Nick Hartman

Hip Hop Pioneer Paper

2/28/08

 

Transformation and Stratification in Graffiti Culture:  The Pivotal Figure of CAP

 

In the early 1970’s, the New York graffiti writing scene—indeed, the world scene—was in its infancy.  In 1971, the New York Times did a piece on a personality—speaking on condition of anonymity—who called himself Taki 183.  Taki was concerned with writing his name in as many places as possible, and people, including the Times, had taken notice.  According to Jeff Chang, “After Taki 183 got his name in the New York Times…graffiti took off” (118).  This was the infancy and childhood of graffiti writing in New York City.  All of the sudden, everything was a new canvas, and everyone was aspiring to this new artistry.

            However, all good things must come to an end, and as the 70’s waned, it became apparent that this child-like state of bliss was quickly becoming an angsty, tension-filled adolescence.  The space crisis that emerged in the graffiti culture in New York in the late 70’s forced writers competing for recognition and respect to abandon the camaraderie and mutual respect of earlier years in order to compete for resources and visibility.  One of the key ushers of this age of adolescence was a bomber named CAP.  CAP’s militant role in the conflict that emerged between “bombers” and “piecers” served to catalyze the transition from graffiti as a “street art” and style to graffiti as Art.

 

Graffiti Culture

In the early 70’s, graffiti culture developed in an organic way.  According to Chang, quoting ZEPHYR “‘Everybody wrote…but no one was all that serious about it, it was just a rite-of-passage type thing.  Like you fuckin’ rob a marker, and you fuckin’ mark shit up for six months, then you throw that shit away and get into some other shit.’ But for him and his peers, graffiti was a permanent outlet for their fizzy reckless energy, a legacy to maintain and a future to enter.” (120).   This expression from ZEPHYR is illuminating of the ethos behind the hierarchy the quickly developed. 

There were three strata into which graffiti writers fell.  Toys were those who were not that serious about it—or at least they had not been for very long.  Their tags were underdeveloped and they attempted to learn.  As a toy developed his/her tag, learned the unwritten rules of graf-writing, and developed his/her own style, s/he became a writer.  The writers were those who were dedicated to graf-writing, doing elaborate “pieces” or masterpieces that took up whole cars.  Writers were established, and they had style.  The majority of serious graf-writers fell into this category.  The kings were writers who had reached the pinnacle of their abilities.  Being a king meant that the writer had the one thing that every writer craves—recognition and respect.

It is important to note that this definition of kingship—indeed, any definition of kingship—is quite vague.  As a result, not only were there many kings (not a big issue), there were also many kinds of Kings. In Taking the Trains, one writer is quoted as saying, “Traditionally, quantity has played as much of a role as quality.  The man with the most pieces was always considered the king of the line…” (Austin, 118).  This polycentric definition of kinghood allowed for the king of a given line, the king of bombing, the king of masterpiecework, the king of danger tags, etc. to emerge simultaneously from the same area.  However, the quote from Austin also illuminates the central focus on space.  The trains were primary in the 1970’s world of bombing, and being king of a line meant getting up over a lot of space throughout the line.  Because this was how to become king of a line, this focus on space acquires a character of importance and principle.  This focus on expanding across much space, borne out by the subway trains, goes a long way to explain the conflicts that occurred at the end of the decade and the genesis of CAP.

The Space Crisis and the Birth of CAP

            As the decade neared its close, the scene of New York graffiti writing changed.  With New York City’s aggressive new campaign against graffiti, including the vomitous graffiti wash for the city’s subway trains, writer’s pieces would not stay up.  But because the wash left trains looking vomitous and uneven, no new spaces were being provided either.  Graffiti writers in New York faced a new problem: a problem of resources.  Suddenly writers did not have the clean spaces they needed to paint, which challenged the ethic of mutual respect and benign neglect.  Austin explains, “By the late 1970s the increasing competition for space resulted in another renegotiation of the writers’ ethic of ‘respect’ for existing works” (119). 

            Suddenly, the only place to paint was where other people had already painted.  It was at this point that that the theoretical nature of the established hierarchy was pushed brutally into the realm of the practical.  Where once being called a king was a titular recognition of style and gesture of respect, it now became a license to paint—a permit to cover the works of writers and toys.  The hierarchy that had once resembled a family structure, in some senses now resembled class stratification more than familial roles.  And, as any good Marxist will tell you, in order to advance beyond class stratification, there will be class conflict.

            This conflict occurred in the form of CAP.  CAP started painting in 1979, just as the space crisis was getting into high gear (Austin, 119).  Almost immediately, CAP found himself a prominent member of a disenfranchised underclass of writers whose struggle for respect and recognition—common to all taggers—was being thwarted not by the institution, but by other taggers, who, for vague reasons, were thought to be better than the writers.  The space crisis now rendered the hierarchy of graffiti writers into a set of battle lines.

