuhan or something, it was just crazy.
KK: Oh my god.
PART 2: That's the kind of level they got to. I saw it on Instagram today someone had done a Mona Lisa in a gas mask they said Corona Lisa or something.
KK: Oh my god.
PART 2: I’s just called stupid.
KK: The cockney rhyming slang is a what is it, uh Miley Cyrus yeah, corona virus Miley Cyrus, I mean it’s extremely creative when you about the lengths people would I think there's more platforms for creativity.
PART 2: Anyone can be creative.
KK: That’s the good thing.
PART 2: The internet has opened up anyone can be creative. which is great yeah but it's bad as well yeah cos it's like things become to mean less, they do become too nice because it's like we're not bothered about anymore it's like if Holograms are now here and there everywhere.
KK: We would forget about the real people.
PART 2: After a day like, oh yeah, we can wait for Holograms in the future but right yeah Holograms have been out there yeah yeah bored them no. We canput your hand through them. don't know what else to do.
KK: Dolly Parton, people won’t like Dolly Parton anymore.
PART 2: People like Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston now you can go see you on tour.
KK: I was never big Whitney Houston fan you know I mean I'm not controversial for my demographic, but I was never, not my demographic my age range.
PART 2: It’s just pop music for the masses innit.
KK: Yeah, yeah.
PART 2: If you don't consider yourself the masses then you ain't for you.
KK: do you think pop music and and the like and technology as is over consumed us because what used to be not cool and pop is almost like intrinsic in our music and our culture um what do you think I think it's kind of it's all merged isn't it?
PART 2: Well all pop means is popular and everything’s popular.
KK: Feels more now, then never done.
PART 2: Yeah everything, available everything at once.
KK: Do you feel like you're lucky? I feel like I'm lucky that at least like we're saying okay yeah the technology allows people to be um observed and just come out of nowhere and be like these sensations with like yeah a funny meme or a funny piece but don't you feel like slightly lucky that.
PART 2: I think we're too lucky because I feel a bit like I already said it but this whole thing about almost like if you've got to too much to democratic democracy and freedom yeah it kind of um defeats the object of what something is, something may need they’re kind of more of an underground existence to contain any of its meaning or any real significance of what you do like same with the art thing ,with the spray-painting whatever, you know when when he when he said everywhere it's not got the same meaning as back in the day when you had to kind of visit a town, get a train there, climb over a fence to look at something, to take a photo, you ain't seen that piece unless you visit it in the physical. Whereas now it's like everywhere, everyone actually it's almost like people paint walls now to be online so it's kind of like probably even upload in the stages yeah from beginning to end of the actual piece then by the time it's finished there is just another thing down the news feed you know in the ocean.
KK: This is a concern isn't it. I feel like it is. yeah, I feel like it is a concern.
PART 2: No, It’s definitely a a concern well we need is a big solar flare from the Sun who does knock out the grid start over, sounds harsh sounds almost right-wing maybe put them in some ways it's kind of like culturally I think we just hit a critical mass it's kind of like point zero.
KK: It's a lot.
PART 2: And and part of my nature and style in what I do is about you finding new ways and new interpretations of things everything, I do soon as I do something and it makes its point try and move on, so I've always had a problem filling in with all this kind of other stuff its always very, very much people find a niche and then repeat and repeat it and make it their brand as my brand is like constantly shifting, constantly shape shifted so people it's harder for people to kind of lock it down into their little markets which I’m fine with you know I'm you know their market is their market my market is my market my market is not being in their market .
KK: You you know it's actually it’s refreshing to hear but it's also sustained if you calculate what you’re doing right is sustainable you can live you being off grid you can survive by being.
PART 2: You mean, I can follow the markets and be a whole lot richer I could pretty much know how to manipulate it if I really wanted to, but I don't mean.
KK: It’s not fun.
PART 2: Exactly it’s not fun. To me making making anything really art, visually or sonically through music, whatever, making anything to me is about exploring so the exploring and almost like getting some equipment or some paint materials and working out how to Joyride them you know take them for Joyride.
KK: Do you think that's a strength in character and belief do you think that’s like a real do you have to be really hard.
PART 2: It seem so it's quite a lonely place.
KK: very yeah it will be yeah.
PART 2: It's a lonely place, you know I’ve got mine my drinking down to solitaire drinking I see it as a solitary sport now.
KK: Do ya,
PART 2: Yeah yeah, I got nicked that off of I think its Forest Witaker off one of these film.
KK: so, it the drinking is your medicine your business you keep it well.
PART 2: no, it's not I don't mean in in a real alcoholic sense by under saying yeah, I'm pretty much you are like being in my own realm really.
KK: Company.
PART 2: yeah, I mean I'm social you know.
KK: Of course, you are.
PART 2: I’m a social creature, no but I think we don’t why I don't want to be part of all this other head hedonist stuff out there.
KK: I have to admit right when Dave Budgen, big up Dave again hit me up and said dude you know part two and I was like bro hit list at all of the guys like me and him got stories for days right and
PART 2: New York.
KK: New York yeah, let me explain this story so we went on tour like 1999 2000, right? PART 2: something like that yeah.
KK: with Ninja Tune and it was us there was Vadim, DJ Vadim who’s been on a podcast Roots Manuva, DGMK and I think to my knowledge maybe even Cinematic Orchestra.
PART 2: I don't think they were on that tour. Dynamic Syncopation.
KK: Dynamics Syncopation. Yes.
PART 2: There was two of them.
KK: Yup, that’s the one. and it was a mismatch all different thing I think koala did couple of dates and then so, but we went and.
PART 2: We went all over.
KK: Yeah, we went all over and I mean it was my first-time on a big bus as well and we really did there were sections isn't there.
