Transcript
Graffiti: So Cool It’s A Pillar of Hip Hop | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW
From Stuff You Should Know · Episode page · Watch on YouTube
· 48 min · 9,287 words · 182 timestamped sections
This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Graffiti: So Cool It’s A Pillar of Hip Hop | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW", an episode of Stuff You Should Know published November 26, 2025 (48 min, about 9,287 words). It mentions 239 people, works and ideas, including Graffiti, Exploring with Josh, Little Chuck, Cornbread, Style Wars.
What this episode is about
The discussion focuses on graffiti as a fundamental aspect of hip-hop culture, tracing its origins from the late 1960s East Coast scene back to earlier influences, such as 1930s mural art from Mexico. The conversation highlights the evolution of graffiti techniques and styles, emphasizing its artistic significance and cultural impact.
Key takeaways
- Graffiti predates the spray can; mural artists in 1930s Mexico paved the way.
- Spray cans, not markers, revolutionized graffiti; ironically, markers debuted later in 1953.
- 'Magic Marker' was the first commercial marker, debuting when people still preferred paint.
- 'Cornbread' McCrae, a Philly legend, claims he birthed graffiti at age 12 in juvie.
- Ironically, 'youth development centers' are stingy with cornbread, even for kids nicknamed 'Cornbread.'
Who speaks in this episode?
- Josh Clark (Host) · 27 min speaking
- Chuck Bryant (Host) · 22 min speaking
- Livia (Guest)
- Yumi (Guest)
- Ben (Guest)
What is discussed, and when
- – 5:00: Graffiti, Spray Paint, markers, spray can
- – 10:00: Graffiti, Cornbread, Taki 183, Cornbread
- – 15:00: Graffiti, pieces, subway, Throw-up
- – 20:00: Graffiti, Wild Style, Wild Style, Cholo style
- – 25:00: Graffiti, Style Wars, Henry Chfont, Style Wars
- – 30:00: Graffiti, subway, Hugo Martinez, New York City, New York
- – 35:00: Graffiti, Rust-Oleum, Spray Paint, Easy Off
- – 40:00: Graffiti, markers, Spray Paint, Handstyle
- – 45:00: Graffiti, Futura 2000, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring
- – 48:19: Apothecary, Graffiti, Handstyle, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Notable quotes from "Graffiti: So Cool It’s A Pillar of Hip Hop | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"
Hip-hop culture, as we'll see, but, graffiti needed its own thing. And graffiti in the United States, we basically think of as sort of a late60s East Coast thing. and this…
about Graffiti · atYeah. So, there's a guy named Daryl McCrae who will tell anybody who sits still long enough that he was the person who invented graffiti.
about Cornbread · atWent all over the city. So, it was a really good way to get the Taki 183 tag all over the place. And it got so far and wide that Taki was actually part of a New York Times…
about Taki 183 · atDo you want to take an early break or you want to keep talking and get into some different kinds and styles?
about Little Chuck · atWhat should I go what can I learn from? One of the things that people will refer them to is style wars.
about Style Wars · atNew York City. has a pretty cool I think they make showings of his photographs sometimes. And then the movie Wildstyle actually came out a year before Style Wars, 1982. It's…
about Wild Style · atAnd it gets cleaned off before it even leaves the transit station. So that actually worked. And by 1989, apparently like whole car graffiti was just not around anymore in New York.
about Futura 2000 · atYeah. And Keith Herring, I know we've talked about before, but he started drawing in chalk on the like when they would take a advertisement down on the subway walls, there would be this.
about Keith Haring · at
Who and what is mentioned in this episode?
People
- Exploring with Josh — Person · Host · 1 mention · first at
Co-host of the episode; leads much of the conversation and provides context, anecdotes, and questions.We're talking graffiti, obviously, Chuck. I don't know if everybody knows that.
