THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1.

When looking at early RIME pieces it’s clear that you had great letter structure, can control, and you were doing multiple styles from very early on. Did this come naturally for you or was it something you had to work on?

I have always been trying to get good at graffiti. As a kid, before I got into graffiti, I was really into drawing. I used to draw comic strips from the Sunday newspaper and things like that. When I found graffiti, it was something I wanted to get good at and I was always trying to achieve a certain look. I was always searching and pushing myself. Whenever I would get a look that I wanted, I was never satisfied, there was always something new that I wanted to go after. No matter how much I accomplished, there was always something ahead that I saw and wanted to get to. Even now, I can be somewhat satisfied with my work but there is still this need to push ahead. I also get really bored when I do one type of style too much. It’s like eating food; I am someone who likes to eat all types of food. I like to bump around and sample many different types. Style-wise, I am the same way and do the same thing with music. I don’t just listen to rap or rock or this or that. It all depends on what type of mood I am in. Some days I might be in the mood for something hard or aggressive and other days I might want to listen to something mellow. Stylistically, what I end up painting is also based on my mood. If I feel like a challenge, if I feel like I want to push myself, I will do something technical. If I just want to have fun and do something big, loose and kick-back, I’ll do something bubbly and heavy.

Looking back, what was the best criticism you ever received on your work?

I find that when you are looking for feedback people often flatter you in some way and don’t go too much beyond that. People are really afraid of being offensive and it prevents people from thinking, it prevents people from offering their true opinion – I get tired of that. The first two people that I met who had really strong opinions and philosophies on wild style were these two guys from New Jersey, TECK and SYKO. These guys had so many opinions when it came to wild style. The major critique from these two was that the wild style of the day (this was back in 97’) was nothing more than block letters with arrows attached to them. TECK and SYKO believed that writers weren’t really pushing themselves. They said that wild style was when you take the base of your letter and stretch it out, distort it and make it abstract – that is what makes it wild. Any additional add-on’s contribute to the technicality of the piece, but it starts with exaggerating the base. I remember we had this crazy three hour conversation about it. I am the type of person who likes to debate about this kind of shit. That conversation fueled me. I was with NACE too. Within a few weeks, both NACE and I went from really compact and simple pieces to really long, stretched out and wild pieces. NACE’s Stuff went from being really simple and classic to being really long and robotic to the point where you couldn’t really read it. I didn’t turn around and make my style into their styles, but I took what I was already doing and applied these ideas. It was great. It allowed me get good really fast. I was able to translate ideas that I had been drawing on paper for years onto a wall all because it clicked. That was the biggest thing that ever happened for me stylistically. NACE and I ended up going to San Francisco not long after (March, 1998) and we applied all this stuff. We were supposed to stay with TIE but he was killed a week before we arrived.

Graffiti, in my opinion, is done by two types of people, craftsmen and innovators. The craftsmen learn how to draw, learn how to paint clean, learn basic tricks like highlights, bubbles, putting stars in their pieces etc. They have learned a trade and can execute it better than most. Much like a skilled carpenter or any other tradesman. The innovators take the basics and bring it to a whole new level. NACE is a great example of that. His early pieces had a huge KAWS influence. He took those basics and ran with them, developing something completely unique. Do you consider yourself a tradesman or an innovator? How much of what you do is borrowed and Was there a point where you stopped borrowing, a point where you felt that it was time to take what you learned and make it your own?

I consider myself to be both. I believe the way to go is to start as a tradesman, from there you become an innovator. When you get involved in a passion, it takes over and really becomes a part of who you are. I think there is a real learning experience that comes with the process of being independent in the way you think and the way you express yourself. It’s not like you shut-off the outside world and become this independent-thinking machine, something that creates from within 24/7 with no outside influences. That’s not true for anyone. Graffiti can be a very socially-integrative thing. It is very creative and there is so much to soak up. Someone like myself, I have a wide range of influences. I pull influences from a lot of people I deal with on a day-to-day basis and I am not ashamed of that. I think people try to fight it and in my opinion that is what keeps people stagnant. They are afraid to look like they are copying, they are afraid not to have something exclusive to them and as a result become married to a style. A writer may be doing the same throw-up for 25 years and if they do something else they feel like it’s not them, or they feel like they can be accused of biting. I am not concerned with that. If I take something, I’ll openly admit it. I am comfortable with who I am and the things I do. No matter what I take in, it gets processed through my mind, it goes through a filter made up of all my habits and techniques. Nothing goes out the way it came in. Again, it’s like eating. If I go to a fancy restaurant and eat the finest fish dinner, when I go home and shit it out, it doesn’t look the same. It goes in, gets filtered and comes out. It could be different colors and textures, ranging from really solid to really soft, or look really questionable – but it never comes out the same way it went in. (laughs)

Let’s look at weight lifting because that is something a lot of people have tried at some point in their life and hit a plateau with in terms of development. And the recipe for breaking through that plateau is easy. Work out harder, switch up your routine, lift more often or less often, eat properly etc. When someone hits a plateau with graffiti it is not as simple as switching up a few things. What is the recipe for breaking through it?

I think people hit a point where they are satisfied. Graffiti is a type of art where you really need to be young at heart to get the most out of it. You can’t have a lot of responsibilities interfering with your work. Sometimes the most productive people in graffiti don’t have many other productive things going on that can get in the way. Once you get into your late 20’s and 30’s you tend to slow down and not put the same amount of energy into graffiti. Dudes slow down with graffiti and they start to stagnate, they start to get worse and worse over time. Maybe they reach that point where they are inspired again and they can pick themselves back up. The same goes for any type of talent: If you don’t put the same amount of energy into something you could lose it and you may not ever have it the same way again.

It’s all about mastering your craft. You’ve got some people who master a skill and they will stay within that skill set. They accept the skills they have learned as the way to do something. They will be happy with that. You have other people who will become obsessed with what they are involved in. They will learn and relearn things over and over and get to the point where they reach an end result and say, “Hey, you know what? If I do this a little differently I can be more efficient,” and they begin to really master their craft. From there some may feel inspired to trade tradition for idea-driven innovations.

I think art is not as technically restraining as being an electrician or something like that. Art is very loose. You don’t have to explain everything down to a tee, it does not have to be mathematical and can be very open ended – you can suggest things. Most of the time a viewer doesn’t see all the mistakes that you see. They can maybe approach your art work from their own experiences and pull something else out of your work. Something you didn’t plan on to begin with. You can feed off of that.

How do you feel about the people that choose not to take it past that “craftsman” level. They know how to paint a piece and they keep it clean and simple and they stop there. Do you feel like that’s a disservice or a negative to graffiti in general?

No, not at all. There are some people who love graffiti for what it is. They love the traditions that come with graffiti. For them it’s all about doing good quality work that represents graffiti in their eyes. It’s their take on it. There are some people that I regard as stylists who only do traditional styles coming from the mid-to-late 1980’s, they want to maintain that look. To them, nothing represents graffiti more and they are happy with that. They are happy doing panel-style pieces, retro b-boy characters, or having very hard, simplified letter forms. I love that stuff too. You might see a piece of mine that looks like it belongs in the 1980’s. I know what those people are like. I know what they feel because I feel that too. But at the same time, it’s just in me to bump around and sample a variety of styles. I might do a piece that is heavily influenced from the New York train-era but that doesn’t mean that every single time I paint I am going to paint that way. My mind doesn’t work like that, I can go from a 1980’s style piece to something that is very experimental and weird. As long as I keep doing that, I will stay interested in graffiti.

The Exchange is a concept you came up with. It is made up of 12 artists who pair off into six groups of two, trading names and personal styles through sketches. The artists then execute the other artists sketch on a wall. This step is repeated until everyone in the group has traded outlines at least once. This is a really innovative concept rooted in the older tradition of your boy hooking you up with some outlines while you are learning how to paint or vice versa. Has this helped you in terms of development? Do you think having someone hook you up with some sketches and painting them is important in developing personal style?