PART 2: like you gotta sleep the right way up, cos when it breaks if your heads is facing the front you headbutt.
KK: this was New flesh For Old and we were out partying and doing our thing we're in New York weren't we yeah, but I didn't remember.
PART 2: This a different gig um we were there for another reason I didn't even know you were there I think all it was was we’ve gone to Rammellzee the story was Ram was big on his own drink ,he pulled out the beers then his wife turned up later with a bottle of vodka then had weed without the tobacco, some really heavy stuff and I'm I didn’t really smoke much weed so when I hit a few I kind of most forgot and then get hit my stomach and I did what they call throwing a whitey. So there's one point I had to hang out of his window, the window was the wrong height, they couldn’t lean over the window ledge you couldn't kneel down so my legs were in some really contorted weird position I was just watching planes landing in Newark Airport over the water and then uh and can be I thought I was gonna be sick so I ended up locking myself in his bathroom I think I was in there for hours and it was just loads of his neon masks just staring at me and I’m just holding onto bathtubs going on come-on be sick be but you wouldn't.
KK: Ah I hate that feeling
PART 2: Ya know and then we kind of left there and juice returned up he was on a later flight and wanted to go out well finally got to this club in East Village. I was just like I just found a speaker massive speaker scoop and there's a little space bench and I just kind of fell asleep on it and it was I remember is someone going Keith, Keith and it was you that woke me up and I was like I know your face, why are you here?
KK: Why are you here?
PART 2: Why are you waking me up?
KK: I remember you were just like this is the alarm clock. That’s amazing
PART 2: Killa Kela was an alarm clock and men where they were on the mics, they'd got on they weren't even when we are playing there, they load it up on the mics.
KK: How did they know now you were gonna be there?
PART 2: Toastie and Juice Aleem, rocking some mics with a crowd going mad.
KK: and you were just laying there did you not know we were there? or did you?
PART 2: No, I didn’t it just it accidentally happen to be in that Club.
KK: Well mother fucker.
PART 2: Someone had said something to somebody there's a there’s a thing down there tonight because we weren’t due to you to play until the following night.
KK: That’s the one.
PART 2: We were there three days for like a half an hour gig,
KK: That's crazy well yeah but worth in it.
PART 2: Yeah so we end up in a that club, I think the jet lag and then also me being wrecked just messed me up and I think the next day apparently I'd made Ram have to urinate in his own sink because then I’d lock the bathroom door.
KK: No way.
PART 2: I know, and Toastie was going Keith you know what happened last night you made Ram pee in his sink. Are you gonna ring him about the gig? Cos, he doesn’t know where it is. and I went I ahhhh I couldn’t ring him, I'm too embarrassed I didn't ring him again till I go back to the UK anyway and he’s like nah everything's cool. It’s cool.
KK: Bless him
PART 2: I was just too so embarrassed with it all.
KK: Aww ,oh by the way fucking amazing story, amazing how was it you Rammellzee, rest in peace you know how was Rammellzee, was a good people, how was he as a character.
PART 2: Ah he was I was great yeah, yeah he was everything as a character that’s what he was he was a character he was who he said he was there what's interesting all that stuff erm you read about in mythology and the stuff he talks, I hear me, almost lives by it he was the Gothic futurism monk whatever whatever he said he was he was.
KK: He he embodied the things he meant.
PART 2: Yeah, he became his own myth, he transcended the whole human thing that whole hue-man thing he used to call it like as in Hue man, human race were they in a race for all these kinds of little philosophies.
KK: yeah did you get into the philosophies?
PART 2: I understood them and they were here some of them means more to me than others some maybe I'm a bit like yeah I’m not so bothered by that oh whatever you know yeah I mean the whole thing of arm on letters I totally get it.
KK: I love it.
PART 2: Armoring letters to try and destroy the infinity symbol or whatever he was and for me yeah I kind of understand in terms of a development of wild style of the arrows been missiles and when they were on the trains they were like you know the rolling pages and they were arming themselves against the next piece the whole battle thing but um
KK: that’s incredible.
PART 2: But, for me so he also has life philosophy and my nothing is will hang on that's a little bit like Civil War in it you know y-you just trying to send the letters in and create a new language that's more my take on it but it’s weird cos I know people he preached you always preached people went to his place in New York and preach to them his whole philosophy almost indoctrination.
KK: For real.
PART 2: But for me he didn't do that we just kind of walked around and mucked about and um just had rhyming battles about any old stupid thing like you know.
KK: What was his house like? Was it literally like?
PART 2: Um the battle station was when that closed down because they were selling the building, I think he went for years without even paying rent on that place.
KK: Really? What??
PART 2: Yeah that’s why he did a track called and pay your rent it's based on the whole thing I think he used to hide every time they came or whatever but no one could get him out it that's just what he told me.
KK: Squatters rights almost.
PART 2: That’s what he used to say never paid, he used to use the rooftop as well only used to go on by he's always up there with his slingshot I was the slingshot for he’s that are this I don't like the Sarmatians or something used to tinkling shot the Sarmatians off his rooftop.
KK: I’ll tell you what man I mean when I think New York.
PART 2: He’s a funny guy.
KK: Yeah when I think New York Ian have a creative nature our era.
PART 2: He was one of want a last few of that generation from that kind of the old downtown scene, William Burroughs even although.
KK: Totally.
PART 2: And we lost phase we used to meet as well.
KK: You knew him as an acquaintance?
PART 2: As an acquaintance not from years though my partner was been touched with him quite a lot on a pen pal basis, actually um she she was very much in touch with him in the last year or two where's like my last contact was probably like 2010 he wrote a foreword for a catalog so yes I knew him briefly. I mean for me Ram was more like my close buddy yeah if you know means so um yeah I didn't really have that kind of thing with phase.