- Little Chuck — Person · Host · 1 mention · first at
Co-host who provides historical detail, commentary, and banter throughout the episode. - Cornbread — Person · Early practitioner / origin story example · 3 mentions · first at
Presented as one of the earliest U.S. graffiti writers (Darryl McCrae) — example used to explain tagging origins and motivations. - Taki 183 — Person · Pivotal early writer · 2 mentions · first at
Cited as a delivery worker whose Taki 183 tag inspired widespread tagging after a 1971 New York Times article; used to explain early spread. - Daryl McCrae — Person · 1 mention · first at
Yeah. So, there's a guy named Daryl McCrae who will tell anybody who sits still long enough that he was the person who invented graffiti.
- Henry Chfont — Person · Photographer / documentarian reference · 3 mentions · first at
Mentioned as a photographer who documented graffiti and co-created or contributed to documentaries like Style Wars, Subway Art and Spray Can Art projects.Book, too. And then another one with another photographer, James Prigo, called Spray Can Art. So, Henry Choffont had a real impact on like documenting this stuff that still is…
- Futura 2000 — Person · Notable graffiti artist / example · 2 mentions · first at
Referenced as a major figure in subway-car and street graffiti; collaborator on a notable full-subway-car piece ('Break'). - Martha Cooper — Person · Photographer / referenced source · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as a photographer who co-created Subway Art, an influential photo book documenting graffiti culture.Essential guidelines were laid down at this time. Yeah. So, you can still learn a ton from watching Star Wars or Henry Chant got into a couple of other projects, too. One with a photographer named Martha Cooper called Subway Art.
- Keith Haring — Person · Referenced artist who crossed from public/street work to mainstream art · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as another artist who began with public/street visuals (subway chalk) and achieved wide recognition; used to show graffiti/street roots entering the art world. - Jean-Michel Basquiat — Person · Referenced artist / example of graffiti-to-art transition · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as a high-profile artist who began with street-based work and crossed into the mainstream art world.Like mega mondo fame like art world fame who started out as graffiti artists. one of them was Jeia Michelle Bosat. A lot of people point to him as a wildly successful artist…
- Henry Chalfant — Person · Referenced expert · 112 mentions
A photographer who documented early graffiti culture. - Dan Pink — Person · Referenced early female graffiti artist · 2 mentions · first at
Mentioned as an early and rare woman graffiti artist who appears in early films like Wild Style.Hiphop movie ever. I think it was a Fab Five Freddy project, but it has the Rock Steady Crew. one of the rare early woman graffiti artists, Lady Pink, she's in it. And then…
- Hugo Martinez — Person · Referenced organizer/advocate (graffiti collective founder) · 2 mentions · first at
Discussed as the student activist who helped form United Graffiti Artists (UGA), an early bridge from street writing to gallery/canvas contexts.And then a few years later in 1972 a big deal happened when or big deal for that culture at least. Hugo Martinez is a student activist at City College in New York and he helped…
- Ed Seymour — Person · Inventor referenced (spray can precursor) · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as the Illinois paint company owner credited with inventing the aerosol spray can (1949), enabling modern graffiti techniques.Obviously a vital part of graffiti. That was invented in 1949 by a painter in Illinois, a paint company owner named Ed Seymour and his wife. And I tried to find her name.
- Angelo Dundee — Person · Graffiti artist / collaborator · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as collaborator with Futura 2000 on the famous full-car piece 'Break'; representative of subway-car era artists.Know how just ridiculous I sound right now. It departed from any kind of convention. It used all sorts of new elements and stuff that I hadn't seen anywhere else. And you…
- Shepard Fairey — Person · Referenced street artist · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned in the entity list / transcript as a notable street artist (creator of 'Hope' poster and 'Andre the Giant' sticker culture).Posi stickers that he made and then also for his hope poster of Barack Obama during the 2008 election. Yeah. Shepherd Ferryy, good work.
