london, dubstep and graff

[ozols man]

everyone who i know including myself whos into dubstep from london has done graff at some point... i just thought thats a bit mad, like dubstep IS graffers music

thats all really

safe

[kernelcoremode]

done graff back in 94-99, still doing a bit but not more than once a month... most of my friends who used to write with me are into dnb and dub, and nowadays more move to dubstep... i guess it fits the whole hip hop aesthetic thing, groovy beats, big basslines, head nod music...

ps. u will soon see the cover my mate did for Sully's ep, last active writer in my crew - king of athens Moka... serious graff bizzness...tps are out there now, but full artwork in a month...

[spiro]

dubstep IS graffers music

niceone !

[ozols man]

thats also why when i read on here when loefah said dubstep is the new hiphop i knew EXACTLY what he meant... although someone else wrote he thought he was taking the piss lol

dubstep is pretty hiphop in my eyes, real heads know wot im talking about

safe

[ozols man]

done graff back in 94-99, still doing a bit but not more than once a month... most of my friends who used to write with me are into dnb and dub, and nowadays more move to dubstep... i guess it fits the whole hip hop aesthetic thing, groovy beats, big basslines, head nod music...

ps. u will soon see the cover my mate did for Sully's ep, last active writer in my crew - king of athens Moka... serious graff bizzness...tps are out there now, but full artwork in a month...

oh yeh athens is fucking insane. i remember going there when i was younger for a short while and just seeing so much graff EVERYWHERE, its proper lawless when it comes to that stuff i swear. the best thing was also that the pieces were actually good too.. must be something to do with the lax attitude from the law maybe..?

[kernelcoremode]

has to do with the fact the cops are retards here.... only good at stoping you when u mind your business and search u for dope... easily 16 year olds who can run twice as fast as these fat pricks can are not easy to get caught... the cops are too lazy to do anything, just stand somewhere and stop anybody who looks weird passing them.. I been arrested twice, both times the cops after intimidating me a bit in the station let me go... others of course have gone to court but usually in cases u get caught doing trains.. street bombing is unstoppable and uncontrolable here...

[John Locke]

dubstep IS graffers music

i hope not. graf's been dead 4 years.

cant think of a more conservative, closed-minded, sheep-like bunch of people than current writers...if thats who we got 2 rely on 2 move things 4ward the scene is fucked

lets face it. graf hasnt been innovative or rebellious 4 a good 20 yrs now.

its just pretty pictures 4 nike adidas etc 2 sell u more goods. fully appropriated by the establishment

tho i agree that dubstep is a continuation of the funk>hip hop>DnB evolution and that this is what most writers r feelin

[ozols man]

dubstep IS graffers music

i hope not. graf's been dead 4 years.

cant think of a more conservative, closed-minded, sheep-like bunch of people than current writers...if thats who we got 2 rely on 2 move things 4ward the scene is fucked

lets face it. graf hasnt been innovative or rebellious 4 a good 20 yrs now.

its just pretty pictures 4 nike adidas etc 2 sell u more goods. fully appropriated by the establishment

tho i agree that dubstep is a continuation of the funk>hip hop>DnB evolution and that this is what most writers r feelin

u can argue graff is dead on the trains cos of those hardcore laws and that campaign to paint all the tracksides. but from my experience when i was doing it, no one was doing to be "cool" or whatever ur insinuating.. maybe i was and i dont remember haha but it was just about art, destruction and getting ur name up etc... but HOW can u not say it aint been inovative? if u look at the likes of cgo/rt from west london, they have been SMACKING it and they got serious SKILLS its not even funny... in fact theres nuff crews round london who have got skills but i cant even really recollect half their names cos im not really involved in all that now..

anyway my main point is - im not actually going to bait anyone up but established dj's who ive chatted to in the dubstep scene have got enuff connections with ppl who were involved in the graff scene... whether the graff scene in london is dead is open for debate but i know when i was doing it it was anarchy boss

[spiro]

dubstep IS graffers music

lets face it. graf hasnt been innovative or rebellious 4 a good 20 yrs now.

its just pretty pictures 4 nike adidas etc 2 sell u more goods. fully appropriated by the establishment

tho i agree that dubstep is a continuation of the funk>hip hop>DnB evolution and that this is what most writers r feelin

without trying to start to much ruckus, I have to say this sounds weird . . .

there is a difference in graff as paint on surface and graff culture . . .
graff is still alive and well hardcore style!
what nike and adidas is doing, I dont know, but chrome on steel trains isn´t seen as fully appropriated by the establishment in Oslo yet . . .
and some threads on this forum tells the same . . .

to me the same goes for hiphop, the music has gone to a more commercial level, but real hiphop is the fealing, not the music, so YES dubstep music is definitely hiphop . . .