KK: It’s such a warm fuzzy idea you know again I do you know I was a little bit younger than that I know these is names but even me that the feeling of that era of New York you can you can touch it, you know what I mean? You know Like you say Jean Michel
and you know whole that whole era of New York being extremely creative with the rap scene the punk scene you know, its touchable, its tangible isn’t it.
PART 2: Yeah and it was there was something real about it you know in not real as in a keep it real, kind of. thing in a very authentic way it was something more authentic about it but in some ways it’s the kind of grassroots DIY ethos was coming head to head with that almost the kind of fashion scene so there's a there’s a kind of real and unreal you know but then you know it all works you know Grace Jones and all these things I mean she was the ultimate pop star you know.
KK: I couldn’t agree more. I did nothing else it rivals that authoritative yeah you know Diva I’m doing this you know that's what I think that Whitney Houston these are just like two different worlds man. Like you know I mean, like when you talk about maverick pop and yeah and give a fuck like if you don't breed, they don't breed people like that.
PART 2: Yeah, cos even the pop back then around the time-space you choose or most of it all good the good pop stuff probably maybe half available maybe a bit less was kind of post-pun which was actually good stuff whether it be Talking Heads, B-52s you know there was actually good pop music .
KK: 2tone, time over here we you a 2-tone fan?
PART 2: 2-tone? when I was kid yeah, I remember all the 2-tone stuff. all special specials 2 K and stuff yeah, it's kind of interesting because that was a still the happy accident of people maybe being into Don Letts playing reggae. Over here in punk venues and people kind of getting into the reggae thing and trying to copy and getting it wrong, it wasn't SKA as you knew it from Jamaica but it was a kind of a new ska, a post ska, I dunno, whatever you want to call it but uh had its own thing and I think um some ways you know even in this country some of the some of the rap stuff which may be that now you know.
KK: Yeah, I think a lot of it.
PART 2: Like the grime stuff or whatever, it's kind of like it’s very much if you're ever looking for a real UK hip-hop, you are probably there even though it's not be UK hip hop in the sense of UK hop hop and it's it’s almost like another thing completely other generation there's almost like not much holistic connection yeah more yeah but um in some ways whether you like the lyrics or the lyrics content or not whatever you know that is a generations music in the same way breaking or whatever it was too was us in the 80s or something you know we have to you know otherwise well I got our old parents going what's that racket you playing.
KK: But you know it means it's good.
PART 2: Doing spinning on your head you'll go bald, you know.
KK: It’s the same thing now with drill and rap and afrobeat to a point I suppose.
PART 2: I mean you got the old hip hop heads going, oh what’s this.
KK: I kind of like that.
PART 2: Its perplexing.
KK: Yeah, I like that you know you've got feed a
PART 2: Its good.
KK: Yeah and let let a younger younger younger generation take.
PART 2: but they no right to complain about it too.
KK: yeah, yeah, yeah.
PART 2: But then again you know we don’t have to be part of that, we can just watch them be more successful with 50 million YouTube views, with the old heads moaning with their yeah 100 views.
KK: I mean here’s the thing, and yeah, that’s another fact, in grime for instance the the forerunners are still the of the age of the forerunners have grown now are still of the age they were there when they started, yeah it's very rare that as an organism and a scene still continued like if Sex Pistols are just kept on going would they still be the forerunners now with punk, you don't know, but Wiley and lethal Bizzle but they’re still at the table which makes the DNA relevant but like if you were to turn around to Wiley and say who’s your favorite he said Jadakiss or he says you know my favorite what I grew up on was I don't know fuckin’ Grandmaster Flash, you know it would blow your mind.
PART 2: they’re totally different things.
KK: kind of makes it relevant.
PART 2: ok that's the thing I mean what we gotta remember is we gotta kind of sometimes you gotta forget all these categories and titles that's why I'm saying I like to broaden things out and stayaway from the kind of categories.
KK: because it all feeds.
PART 2: Because the main thing any of this new stuff got in common with what we were doing in the 80’s, 90s or wherever or New York people in the 70s end of the day the main emphasis is is all about just empowering yourself.
KK: yes.
PART 2: taking control of a situation that's not necessarily good maybe the air you live-in the family or other kind of you're born into which you didn't have a say you were just born into and you’re trying to find a way out you can either stay in that same thing in that same condition or state or you can try and do something to empower yourself and that was what kind of the painting was for us. We didn't need to ask permission we can we didn't have permission to do something on a space in public anyway, we'd take that space at night or whatever and the same thing we like you know the whole even the rap music thing taking samples from a record, two copies of records to jump it on a record so we we we don't have any instruments we don't have any money but we can we can make a beat we're two copies and this guy can come along and rhyme on it and then we got people dancing as well and a guy painting.
KK: and they're doing it without permission, fuck you, do you think that using the institution that Street culture.
PART 2: Or street art. right now, it’s safe to say that is an institution.
KK: yes, yeah, it's slowly breeding and it's building foundations, innit.
PART 2: and I think even as graffiti as an order if people want to stay kind of really really you know in a purist mindset about it than that becomes an institution all an institution is.
KK: Yeah, it is that's what I’m getting from this conversation.
PART 2: The code of conducting a set of rules yeah, a kind of yeah you don't do that that's not considered.
KK: Hardcore enough, yeah.
PART 2: You do, this, this and this and then you get the Pat on the back and then you get respect but then if you go over me we've got beef yeah all of these things, at the end of the day really it's the same innit, in all circles you know you make it competitive things on a kind of business level in another area of these arts whether in some ways it holds people back because I think what what makes people strong similar to the Mafia or whatever back in the day was its all about kind of strength in numbers.
KK: Yes, and ultimately in a tribal sense.
PART 2: We spend a lot of time kind of beefing with each other which I think um in some way pulls the whole thing down really, probably why a lot of things like UK rap back in the day wasn't successful.