- Bonnie Seymour — Person · Referenced co-inventor (spray can) · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as Ed Seymour's wife and collaborator in the invention of the aerosol spray can, tying the technology directly to graffiti’s later emergence.By a painter in Illinois, a paint company owner named Ed Seymour and his wife. And I tried to find her name.
- Turk 182 — Person · Early tag example · 1 mention · first at
Used as an example of early Spanish Harlem-style tags that included a street number and nickname.Said, some of the first people were just writing their names and they would come up with this tag and some of the earliest tags came from Spanish Harlem where you would have your nickname and then a number like Turk 182.
- Banksy — Person · Referenced street artist example · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned briefly in the entity list and transcript context as a well-known (anonymous) street artist connected to stencil/street art approaches.What? And we've mentioned Banksy, right?
- Bonnie — Person · Referenced spouse/co-inventor (spray can) · 1 mention · first at
Named as Ed Seymour's wife who worked with him on the radiator-coating experiment that led to the aerosol can invention.Oh, I couldn't find it. You found Bonnie?
- KRS1 — Person · 1 mention · first at
Like knowledge of self, knowledge of where you come from, your history. real KRS1 stuff, you know.
- Henry Chalfont — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
Photographer who documented graffiti culture.He just turned the he turned the camera.
- Livia — Person · 43 mentions
- KRS-One — Person · 10 mentions
- Cheech Wizard — Person · 6 mentions
- Jay Leno — Person · 4 mentions
- Cornbread — Person · 3 mentions · first at
That's right. But we need to talk about cornbread right?
- Von Bode — Person · 2 mentions · first at
Intersected with other art forms over the years. in the 1980s there was a comic artist named Von Bode who was very influential to this culture. he had a couple of characters…
- Futura 2000 — Person · 2 mentions · first at
There's a really famous one by Futura 2000 and Dundee which is called Break, and it's considered one of the greatest full subway car masterpieces anyone's ever done. It's beyond description. Just.
- Carla Ren — Person · 2 mentions
- Dynamite Kid — Person · 2 mentions
- Ed Koch — Person · 2 mentions
- Puck — Person · 2 mentions
- Yumi — Person · 2 mentions
- Lionel Richie — Person · 1 mention · first at
Talked into trying it and then just freaked out. But probably would have been Richie.
- Turk 182 — Person · 1 mention · first at
Earliest tags came from Spanish Harlem where you would have your nickname and then a number like Turk 182.
- Julio 204 — Person · 1 mention · first at
I think Turk 182 was entirely made up. I don't think it was a docu drama, but one of the first two was Julio 204 and Taki 183.
- Demetrius — Person · 1 mention · first at
Yeah, Taki 183. Taki was a nickname, a Greek nickname for Demetrius, still is.
- Tony Silver — Person · 1 mention · first at
He and the director Tony Silver, who worked together, they turned the camera on these graffiti artists and just had them talk and show what they were doing and explain why they were doing.
- Fab Five Freddy — Person · 1 mention · first at
Wars, 1982. It's considered the first hiphop movie ever. I think it was a Fab Five Freddy project, but it has the Rock Steady Crew. one of the rare early woman graffiti…
Books & papers
- Subway Art — Book · Referenced documentation / recommended read · 1 mention · first at
Cited as an influential photo book (by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant) used as a reference for those learning graffiti history and styles.A ton from watching Star Wars or Henry Chant got into a couple of other projects, too. One with a photographer named Martha Cooper called Subway Art.
- Spray Can Art — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
Book documenting graffiti culture.I've also seen newbies referred to that book, too. And then another one with another photographer, James Prigo, called Spray Can Art. So, Henry Choffont had a real impact on like documenting this stuff that still is important.
- Style Wars — Book · 3 mentions · first at
Which I highly recommend watching on YouTube, a documentary from 1983 called Style Wars, which is a really good watch.
- Oliver Twist — Book · 1 mention · first at
- Names, Graffiti and Culture — Book · 1 mention · first at
Academic article about graffiti was in 1969 in the Urban Review by Herbert Cole was called names graffiti and culture.