[ozols man]

gwarn spiro knows exactly wot im talking about. like graff dubstep has brought nuff ppl from different backgrounds together too. although to be fair in the graff scene there was alot more robbing, and were not just talking about paint from shops...

[John Locke]

my 'graf's dead' comment wasnt about london, it was about graf in general.

yo, i dont doubt u had a good time bombing, so did i , but unless u r one of approximately 5 people in the whole history of european graf, u cant possibly argue u ever innovated anything.

when i say graf had been dead for a least 20 years I mean it was dead from the moment it arrived in europe. no matter how hardcore u r, from UV through to WUFC , its all just faking, its all just wannabees. we were ALL wannabees in europe. the whole graf scene is backwards looking, dreaming of the golden age of NY 1970s. this aint healthy. this doesnt lead to progress.

i aint saying yr experience of DOING graf isnt valid, I aint saying u ddint smash it, I'm saying it added nothing 2 the artform. the only writers that really count r the ones who invented it. anyone since then is just playing make believe (and that includes New York writers since the early 80s). every major innovation in graf took place before 1980, before it spread out of new york to the rest if the world. we just picked up the readymade kit and and used it, but we invented nothing. a few indiviuals in europe added their own twist, excelled at it, made it their own. but they didnt really invent anything.

and for all its image as a 'rebellious' artform, my experience is that writers r closed minded and totally unaccepting of any movement away from the norm, intollerant of anything thats not 'hardcore' or keeping it 'real' (i.e. anything new), and follow slavish the accepted rules...that is until about a year later when the very same innovation made by some lone individual that was slated for being sell-out will be addopted by everyone else and become just another style.

this is the same deal for ll artforms of course. but the resisitence to innovation followed by bandwagon copying just seems that much more extreme in graf.

so, if the future of dubstep relies upon these kind of people, i dont see it really going anywhere.

having said that tho, dubstep is already passed the 'pre-1980 golden age' stage, and is where graf was when it spred out of NYC and around the world. the people that mattered were like stay-high, cliff, fuzz etc...the rest copied. they innovated before anyone really knew what graf was, before it really had a name. same with dubstep: horsepower, el-b etc created dubstep before it had a name, innovated, now its mostly just copyists, the standard has been set, the format written in concrete.

yeah, there'll always be a few individuals who'll take it somewhere else, refresh it (in graf: delta INC, Lokiss, Os Gemeos...in dubstep: Burial, vex'd and a few others)...but effectively the period of inovation is over. like with jungle there was a rush of creativity at the beginning with the originators from Shut Up And Dance etc onwards, then a load of copyists, and a few who refined and perfected the form (photek, grooverider)...and now look at the state of DnB...its unlistenable, so far from its origins as 2 b almost unrecognisable...its so long i didnt check DnB anymore that wwhen i hear it now it kind of freaks me out, sounds like fucking trance or music for a tampax ad or someting

anyway, i digress...

[John Locke]

dubstep IS graffers music

lets face it. graf hasnt been innovative or rebellious 4 a good 20 yrs now.

its just pretty pictures 4 nike adidas etc 2 sell u more goods. fully appropriated by the establishment

tho i agree that dubstep is a continuation of the funk>hip hop>DnB evolution and that this is what most writers r feelin

without trying to start to much ruckus, I have to say this sounds weird . . .

there is a difference in graff as paint on surface and graff culture . . .
graff is still alive and well hardcore style!
what nike and adidas is doing, I dont know, but chrome on steel trains isn´t seen as fully appropriated by the establishment in Oslo yet . . .
and some threads on this forum tells the same . . .

to me the same goes for hiphop, the music has gone to a more commercial level, but real hiphop is the fealing, not the music, so YES dubstep music is definitely hiphop . . .

my point is not if graf is legal/illegal or whatever. its more that graf was once rebellious but now if i was 15 or something the last thing i would want to do wld be graf...for fuks sake the people who invented it are in their 50s now, find something a bit more rebellious to do, this was the rebellion of yr parents generation. graf was something underground and unknown when i was a kid, we were a minority, it waslike a secret society, the other kids treated us like we were abnormal...now is like everyone knows what graf is, everyone goes "yeah, cool", and a lot of people tried it. its wak an played out and still looks the same as it did 30 years ago. whats the point? find something else to piss people off with. fucking banksy is about as rebellious as knocking on yr neighbours door and runing away.