KK: That’s right, yes.
PART 2: and a lot of artists from this country aren't as well-known as other people in Europe or America or whatever because people like the crab in the barrels.
KK: Yeah yeah, for real. I caught maybe the last the last pinches of that coming into because I came in from a UK hip hop scene you know but it wasn’t there was elements of it I didn't like that's why when Ninja Tune who were extremely progressive at their time and quite forward thinking in terms of broken beats instrumental stuff and any rapper that I would meet that is into that shit I automatically bonded with because I just felt like it wasn't we weren't all linear solider of like having to talk the way other rappers would.
PART 2: I mean say with the big data Ninja Tune thing when we signed with them, we did some stuff independently first yeah, I never went into that wanting to make any trip hop.
KK: Mesopotamia you guys did.
PART 2: yeah. Manuva, used to go on about that tune I remember one day he was doing a photoshoot with him and he kept humming that baseline and a year elated we ended up getting passed witness remix, and it’s like alights it's got something from that companies using the electronic come base sounds yeah but to seeing this whole thing’s so it's funny that he a year before he was stood next to me doing a photoshoot. he went on for ten minutes how’s it goes again. yeah how do you make an acid base linework with jazz sounds, Keith.
KK: Yeah. It was incredible.
PART 2: that distribution of ideas that's how things work, and they operate better when you’re not really too set on trying to make one or any specific thing it's just it is what it is.
KK: This is legendary talk you know this is so first you don’t know I wanted to get this in before you went into the story but like fucking check out Newflesh, Mesopotamia, as Keith says.
PART 2: it's ’95, I think that was.
KK: and you that kind of spawned inspiration and ideas for Roots’ witnessed as a beat. PART 2: yeah would say so he did actually ring me up once three years ago something and just randomly out of the blue he just called me.
KK: that's normally how he does it.
PART 2: randomly called me I think I'd missed a call from him or something, it's was about 4 a.m. Or something when I was asleep and it got me in the morning he just went oh I just want to say I owe you some royalties for doing this but I learned it from you I owe you some royalties and someone said did he give you any royalties I told someone no no no he he was on the just being Rodney. He was never gonna pay anyone.
KK: it starts with the four o'clock call and than its just like banter.
PART 2: it's just like he just felt like he needed to maybe he kept him awake for one evening that's what he needed to say.
KK: I mean those things that keep you awake for one evening man I mean it is right so let's go back ever slightly because you know we're really dropping some fucking science right here so so we from where'd it begin where's ya come on let's get into the developing, the bare bones.
PART 2: I grew up in York.
KK: York.
PART 2: in the north yeah and I think back in the day when I’ve started about 1984 it was that really primitive primal stuff and I mean do I remember you can do an outline you have two cans a blue and an orange. You do a blue outline fill it in orange after you've already done the outline and then put blue highlights an inch away from the outline the same color was a really primitive primal looking um stuff.
KK: how did you get away with that in York cos York is a very very.
PART 2: Oh, I did a load I did a first one I did was on the back of a shopping arcade
KK: it’s beautiful York. Lovely place.
PART 2: and a friend of mine chipped it off because the war was a bit flaky, chipped it of out of jealous.
KK: really?
PART 2: yeah,
KK: no way.
PART 2: there's another one down on a breeze block wall and then then we met some people up uptown who we're doing stuff join forces and all of us went out doing train bridges every weekend so still a school go to school and we'd go on a train to Leeds Leeds market cos they had these DIY shops-- have sold loads of car paint but they kept them in boxes at the front of the counter now the counters like maybe four foot high so all we do is right turn up with a you know the old-school head bags we'd have some some of the cool two of us go out you talk to the mask for whatever's behind you know that they have to turn round and get.
KK: to a science
PART 2: can I have a look at that screwdriver and then when he said no no no nothing yet the blue one that’s all think some we'd be down the bottom there was us nicking cans putting them down your leg or under your hat in in the sleeve or whatever you we did do that.
KK: you were doing massive sports bags.
PART 2: we were I willing to get properly need enough to make so then we could do like piece at the day time somewhere something Saturday night and in Sunday before we got back to school, so we get like four or five pieces so we'd fill that head bag I used to get away with that loads of times.
KK: I would imagine there wasn't many people that were racking.
PART 2: One time an old woman clocked us as I think people probably did clock us but didn't want to say anything but this you get these people don't you the old woman, Oi! They’re nicking your paint. And then we had to zip the bag up a leg it we didn't leave the paint.
KK: see ya!
PART 2: some guys tried to chase us through leads off the stalls or something.
KK: not happening.
PART 2: we lost him As Leeds was the kind of place was loads of different indoor arcades you could run across one main road to another one.
KK: yeah, it’s still like that as well.
PART 2: but we would do that and then we go back to York and then paint or whatever you know so that was our little.
KK: On your doorstep kids.
PART 2: that was a place, that was our but yeah we never painted we did do it when I first started I did the local health surgery because he had a really massive big white tiled wall right up the entrance it was just facing a carpark and you could see from the main road and did here at night but one of the guys there kids from my school whose dad was a copper they knew it was me , Owen Smith, Owen Smith.
KK: You never forget a name yeah.
PART 2: Owen Smith's say he knows you did it can't prove it but he knows you did it I think he was there for maybe a week and then they somehow got it cleaned off whatever so that was shitting on the doorstep and and you know if I often most of the times I got caught whatever tagging when it was in my local area to be honest.
KK: makes sense.
PART 2: yeah, any time I ever got kind of caught and they were coppers you knew me so there's no point even running, so it like here you go mate.
KK: when and when did you say you were, very much like me actually you know I mean cos the area that I grew up in was too small so you gotta start.