- Break — Book · 1 mention
- Wild Style (film) — Book · 1 mention
Companies & orgs
- Krylon — Company · Referenced company · 68 mentions
A company whose spray paint was used by early graffiti artists.Yes, but if you're a purist in America, you probably are still using Rustoleum or Kryolon.
- Molotow — Company · Referenced company · 18 mentions
A company that produces spray paint for graffiti artists.Yeah. in Europe, they did market, there were a couple in the '9s, the Montana and Moloto brands of spray paint actually target street art markets and have all kinds of like,.
- Bombing Science — Company · Referenced company · 3 mentions
A website that provides resources for graffiti artists.Graffiti artists will come up with like their own entire alphabets that they just designed themselves. And there's a really great website that's super useful if you do want to get into graffiti called bombingscience.com.
- Rust-Oleum — Company · Referenced company · 2 mentions · first at
A company whose spray paint was used by early graffiti artists.Yes, but if you're a purist in America, you probably are still using Rustoleum or Kryolon.
- Pilot — Company · Case study · 6 mentions
A company known for its markers, which were popular among early graffiti artists for their broad tips and refillable ink. - Sanford Kingsize — Company · 1 mention · first at
You could use a marker. And in the early days, Pilot marks a lot and dry DRRi and Sanford Kingsize were they were very broad tip markers. So those were some of the early markers that were the most popular.
- Moloto — Company · 1 mention · first at
Yeah. in Europe, they did market, there were a couple in the '9s, the Montana and Moloto brands of spray paint actually target street art markets and have all kinds of like,.
- Montana — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
A company that produces spray paint for graffiti artists.Yeah. in Europe, they did market, there were a couple in the '9s, the Montana and Moloto brands of spray paint actually target street art markets and have all kinds of like,.
- Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
A racing team co-owned by David Letterman, mentioned in listener mail.However, guys, David Letterman is well known within the indie car racing world as one of the owners of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. the team won the cart indie championship in.
- iHeart Radio — Company · Producer · 2 mentions · first at
The company that produces the podcast.Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.
- Rock Steady Crew — Company · Referenced expert · 2 mentions · first at
Breakdancing crew associated with hip-hop culture.Actually came out a year before Style Wars, 1982. It's considered the first hiphop movie ever. I think it was a Fab Five Freddy project, but it has the Rock Steady Crew. one of…
- United Graffiti Artists — Company · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
Collective of graffiti artists formed in the 1970s.And then a few years later in 1972 a big deal happened when or big deal for that culture at least. Hugo Martinez is a student activist at City College in New York and he helped…
- Stuff You Should Know — Company · 2 mentions · first at
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.
- Rock Steady Crew — Company · 2 mentions · first at
Doing and explain why they were doing this. And then interspersed is like break dancing of from the rock steady crew when they were just starting out. Like it's just super cool…
- Beastie Boys — Company · 2 mentions
- City College of New York — Company · 2 mentions
- Happy Days — Company · 1 mention · first at
Yeah. Possy from Happy Days famously was a Clandistan artist using spray paint.
- National Lampoon — Company · 1 mention · first at
A little more I want to say mainstream obviously not mainstream but like 72 to 75 they were in the national lampoon so a little more mainstream right and if you think you've heard that name before that sounds familiar you.
- Library of Congress — Company · 1 mention · first at
Time like you were talking about. It's I mean that should be in like the Library of Congress like that kind of stuff for sure or whatever. What's the film version of that? I can't remember the name of.
- Urban Review — Company · 1 mention · first at
There was an I guess the first academic article about graffiti was in 1969 in the Urban Review by Herbert Cole was called names graffiti and culture.
- Transit Police graffiti squad — Company · 1 mention · first at
And then in 75, they created the transit police graffiti squad. And they're cleaning up subway cars, but like I said earlier, all this was like game on. Like there's not a single graffiti artist that was.
- bombingscience.com — Company · 1 mention · first at
A really great website that's super useful if you do want to get into graffiti called bombingscience.com.