Ozol's original point though was that a lot of dubstep heads have DONE graf, and r not neccarily doing it anymore, so 2b fair to him i gots to admit that perhaps the picture aint quite so bleak as i first painted it: graf was once innovative but no longer is, anyone who wants to innovate and searches to bring things forward has moved on to other forms of expression

so maybe there's hope

anyway, if u have fun writing, cool 4 u, dont let me persuade u not to do it, i had fun to...but dont think u r in anyway rebelling against "the system" or some bullshit. graf's dead and yr just playing kids games. (which I'm also known 2 do every once in a while)

[ozols man]

fair play battle gong u got some fair points.. i think u clocked what im tryna say but ill just reiterate a bit more.. basically from wot i have heard from ppl who are actually close friends to the main djs in the scene who r now touring the world... (once again wont mention any names cos it aint really my beeswax) these djs were actually graffing before they got recognition in the music scene. so im saying this "rebelious" attitude is intrinsically tied with the music if u see what i mean? i mean look at all the djs names! there fucking tags for christ sake! i was thinking of using my tag as my dj / production name but i thought its best to leave that world behind.... back to the point though, even the whole pirate radio thing is hip hop to me.. cos ppl r playing on air illegally saying fuck off to the establishment wittingly or unwittingly - its all just underground culture. thats why i argue dubstep is graffers music... its that MENTALITY

there will be a time when dubstep is completely appropriated by the establishment, its happening now actually.. every man and his fucking dog called snuffles knows who skream is for example... this is when the next generation of djs and producers will come along thru the underground system and bring a new sound... and im willing to bet these ppl with have links with graff culture

[spiro]

Now I can understand what you mean Battle Gong . . .

dubstep has brought nuff ppl from different backgrounds together

but like ozols said, isnt it more about finding a way to communicate through, than just innovating ?

To me this isnt about being number one, its about doing something you like together with people you can relate to . . .

and for the sake of the thread, dubstep isnt inventing music, its just a wicked sound . . .

[dj phonetic]

my 'graf's dead' comment wasnt about london, it was about graf in general.

yo, i dont doubt u had a good time bombing, so did i , but unless u r one of approximately 5 people in the whole history of european graf, u cant possibly argue u ever innovated anything.

when i say graf had been dead for a least 20 years I mean it was dead from the moment it arrived in europe. no matter how hardcore u r, from UV through to WUFC , its all just faking, its all just wannabees. we were ALL wannabees in europe. the whole graf scene is backwards looking, dreaming of the golden age of NY 1970s. this aint healthy. this doesnt lead to progress.

i aint saying yr experience of DOING graf isnt valid, I aint saying u ddint smash it, I'm saying it added nothing 2 the artform. the only writers that really count r the ones who invented it. anyone since then is just playing make believe (and that includes New York writers since the early 80s). every major innovation in graf took place before 1980, before it spread out of new york to the rest if the world. we just picked up the readymade kit and and used it, but we invented nothing. a few indiviuals in europe added their own twist, excelled at it, made it their own. but they didnt really invent anything.

and for all its image as a 'rebellious' artform, my experience is that writers r closed minded and totally unaccepting of any movement away from the norm, intollerant of anything thats not 'hardcore' or keeping it 'real' (i.e. anything new), and follow slavish the accepted rules...that is until about a year later when the very same innovation made by some lone individual that was slated for being sell-out will be addopted by everyone else and become just another style.

this is the same deal for ll artforms of course. but the resisitence to innovation followed by bandwagon copying just seems that much more extreme in graf.

so, if the future of dubstep relies upon these kind of people, i dont see it really going anywhere.

having said that tho, dubstep is already passed the 'pre-1980 golden age' stage, and is where graf was when it spred out of NYC and around the world. the people that mattered were like stay-high, cliff, fuzz etc...the rest copied. they innovated before anyone really knew what graf was, before it really had a name. same with dubstep: horsepower, el-b etc created dubstep before it had a name, innovated, now its mostly just copyists, the standard has been set, the format written in concrete.

yeah, there'll always be a few individuals who'll take it somewhere else, refresh it (in graf: delta INC, Lokiss, Os Gemeos...in dubstep: Burial, vex'd and a few others)...but effectively the period of inovation is over. like with jungle there was a rush of creativity at the beginning with the originators from Shut Up And Dance etc onwards, then a load of copyists, and a few who refined and perfected the form (photek, grooverider)...and now look at the state of DnB...its unlistenable, so far from its origins as 2 b almost unrecognisable...its so long i didnt check DnB anymore that wwhen i hear it now it kind of freaks me out, sounds like fucking trance or music for a tampax ad or someting

anyway, i digress...

Check this guy....



http://farm1.static.flickr.com/231/5009 ... c1b451.jpg

[kirk]

dubstep IS graffers music

i hope not. graf's been dead 4 years.

cant think of a more conservative, closed-minded, sheep-like bunch of people than current writers...if thats who we got 2 rely on 2 move things 4ward the scene is fucked

lets face it. graf hasnt been innovative or rebellious 4 a good 20 yrs now.

its just pretty pictures 4 nike adidas etc 2 sell u more goods. fully appropriated by the establishment

tho i agree that dubstep is a continuation of the funk>hip hop>DnB evolution and that this is what most writers r feelin

Bruv,the reason graff seems dead is becaues the btp's have gone on so millitant that most of the graff done is cleaned off before anyone can see it.Its 10 times more hard for writers to theyre thing nowadays than it was back say 10 years ago.