PART 2: I started traveling getting trains out I think it was more after the crew days were the early 80s and then he kind of went into a smaller crew a lot of those people weren't really very good at art or painting and so then they were a bit more Hooligany. You know, one guy in particular was more of like a kind of a Leeds football youngster he was a bit older than I was but he was kind of like the about to leave school sort of age and the circles got a bit smaller and then after that kind of went more into a solo thing from like 87 or something and then started traveling around a lot more going to Birmingham going to Manchester or going to London and you know meeting other writers whatever I'm painting in other cities and then yeah I never really saw myself as belonging to any particular place or scene then it was just I’ll turn up wherever turn up and paint and which was hard to do back then because um it's not the transient like London in particular it's not the transient place it is now where your people passing through in and out in.
KK: different countries as well.
PART 2: You couldn’t paint in London in the 80s.
KK: you couldn't?
PART 2: no unless you to get robbed or something you could if you knew people, you had to know people.
KK: and stand up for your own I suppose.
PART 2: yeah, yeah that was he I mean I'm ever painting in 89 I think was the first time I painted in London because back then no one really got people from Nottingham Sheffield everyone went to London took but no one really put a piece down you didn't know anyone specially paying around Grove there was always a lot going on and all that. mean yeah, I remember 15guys in there will run in that pit to block the doorway because.
KK: There was only one-way in.
PART 2: They just go through whoever’s pockets, they want. It was mad. All these cameras, Cameras, money, whatever.
KK: Yeah, yeah, I remember going in there first must have been like 99 or something I mean we're talking.
PART 2: 99? yeah that's quite late I'm talking like 87.
KK: yes totally.
PART 2: I remember the first time I went there I was probably.
KK: That would have been a different landscape.
PART 2: I went even many I was I jumping on trains half fare from the north yeah yeah turning up at Kings Cross jumping on a tube whatever and going to grove I was like kid yeah you know most kids don't even hang out in another kids neck of the woods because third would be trouble.
KK: I mean I remember going into that pit and I no one was in there but me maybe four or five mates we are all from out of town all there just to see you know get the Kodak’s going photos, and as I was taking photo it was like a cinematic moment how I imagined it in my head but I looked I kind of put my camera down and see all everyone right around me taking photos flashes flashes flashes and I looked round I'm like yeah like hold on a ,minutes like we're downstairs in a you know in a ball park and there's only one entrance in and out we need to get the fuck out here.
PART 2: I mean the way It was set up in the eight his whether I should say name so I mean phone was one name if anyone knew anything about phone there no I’m talking about don't even need to say no more, that’s; that bit done.
KK: Okay.
PART 2: I can think of other names as well but that was the thing and there was some people who lived in certain blocks near say Westbourne Park tube station and they know when new pieces had gone up oh right pay day this weekend so they kind of see people come out that soon so they could see him I mean in any area like that back then you could spot new faces who didn’t belong you knew it you knew they were alternative, these were alternative tourist destinations people didn't necessarily go to London to see big ben or Buckingham Palace some people went to see Ladbroke Grove to see you put their money in their socks on the way in or whatever whatever they want to do know that they it's a very good hiding[ place but, that was it and it's perfect cos you you block the door you look people are locked to think of going nowhere the way your whim is just like that what you got.
KK: alternative tourist spots.
PART 2: pocket yeah great and it was just payday.
KK: it's not like that is.
PART 2: it so many things are different about even the piece is then lasted maybe six months before.
KK: not anymore.
PART 2: only go when certain amount of pen tags w get more and more and then it be like let's someone glasses on the character or whatever and do a new one and it was a lot of the same people it’d be funny and them guys non-stop or all-star kings or scam Cosby knows and they all knew each other in it yeah so that’s what means smaller circles then you got now .
KK: mmm yeah I was speaking to Sime, he was on the podcast and he was saying you know did you know um, what’s it called… um Trellick when you go down some places now like a lot of the graff they don’t actually last that long at all.
PART 2: A day maybe, its literally paint, get your photo, it’s almost, that's the new that's the modern-day rule book I think is an eyepaint your piece take you photos and
KK: get the fuck out.
PART 2: and if you expect it to last you’ve got no argument.
KK: but it's l like yeah for a peace it could cost up to like 40quid now you're paying for cans so what’s the how there's an incentive?
PART 2: incentive is your Instagram account, that’s what I was talking about earlier. More or less your painting the wall but really its life span all about it existing in that kind of you know cyberspace basically and it's currency in cyberspace in terms of likes and comments and whatnot generating likes and followers that's is that’s the economy of here in some ways that’s capitalism's they'll takeover of culture and spraycanisms or whatever itis subject to capitalist reign and rule really and globalization is a very much concrete people it's funny how someone said this old academic lecture once, it’s funny how people can predict the end of the world but no one can predict the end of capitalism you know, I remember when I heard that, I was like, you see that guy in the town square the end is nigh and all this and it's kind of like ya know nothing in terms capitalism comes down that's it it’s just war hell,
KK: Hell.
PART 2: If you can send to hell be around when capitalism dies, and that bomb goes off you know.
KK: That’s cold.
PART 2: William Burroughs as well said don't think about being around when they're shithole blows up in that voice don't think about being around, I can’t do the voice, I can’t do his accent.