CAP and others backlashed, by responding in kind.  CAP wrote over everything.  His only regard for the writer of the previous piece was whether they had written over him.  Austin continues on page 119 with an interview with COPE 22, a disciple of CAP, who says, “He was just like any normal writer at the beginning, he was just getting up.  But then he got tired of it [being written over by other writers] and started ragging everybody’s pieces to get respect.  To let people know if you’re gonna go over him you gonna pay.  He just wanted respect.”  People did pay, too.  He had a reputation for covering up anything and everything by a given writer once that writer had painted over him.  The film Style Wars depicts a crew inclusive of early-70’s masterpiece King SEEN, who struggle repeatedly to do any piece without having it recovered by CAP.

CAP succeeded in gaining recognition, and respect.  Clearly, COPE 22 had enormous respect for his mentor.  Even those who harbored no special care for him had to recognize him, even if as a figure of infamy.  His school of throw-up bombing was continued notably by COPE 22 and others, and has been adopted as an inevitability by some, a response to the space crisis.  All in all, CAP was a pivotal figure in the development of the artform.

A House Divided: CAP and the Stratification of the Graffiti World

            It is no coincidence that Graffiti finally found a home in the studios in the early 1980’s, after failed attempts in the early 70’s.  Not only was there money in the production of gallery art; not only was a canvas more space at a time when little space was available; gallery space became valuable to masters like ZEPHYR, DONDI, PHASE 2, SEEN, PJAY and others for the reason of its durability (Chang, 152-153).  If you painted something on a train or a city wall, it was likely to be covered up by CAP or some other bomber, possibly even another king.  Pieces in the gallery endured.

CAP was directly instrumental in pushing graffiti into the gallery scene.  And of course, from the gallery scene, graffiti quickly went mainstream.  This would not have happened as quickly as it did nor in the manner it did, if it had not been for the bombers spawned in the late 70’s by the likes of CAP.  But the gallery life also widened the divide between the old school of masters and the new school of bombers.  The period between 1982 and 1985 was a period of Darwinian style competition for writers who were not in a gallery in a world of bombers.  According to at149st.com, “[a]t this point, physical strength and unity as in street gangs became a major part of the writing experience. The One Tunnel and the Ghost yard were the back drops many for legendary conflicts. In addition to the pressure from the MTA, cross out wars among writers broke out. The most famous war being CAP MPC vs. the world” (1/27/08).  Here, too, CAP was a big player.

The gangland nature of the bombers in CAP’s time also came into play within the sphere of his conflict with artists that had gone into the studios.  This is evidenced by a 1982 graffiti exhibit that was disturbed by the presence of CAP and PJAY.  Quoting PINK, Chang says, “‘Apparently CAP and PJAY showed up, pulled out a .45 and shot my school full of holes.  Shot one kid in the back’” (182).  Clearly the threat of gangland violence kept some artists off the street, as well, even if it came to them, in this instance.  Further up on the same page, Chang quotes SPAR ONE “There was…‘a whole war mentality.  That’s when I remember things started getting really violent.’”

CAP and Hip Hop

            Style Wars depicts CAP as a figure of infamy.  He is depicted as a threat to the way things are done in the world of graffiti.  He destroys masterpieces with his two-bit throw-up art.  But in Style Wars, CAP was being depicted through the eyes of SEEN and PJAY, who did not like him.  In reality, CAP’s contribution to hip hop can be seen as an assault on a way of life that was better, simpler, and is now gone.  But nostalgia often overemphasizes the good while forgetting the bad.  In reality, CAP spoke for a generation of writers who were being forgotten and overwritten by that old system.

            CAP’s contribution is not, however, his advocacy for the proletariat of writers.  That would give him too much credit.  Instead, CAP’s contribution to hip hop came without his consent, but it is just as real as any other.  Without CAP’s villainous involvement during this transitional period for graffiti art, the space crisis would have eventually given way to all-out gang-style territorialism—which it did.  But because CAP was a loud and concentrated harbinger of the time that was coming, some artists who otherwise would have fallen into the culture of war of the early 80’s would move into the studio.  As soon as graffiti found a door to the mainstream, it found a highway to other locations, and so a superhighway for both exoteric and esoteric self-creation through unique innovation at different loci.  This feature is important to the continuation of graffiti culture, and it could not be without CAP as a player.

Works Cited:

Austin, Joe. 2001. Taking the Train: Youth, Urban Crisis, Griffiti. New York: Columbia University Press.

Chang, Jeff. 2005. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. St Martin’s Press: New York.

“History of Graffiti, Part I” @491^st.com.  2/27/2007. http://www.at149st.com/hpart1.html