I think the writers who are still out there smashing it even though it seems like the world is against them deserve maximum respect.

[kirk]

Battle gong.
How can you say that all the european writers are wannabes.Look at the history of uk graff.
Just take DDS for example,they had bare of theyre own styles they used to fuck it up 24/7.Graff was basically theyre life.
Its all good saying all this on a forum but in reality would you really go up to Coza or Faum and tell them theyre wannabes of u.s writers?
True graff started in america but why shouldnt anyone out of america do it as well?Thats like sayin that u.s dubstep is fake dubstep.....its mindless.

[ozols man]

Battle gong.
How can you say that all the european writers are wannabes.Look at the history of uk graff.
Just take DDS for example,they had bare of theyre own styles they used to fuck it up 24/7.Graff was basically theyre life.
Its all good saying all this on a forum but in reality would you really go up to Coza or Faum and tell them theyre wannabes of u.s writers?
True graff started in america but why shouldnt anyone out of america do it as well?Thats like sayin that u.s dubstep is fake dubstep.....its mindless.

haha from wot i heard about coza ud have to be on crack to say anything like that to him...

[John Locke]

Kirk, I dont live in london anymore. i aint saying graf is dead cos u dont c it on walls trains etc like u used 2 but bcos its pointless, in fact i live in probably one of the most bombed cities in europe, where even the subways is still killed. but its all shit, its all the same, copies of copies. People writing Renok so they can bite Revok's letters, or writing Pevs to bite Revs.

The whole world could be bombed to fuck with no buff in sight and i'd still say graf is dead. I got mates who hav been some of the most active steel vandals of the last 10 yrs in the UK, and even they admit its dead now. if u have fun, then cool, but if u wanting to contribute something or be remebered, or innovate, forget it.


Ozol's, what u r talking about with many DJs etc coming from graf is no doubt true, but i dont think its something limited to dubstep, or even music. This was something that hit me a couple of yrs ago, just how many people from graf end up doing something else creative later on, and often very succesfully. some obvious examples: 3D from massive attack, and Goldie were both well known and respected as writers before they'd even released a record.

over the yrs i met nuf people i used 2 know, or who had heard of me, or i'd heard of them, already thru graf. from DJs, musicians, graphic designers, directors, artists or whatever. and my explaination for this was always that u basically got to be one fucking motivated, ambitious person (or mentally ill) to be a 13yr old that crawls out the window of yr parents house at 3 am to go write on trains when all yr contemporaries r tucked up in bed. if u keep this motivation and dedication up thru adulthood then it can only help yr career.

but sum1 else i was talking to once gave me an insight into another (part of the ) explination: hip-hop has gone from minority underground music with a following of only thousands, to become the biggest selling, most commercial music in the world. for people like this guy i was talking to they understand nothing, and they just cant move forward in that world (which is now ALL our worlds, thanks to globalisation), they dont get it. Instead, if u grew up with the hip-hop mindset, and grew with it, u r already in a position where u understand how the worlds dominant culture works. u get me? hip hop is now fully the cultural establishment, if u get it then u can move forwrd in that wrld, if u dont then u r left behind.

I gues some of the disagreement with my statment that graf is dead has to do with the fact that I'm coming from the ( entirely personal) point of view that something is only worth doing if u r trying to move it somewhere new. personally i dont see the point in just immitating. agreed, innovation is not easy, but if u r not even striving for it then i dont c the point. and most people doing graf are just not interested in taking it anywhere new, they r content to copy. i aint interested in this. at all. but its yr life.

[John Locke]

Battle gong.
How can you say that all the european writers are wannabes.Look at the history of uk graff.
Just take DDS for example,they had bare of theyre own styles they used to fuck it up 24/7.Graff was basically theyre life.
Its all good saying all this on a forum but in reality would you really go up to Coza or Faum and tell them theyre wannabes of u.s writers?
True graff started in america but why shouldnt anyone out of america do it as well?Thats like sayin that u.s dubstep is fake dubstep.....its mindless.

1> DDS r of no interest to me. or anyone else outside of a small circle of peple in london and the uk. they will b 4gotten like many hundreds of thousands of others have been forgotten over they years. they have contributed nothing. i'm sure they had fun. so good for them. but thats it.

2> the only reason I wouldnt say such a thing to cosa's face is cos i value my denitistry. this is obvious and is called self preservation. dont be stupid.

3> maybe i havent explained myself clearly, but I'm not talking just about US writers being real and the rest of the world fake, I'm even saying that even current US writers r just as fake as europeans, or asians or africans or whatever. graffiti died in about 1979. almost anything since has just been a copy. and that wld include other writers in the US.