KK: do you do you envision a well because with my podcast right I mean lot of people may or may not know this but everything that I do with the podcast is from scratch it goes from I make the music there's the soundtrack to it theme music then I'll do all of this and then I'll go and edit it and then I’ll do all the trailers , n from the subtitles do you know right down to the wire .um there's something incredibly like although it's not all my thing is like I'm a conduit to other guests and art is coming on and I want to know all about them the back line of it is entirely my creative space do you see and I'm coming to something here do you feel like the all-encompassing artist in you now we're talking about the creation of the instrumental the creation of the music the end result the product the graffiti the illustration that artwork behind a piece the thing that becomes the record cover itself in many cases and then there's you that embodies that both sides of it like do you think that should that we both share a very similar structure and way of working you know it said everything counts in the creative arena do you think that like is part or rather the lack of some creatives identities is that they don't fill the overall commitment of like if you gonna apiece do the soundtrack for the piece if you’re gonna do something embody it you as a person like Rammellzee would. Do you think that is lacking?
PART 2: I think he's gonna like he's always gonna lack for that very reason but uh you can be born into it , you're born into a system where everything is accessible and available and anyone can apply you know props to you for your podcasts is the success of your podcast but anyone can make podcast from their bedroom.
KK: understand, yeah yeah.
PART 2: just use that as an example and this is everything yeah in culture anyone can anyone with money can open a coffee shop you don't have to be costa or Nero you know anyone can make music on a laptop you don't need a studio.
KK: yeah yeah yeah.
PART 2: you know what I mean.
KK: this is what I’m thinking like why wouldn't a graffiti writer like traphouse. I don't think heard of a guy called traphouse but he's making he does the tattoos he does graffiti also doing his own music and there’s something really um you know celebrating about there's something really like taking advantage of these different creative mediums I love the idea of agraff writer having like that you do having your your music that represents you know.
PART 2: I wish I was younger you know I’d like to come and feel of to come at things again from another angle I mean even with a little more trains earlier I mean I painted a train in 1985 and he was easy jump over a little wall it was about maybe five foot high them old concrete slab walls and you're in a yard but it’s as raised so to get away it’s easier to jump over the wall and run off into the wilderness or estate or whatever and some of them layups. well I remember painting train it was just there in the layup I was gonna guess because to get us through from one end to the side of the Train cuz the length of the Train knows their only point of entry unless they want to crawl underneath but they could see us first, but there was a wall behind us. you know I remember doing it my reason I never really did trains but I did about maybe one in Sheffield after that I mean the 80s but from that moment in time, I didn't know about anyone in London painting tubes or anything to me I was just trying to copy the style wars let's do a train you know probably like okay he probably got rammo in your head white one now this is a blue slam door and I think there was an embarrassment about doing it kind of like yeah just me and my friend in this yard on own painting this slam door or nothing else or no other mark on it it still quite New York isn’t it. yeah it fell a bit embarrassing I remember we'd been painting some walls and the four of us and the other two had gone off we'd gone off to walked away to go past those yard but they had the camera we didn't say didn't get a photo of it and the following weekend went back to find photos couldn't find the Train, everywhere in that yard going round between all the different carriages that God knows where is and I didn't like the fact that a car what's the word can’t contain idea to get a photo.
KK: Not enough control for you.
PART 2: yeah and it wasn't like there was any train scene or anything or there I mean I wasn’t aware of who else might be painting trains in other parts of the country or London or whatever or in Europe.
KK: But you felt like a little dot in the thing just a tiny little Dot almost like.
PART 2: um yeah stupid imitation like the blue slam door was hardly doesn't that quite have the glamour of the New York subway in this crack ridden city and it doesn’t feel, it felt a bit kind of life if phony I felt phony.
KK: I get ya.
PART 2: Okay yeah so I never really pursued I know I suppose in those early days 85 stuff I'm the big influence but then was seeing things in Covent Garden by chrome Angelz applied and everybody and even the stuff don't grow and those kind of like you know fun black styles were all the shines and all of that. inverse upside-down kind of I had asked me to get into all that kind of futuristic it’s kind of like I think pride called I remember saying to pride how would you describe that style back them we just called it futuristic. and he said he does look at as I like an an impressionist version in New York it's more Impressionism.
KK: Woah… yeah yeah.
PART 2: and I kind of, that’s an interesting, ah I get that almost like you know there might be a pink but like outline with white highlights rather than a big chunky fat black outline like you'd see the scene in New York it's all very much big if you paint big cars a big fat outline whatever and I fought in Britain it kind of um it moved a bit somewhere else and it became a bit more like this fusion of colours almost like maybe it's not as wild style as say a case 11
KK: crazy
PART 2: it’s got more very illustrative kind of definite line yeah where's this stuff because it didn't have a definite you know definite line, he looked more complicated or wild style because it was like the colors would blow.
KK: Yeah yeah.
PART 2: Since he was enough he that had bigger influence on me and I suppose my embarrassment it was different so I never really moved into those kind of territories as much but that's why I always say people have got different experiences is there’s no point In trying to be anyone else but yourself and everything you want to talk about keeping it real like Roberta flack once said keep it real compared to what, you know. To me the art gives me some kind of way of interpreting things interpret in life it’s all hermeneutics, the art of interpretation, basically and that's what it’s all about nothing competing it’s very difficult in a time now when almost everything is derivative by default if everything is derivative by default the the best way of changing things not much like I mean some people might just do a letter thing and go let's do a different character because no one's ever done a character like that on the train but it's not big enough change I think it needs to be conceptually.
KK: yeah.
PART 2: and if I was coming at it now from a younger point of view I probably just off the top of my head these aren’t definite ideas that I would totally doubt I'd think okay what can I do to a train. okay I like the idea of if if people look at this graff thing as being like predictable, yeah it's more graphic it’d just be it's just more noise in it white noise but if you paid a whole car black and got some of that sticker stuff and tinted the windows black tinted window then it's kind of like a Hey! Who repainted the car they always start ringing I mean in amongst they own authorities always trying to work out why that cars black but it can't be vandal who the hell would want to do that so it is the headscratcher yeah from a conceptual point of view I mean you could you could stick huge vinyl Tech's on there of certain slogans across the whole lot of saying something whether it be political geopolitical something about London or does something about anything really.