- Wendy's — Company · 1 mention · first at
For quite a while and recently heard our selects episode, The Great Finger in the Wendy's Chili Caper.
- iHeartRadio — Company · 1 mention · first at
In touch with us, we love that kind of thing. You can send it off to Stuff Podcast at iheartradio.com.
- Stuff Podcast — Company · 1 mention · first at
In touch with us, we love that kind of thing. You can send it off to Stuff Podcast at iheartradio.com.
- Dri Mark — Company · 1 mention
- Metro Transit Authority — Company · 1 mention
- MoMA — Company · 1 mention
- Montana (spray paint brand) — Company · 1 mention
- New York City Council — Company · 1 mention
- Razor Gallery — Company · 1 mention
- Sanford King Size — Company · 1 mention
- The Beach Boys — Company · 1 mention
- Whitney Museum of American Art — Company · 1 mention
Products & tech
- Spray Paint — Product · Key tool · 7 mentions · first at
Essential medium used in graffiti art.Yeah. Possy from Happy Days famously was a Clandistan artist using spray paint.
- Break — Product · Referenced product · 3 mentions
Famous full subway car graffiti masterpiece by Futura 2000 and Dundee.There's a really famous one by Futura 2000 and Dundee which is called Break, and it's considered one of the greatest full subway car masterpieces anyone's ever done. It's beyond description. Just go look up Break by Dundee in Futura 2000.
- Pilot — Product · Referenced work · 3 mentions
An early brand of markers used by graffiti artists for detailing.Wall or something, yeah, you could use a marker. And in the early days, Pilot marks a lot and dry DRRi and Sanford Kingsize were they were very broad tip markers. So those were some of the early.
- Magic Marker — Product · Mentioned as the first marker for commercial sale · 1 mention · first at
Significant in the history of graffiti and art suppliesWhich is surprising to me. And if you want a nice little trivia question, Magic Marker was the first marker for commercial sale starting in 1953.
- Easy Off — Product · 2 mentions · first at
Like figuring stuff out, sharing tips and tricks with one another. And from the beginning they would use various nozzles from other types of cans or you know caps they would…
- Magic Marker — Product · Referenced product · 1 mention · first at
First marker for commercial sale, used in early graffiti.Which is surprising to me. And if you want a nice little trivia question, Magic Marker was the first marker for commercial sale starting in 1953.
- Krylon — Product · Key tool · 10 mentions
Brand of spray paint used in graffiti.Makes it dry faster. it makes colors brighter. It's more dur durable. It's moisture resistant. So when the leg got taken out, that was a real bummer for graffiti artists.
- Rustoleum — Product · Key tool · 2 mentions · first at
Brand of spray paint used in graffiti.They started using that to achieve the same effect with paint. and they I mean they were a real I guess when they were buying the paint made a difference in the profits of Rustoleum and Kryon over the 70s for sure.
- Magic Marker — Product · Key tool · 1 mention · first at
Early marker used in graffiti art.Which is surprising to me. And if you want a nice little trivia question, Magic Marker was the first marker for commercial sale starting in 1953.
- Bombing Science — Product · Referenced resource · 9 mentions
Website providing resources for graffiti artists.Graffiti artists will come up with like their own entire alphabets that they just designed themselves. And there's a really great website that's super useful if you do want to get into graffiti called bombingscience.com.
- Molotow — Product · Key tool · 8 mentions
Brand of spray paint used in graffiti.Yeah. in Europe, they did market, there were a couple in the '9s, the Montana and Moloto brands of spray paint actually target street art markets and have all kinds of weather resistant paints and.
- Montana — Product · Key tool · 1 mention · first at
Brand of spray paint used in graffiti.Yeah. in Europe, they did market, there were a couple in the '9s, the Montana and Moloto brands of spray paint actually target street art markets and have all kinds of weather resistant paints and.