The reason I started The Exchange project and the way I came up with the idea was a result of how I grew up. As a kid I grew up in a very packed household so I would wait for everyone to go to bed to have some alone time; creative time. One night I came up with a plan to create an international network of people trading and discussing graffiti style. I had the resources and I was in contact with the right people to get involved in the project. I got in touch with them and pitched my idea and they believed in it. I think the reason I started it was because I got to the point where I was bored with what I was painting, I felt like I needed something new to be added in. I wanted to take in new influences and have people give me outlines and try to do something out of my comfort zone. That is where The Exchange came from.

Lets talk about your breaking into mainstream art. Your Mom talked about it yesterday. It sound’s like at one point she encouraged you to do something with your talent and like most people you seemed against it because of the whole “sell out” thing. Has the main stream artwork you have been doing for art shows, your sneaker and clothing line with Adidas, or your involvement with Disney, have these outlets been as fulfilling as traditionally graffiti?

What I am trying to do now is create work that represents ME. I am not trying to change for a company. If a company wants me they will be hiring me and I will give them something that I would be doing either way, whether I was getting paid or not. It’s very easy for me to do that. I will evolve and change as I see fit. If people like it, then they will hire me. If not, I am going to be doing it anyway, and that is kind of where I am right now. I rarely have to submit sketches or even let these big companies in on what I plan on painting, they are happy with getting something from me.

When I was younger I was against that whole idea. I didn’t want to do anything creative for money. I would rather be a security guard, work in a department store, deliver pizza, or do degrading jobs just to make enough money to travel all summer painting graffiti. I didn’t want to sell my talent and I was really stuck on that. I’ve reached a point, especially with going through legal trouble and going to jail, where I was like, “DAMN! Here I am broke and committed to something that I haven’t created a future with and I am sick of it. I turn around and see these fresh-out-of-art-school, wheat pasting art fag people coming into graffiti for a year, flipping it, doing corporate gigs, gallery shows and selling paintings.” I was like, “FUCK that’s not right.” Giving all this to people that dipped into the game for the wrong reasons. I have been painting graffiti for over 18 years. That should be me, or anyone who put that time in. That should be reserved for the people who didn’t get into graffiti to start a career. It should be the people that have made graffiti what it is today, those are the people who deserve these type of opportunities. For myself, the people I work with and the people in my crew, that’s what we are all fighting for. We’re trying to raise the bar and make it clear to companies that you can’t just fuck with graffiti writers that attempt to have a career that comes from being an artist who does graffiti. If a company is going to work with graffiti writers, then they need to work with credible people.

As far as where I fit in to all of this. I still go out to paint streets and spots. I’m not some guy who’s like, “Graffiti is this thing I used to do.” Every time I paint a train or a wall, or when I go to another country, I am promoting myself and making myself stand out more. Productivity is key. I feel that the more I paint, the more likely people are going to want to hire me for projects. In the end I am doing what I love, for free or for work.

Jersey is the kind of place you love and hate at the same time. Outside of graffiti what is the one thing you love about Jersey and the one thing you hate about Jersey?

Since I am born and raised in New York City, it is kind of funny that I call myself “Jersey Joe.” It is even more funny that I’m struggling to think of some positive things to say about the Garden State (whoever gave Jersey that name has obviously never driven through Elizabeth). But yeah, fuck.. Hmmmm… One thing I hate about Jersey is all the poison ivy in the summer, and one thing I love about Jersey is all the space. With all the walls and the trains, there are a lot of opportunities to paint graffiti out here. If you choose to, you don’t even have to be bothered with people. You can go and paint down-low spots and no one would be aware of it. You can function out here without all the drama, if you want to. Outside of graffiti, I can’t think of anything. I guess that’s why I don’t live here anymore. Wait, actually my favorite thing about Jersey is this pizza place in Hoboken, Benny Tudino’s Pizzeria. I made pizza for years as a side job. On the west coast you don’t get that type of Pizza.

Any last words?

I’d like to say much respect to New Jersey, and those clever enough to escape. NACE, TIE, and SEMZ rest in peace, Mad Society Kings worldwide in ‘09, The Seventh Letter, KnownGallery.com, ECHOE, SGOD, EULOGY, Patty & “Rime-Dog” from the trailer park.