KK: The idea of the rap.
PART 2: it's changing the way you're looking at we don't have to why do we have to be restricted to this using spray paint anyway? there's other ways to be subversive and I think when when spray-paint fails to be subversive anymore because you see it all and it all becomes like part of the wallpaper in the background I don’t want to preach because something might say ah fuck fuck fuck this dude Keith, what's he talking about here ah I'm just graff for life. Fine.
KK: They didn’t quote unquote terrorism and quote unquote vandalism is the thing I think then why it would be stuck on this one medium.
PART 2: yeah it isn't necessarily all about the vandalism and me know a lot of people I remember saying is something on a Facebook post years ago about do you consider what you do political? and a lot of people were like I'm just into bombing I'm just into I don’t see myself as political and they were looking at the question wrong and they were looking it's like now, I don't make political statements with what I do and I just tag my name from the point of the status was, yeah but it's a political act because it’s not supposed to be there so it’s your statement on like fuck London Transport fuck the city. I'm here and I want to write my name there that is apolitical statement now something and I say I don't think a lot of people always necessarily have a full understanding of what they do on the kind of wider context but in some ways in terms we we could make it go a whole lot further way beyond the corporate control because even corporate companies can now can use a bit over Vandalist looking graffiti aesthetic to make their product look a bit more edgy you know we could start doing things we can can you turn the colours of a tube into Jamaican colours and keep them in the same place so it's almost like it almost looks official there’s just a mess.
KK: you know know who fucks with that really well is. solo one did a really good.
PART 2: yeah yeah.
KK: the sticker campaign was incredible.
PART 2: that's it.
KK: dude I remember going on I did, I'd go out on nights with him he would do different campaigns this was at a time when new to brands and companies but but he was the go-to guy and there wasn't any legislations or any weirdness about it so his thing was like we were walking down the road you need he would get a sticker it was a tiny sticker he would talk about this one podcast or another and he’s stuck it it's the same size as the barcode on the bus advertisement board and I go what you doing there he goes well they're brands aren’t they fucking stick it on their barcode so when the guy comes around trying to get it won't work. these little details of like.
PART 2: yeah yeah yeah.
KK: Jesus Christ - oh that's a lot of thinking but it just made yeah, they're cool anarchic for no-good reason sense you know.
PART 2: what I mean there was a thing years ago you’d be yeah just having a few beers people and stuff and you might be like what if everybody in one whole country wrote the same thing and bombed everywhere who do you catch then? are you so and so? everyone is so and so. that's just amazing you can't catch him because he’s everyone and he's everywhere.
KK: like Coca-Cola is.
PART 2: yeah, yeah that kind of thing. it's finding new ways do things but yeah we could kind of say is it limited to the medium of spray-paint or come to other things can you take the take the roofs off roofs open top think I mean these are stupid, stupid or create silly but it's just the idea of how far we haven't gone really there’s a lot of simple things and simple ways of looking at things where you could probably have more effect in sub in subverting things and arresting people mentally will engage in new ways because I think um if something’s been seen for 30 years and it's that the same style and time stuff it's good, it's gonna like a virus in it and becomes immune, antibiotics you know something you know we've become like people become immune to being engaged with certain types of work or whatever.
KK: what’s inspiring you at the moment who's out there that you're just overall actually let’s be broader than that. What’s your all-time inspirations what are the people that you're like yeah like because you you know um VOP for a minute you’re a TAN and crew you had all these different things that you would.
PART 2: well I was in VOP because I was in iconoclast and VOP were part of that and I think I did a few things down there in London and it was a link to doing stuff in London all the time and I think like I said earlier I think that has wanted mien because of the I did good photorealism or something so it's a bit like get him on board but yeah I think that old thing split up.
KK: TAN sounded crazy though.
PART 2: TAN was my main thing really/the aerosol nation was was me system shine from Manchester from the style stuff Rob Elliot juice 126.
KK: crazy crazy crazy writer
PART 2: well yeah, I mean that that to me is like that’s real.
KK: that's the proper line up.
PART 2: You got drip paint what, I'll drip the whole wall mate all the way down and I'll use like 50 cans on one wall.
KK: You still can’t fuck with Juice now.
PART 2: and people are trying to pin all this stuff into this kind of like spray painting the contemporary art ,will post vandalism and all these things that don't even really make sense is too stupid. even I didn't even like that Graff futurist thing all of these things that just don't make sense and it's all people kind of trying appropriate but no one's talking about on we did this as the iconoclast movement back from the late eighties and it’s kind of like fill in whole walls with drips yeah you've got crink.
KK: does everything yeah
PART 2: you've got crinkle now you’ve got risk in LA painting with seen doing that styling yeah, the whole background 100-foot walls up a jerry paper up in here and no one's giving no to juice and the same thing.
KK: Exactly.
PART 2: And it’s crazy.
KK: And again, we are just highlighting, there's no rules like what why it has to be a reason for something it's like complete and utter fun for the sake of it.
PART 2: only paint letters, why not maybe he thinks he needs to write his name or white things maybe doesn’t really want it all maybe just feels he's not as good at it, Your within reason to say I’m not good at it, But I’ll play to my strengths
KK: which are the best bits to being creative. You fold into that thing and just
PART 2: Yeah, uses your weakness as your strengths.
KK: Love that.
PART 2: that was the stuff to me that was ground breaking. Car paint every day. The scene was on its ass. Nothing was going on we the acid house thing was taking over and a few of us just wanted to paint and we just wanted to disassociate from the American thing I think mainly because I'm thinking got a bit tedious of well cos you talk to people, you know you always come across people who are outside of the culture know who's like we don't really interested in what you guys do because you just copying and America innit. that was thing about it. Yeah it was kind of like oh it had to be seen as a yeah it’s just cool and trendy it's a big thing in New York and everyone here is copying it now and I it just got a bit like you know well we've got nothing to prove in that arena anymore try something different yeah then then it feels fresh.