- markers — Product · 8 mentions · first at
Yeah. because they were well they were writing on walls sometimes they were using paint and brushes. markers didn't exist, spray cans didn't exist yet, but they were using what…
- spray paint — Product · 7 mentions · first at
Yeah. Possy from Happy Days famously was a Clandistan artist using spray paint.
- caps — Product · 6 mentions
- spray can — Product · 4 mentions · first at
In the 1930s and 40s before the spray can was invented. But I feel like that is a genuine sort of precursor to what we know as modern graffiti.
- canvas — Product · 2 mentions · first at
Moving subway cars. They would break into the rail yards at night and all of a sudden you have this huge canvas just sitting there.
- nozzles — Product · 2 mentions · first at
And tricks with one another. And from the beginning they would use various nozzles from other types of cans or you know caps they would call them from different products to…
- Easy-Off — Product · 2 mentions · first at
Ways of painting. I know that you know when you spray that I don't use this stuff but that easy off oven cleaner you know sprays that big wide area. So they started using that to achieve the same effect with paint. and they.
- needle caps — Product · 2 mentions · first at
Yeah. needle caps, they make splatter. So, if you want like controlled drips, you don't want uncontrolled drips or unintentional drips, but you might want your piece to.
- poster — Product · 2 mentions · first at
But there's other stuff you can do that's considered graffiti too. You can get yourself some sort of poster, get some wheat paste and stick it up like a old timey hand bill that you might see.
- aluminum coating — Product · 1 mention · first at
But they said they were trying to coat radiators with an aluminum coating. So, they invented the spray can. And right away, people that were protesting or maybe artists on the down low because you.
- radiators — Product · 1 mention · first at
But they said they were trying to coat radiators with an aluminum coating. So, they invented the spray can. And right away, people that were protesting or maybe artists on the down low because you.
- rollers — Product · 1 mention · first at
It's a kind of a style that could be used in throw-ups and they're a lot of times used on using rollers, but they're really large letters. A lot of times they're more straight…
- shoe polish bottles — Product · 1 mention · first at
Own stuff. It's a very sort of DIY style of art where they were making their own tools and components maybe like shoe polish bottles and stuff like that.
- math books — Product · 1 mention · first at
Well, graffiti and the book covers of math books of Gen X Kids.
- aerosol can — Product · 1 mention · first at
Graffiti. that following year in ' 72, the city council said it's illegal to even carry an aerosol can in a public facility.
- German Shepherds — Product · 1 mention · first at
Transit Authorities clean car program and this one actually had an impact. this was beyond Razor Wire and German Shepherds. Like this was if we find a train car has been hit…
- oven cleaner — Product · 1 mention · first at
Ways of painting. I know that you know when you spray that I don't use this stuff but that easy off oven cleaner you know sprays that big wide area. So they started using that to achieve the same effect with paint. and they.
- calligraphy caps — Product · 1 mention · first at
And skinny lines, different caps that achieve those effects. they had, calligraphy caps. if you ever been in a paint store and looked at, sometimes you can even spray a little piece of cardboard they have there on the wall.
- headstone — Product · 1 mention · first at
Hospitals. You're not supposed to do this to someone's house or their car or certainly a headstone at a cemetery or nature like trees and rocks.
- stencils — Product · 1 mention · first at
You can make stickers. A lot of people make stickers. You can come up with stencils like a real Banky.
- dusty car — Product · 1 mention · first at
And she used a very good example like when you use your finger to write wash me on a dusty car, you're you're using an you know an inverse of something to create an image. So…
- AR markers — Product · 1 mention
- handbill — Product · 1 mention
- iHeartRadio app — Product · 1 mention
- ink — Product · 1 mention
- multi-color click pens — Product · 1 mention
- wheatpaste — Product · 1 mention
Concepts & topics
- Graffiti — Concept · Core topic · 49 mentions · first at
Primary subject of the episode; hosts discuss history, styles, tools, cultural role, and conflicts around graffiti. - Wild Style — Concept · