The Subculture that Gave Colours to Hip-Hop
“Before rappers earned fame busting rhymes at local jams, writers were the celebrities of the ghetto and the street”
Art is subjective, and our expression of it varies. One constant is that graffiti has always been a key medium, revitalizing streets in cities and towns by transforming blank walls into vibrant communities of visual creativity.
Hip-hop in its earliest forms could be described as the fusion of subcultures of the African and Caribbean Diaspora that were prominent in urban epicenters. The emergence of hip-hop showcases marginalized creatives, harnessing music for empowerment, in the same way that writing establishes its presence in spaces or communities without ownership and autonomy.
The familiar urban graffiti style, characterized by spray cans, originated in New York City during the late 1960s, particularly on subway trains. For tagging inside trains, permanent markers were effective, but spray cans of paint quickly gained popularity, particularly for tagging on the outside of trains.
Modern graffiti is believed to have originated in Philadelphia in the early 1960s and spread to New York by the late 1960s. It gained popularity in the 1970s when people began inscribing their names, or “tags,” on buildings throughout the city. By the mid-1970s, subway car windows were often obstructed because the trains were completely covered in spray-painted works known as “masterpieces”.
In the late 1960s, Darryl McCray, known as Cornbread, started tagging walls around his hometown of Philadelphia. Cornbread claims to be the first to tag a personal name instead of a gang symbol and is often credited with igniting the U.S. graffiti movement.
After gaining recognition in a youth detention center, Cornbread continued tagging his name all over the streets of Philadelphia upon his release. He even used the blank brick walls of North Philadelphia to win over his junior high crush, writing “Cornbread Loves Cynthia” all over her neighborhood and along her school bus route.
This makes him the first writer to achieve all-city fame, sparking the idea of “writing your name everywhere to make it big”.
In the early 1970s, TAKI 183 emerged as a pivotal figure in the subway graffiti scene. Residing on 183rd Street in Washington Heights, NYC, He worked as a messenger, traversing the entire city. During his journeys, he left his name and street number “183” everywhere by using a marker to inscribe wherever he went, including subway stations and the interiors and exteriors of subway cars.
Over time, he gained widespread recognition throughout the city as a mysterious figure utilizing the subway system as his canvas. His tags gained attention across the city, spanning every subway line, drawing admiration and criticism. His pioneering approach inspired other graffiti artists to adopt similar tactics. His graffiti is still regarded as one of the best in the world.
We must also acknowledge Fab 5 Freddy's pivotal role in combining the elements of hip-hop. As both a participant in subcultures and fluent in the dominant culture's codes and contexts, he bridged the gap between the ghetto and the media.
Freddy first became known in New York's downtown underground creative scene in the late 1970s as a graffiti artist when he joined the Brooklyn-based graffiti group, the Fabulous 5, famous for painting entire sides of New York City Subway cars. Alongside fellow Fabulous 5 member Lee Quiñones, under Freddy's leadership, they transitioned from street graffiti to the art world.
Fab 5 Freddy saw the unification of various cultures into the single concept of hip-hop as a personal vision. “I developed these theories that all these elements of our urban culture were beginning to seem like one big thing.”
Like hip-hop, graffiti is a form of expression that directly challenges mainstream ideas of art, public space, and property. Just as an MC or DJ challenges the conventional definition of music, graffiti pushes boundaries and creates its definition of art.
A common misconception is that all graffiti is gang-related. However, the reality is that most graffiti is not associated with gangs. Gang-related graffiti is primarily used to mark territory and is usually created with less attention to detail and style.
Graffiti often faces a lot of misunderstanding due to its illegal nature and the secrecy surrounding the identities of the artists. This has led to graffiti not receiving the same level of positive recognition enjoyed by rappers, DJs, and dancers in mainstream culture.
While some in the art world have embraced graffiti, there is still limited understanding and appreciation for it among the general public.
The graffiti seen on the NYC subway gained worldwide fame, and its unique style and sensibilities influenced graffiti in other parts of the country and the world, blending with local traditions and styles to create new forms of artistic expression.
The early hip-hop and rap community embraced graffiti as an aesthetic expression, reflecting creativity in the post-industrial urban environment of the 1970s and early 1980s in the U.S. This association is evident due to their geographic proximity.
By 1984, the renowned photojournalists Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant put together a book of photographs illustrating the graffiti subculture called “Subway Art”. For this, the street art scene exploded rapidly around the globe and it became known as the Bible of street art.
Martha Cooper & Henry Chalfant
In the late 80s, artists sought fame through large tags known as "bombings," created overnight. These simpler tags often featured characters with solid-colored fills and minimal contrasting outlines. They expressed their identity in a society that aimed to keep them anonymous and overlooked social issues as if they didn't exist.
Styles like Throw-ups, Wildstyle, and Anti-style are integral to hip-hop, illustrating its essence. Graffiti and hip-hop are intertwined; graffiti has played a significant role in spreading hip-hop culture, and vice versa.
Despite the artificial connection driven by money and unrelated to the participant cultures, graffiti and other elements of hip-hop are associated in terms of location and time. They were products of the same cultural context and shared some important concepts.
Over time, hip-hop has seen greater monetary success for artists compared to other art forms. However, this difference doesn't cause conflict between them; instead, there's mutual respect and solidarity.
In essence, graffiti and hip-hop are inseparable, enriching each other and together creating a visually expressive cultural movement that continues to inspire and challenge the world. Graffiti is still a vibrant and influential part of hip-hop, adding to its rich history and shaping its ongoing development.
The dichotomy of Ruido.
A moment in the present.
Indulge in the music of culture.
A moment in the present.
Indulge in the music of culture.