KK: yeah challenging your successes and you’re doing something a little bit different and it works.
PART 2: we went all the way into the 90s and I’m thinking in terms of graffing only really came back in from mid to late 90s we're not bloody Jason Nevins run DMC fuck around there was a revival and everyone wanted in New York bubble letters again and stuff.
KK: Isn’t that crazy?
PART 2: It was like hang on.
KK: cultural preparation.
PART 2: we will we’ve been beyond that for you now you're gonna send us back there yeah and now you’re looking I was like don't fit in yeah because that was it in the graff world it was I, you guys have to start fags and in in the art world we were like it's just graff, its spray paint, it’s not accepted in the art world so you you’re a kind of like on the threshold of neither here nor there and in some ways I’m kind of like ok that's fine then so be it it's bullshit anyway. least we’re doing what we want to do yeah and not trying to do what everyone says we should do or fit into some particular market or some someone else's ideology it’s just like at the end of the day, if it really about being a renegade then be a renegade then and be yourself
KK: and again, it takes a lot of strength and
PART 2: it's like I said it's lonely some lonely place to be.
KK: yeah do you feel like um this is an observation this it’s pure a purely personal question.
PART 2: I'm gonna go into observational comedy now.
KK: yeah, yeah, yeah what’s it’s called when you do like um mining I'll do this mining, um but do you feel like as times gone on that nonconformity can be to one's detriment not an attempt but a solitude kind of way do you feel like sometimes your your story gets sidelined because other bark louder.
PART 2: oh yeah they can really feel like you flogging it at all sometimes you know you do stuff and it goes over I've done so many things weight has gone over people's heads yeah and then I see people doing it now and I’m like oh hang on alright you paint can signal test strips and CMYK things and when I did that before I was as nuts why is he paying them all around East London is painting whole walls white under sticking a little CMYK square matrix thing on.
KK: and you kind of get a.
PART 2: people using it as fillings as styles I've seen in the signal I did a signal test I think just off Shoreditch High Street you know I've seen a building somewhere in the Middle East enormous side of a tower block with our own and I'm like in 10 years later all kinds of people using it you know and I've done it it's kind of like don't really understand that doesn’t say anything and it's not an image what is it an it was all a conceptual approach to things yeah.
KK: that’s crazy.
PART 2: I was deliberately trying to be a conceptual another project that did was just God I went around Shoreditch deliberately because it was all saturated and I was painting whole walls white and I told someone laser cut stencil for me of all their HTML code hmm just put a code in the middle in the blue and red and actually took you to a link that just gave you the driest flattest description of the wall surface but it was all about the whole thing of doing painting all these walls over and over so so thick we pained there this all flaking off you're only doing it day after day just just for a photo to upload . it's like okay Well then why not just painting the code on there then.
KK: That’s amazing.
PART 2: then you put the code in your phone and straight to the app. but it's a conceptual approach. to me that's that's that’s then to me that's that feels like an authentic way to do to to be subversive or if you really want to be vandalism whatever then that is the way to do it because it's got it's got to kind of belike hey how's that code what is it.
KK: So sick.
PART 2: put in your phone we'll put that in the phone dish then you get to it and all you get is a really flat dry description of the wall like almost like on exhibit a yeah metal framework wall covered in acrylic paint, it don’t describe any artwork, some ways this is where we've gone really you actually left our physical being behind and disappeared into this screen I mean that’s it now the world is officially shrunk because it's on my screen I can Skype my friend in Australia now there’s no distance its gone its abolished.
KK: we don't even say hello no more.
PART 2: no distance, no obstacles, no more plane fare it's just here and what we got to talk about probably not much besides what you up to. We end up talking about Where are ya, washing machines gone again you probably end up talking the most banal.
KK: but I mean having said that though we haven't seen each other when the first time was, we saw each other last time we saw each other.
PART 2: last time it might have been New York I'm sure I saw you walking around Ladbroke Grove, but I was a bit like is it? isn't?
KK: we're talking he's about 20 years.
PART 2: yeah something,
KK: come on, it might be even more.
PART 2: I first met you I think on the tour when you touring with Vadim and Mr. Thing. And I was with with new flesh yeah in 1999, I think.
KK: you come in the house and it was like next day. One chat on the phone and it was like, yeah, yeah come through. Yeah, a cup of tea, chilling. Just like we would have done.
PART 2: that's it, its lovely tea as well, mate.
KK: yeah, we only ever had the best in the Killa Kela podcast and the mighty Part 2.
PART 2: Mighty.
KK: I’m telling you bro legend.
PART 2: You’re too kind.
KK: hey, it’s a pleasure man.
PART 2: we're gonna have to sanitize hands now.
KK: Not even joking.
PART 2: lives on the surface.
KK: yeah yeah, we got this yeah, we got this 2020 business.
PART 2: I said Keith Kay hope well aka part two is a make a part two with the man Killa Kela here just to say fuck you, Corona virus.
KK: Fuck you Corona Virus. Big up all day. thank you so much for passing through brother.
PART 2: yeah, it's a pleasure man always a pleasure man I'll come around again for a tea. It’s worth it for the tea.
KK: That’s right. Me casa, Si Casa I say to everyone it comes through, if you’re in the area you know what to do.
PART 2: I'm gonna go puff on this now.
KK: Have a little chug ,so lovely little chug, put another cup of tea in the pot live and direct central London every week alright Killa Kela podcast thank you for tuning in stay lucky and stay our touch of dodgy viruses and strange women.
PART 2: Cheerio.
KK: Alright, PEACE!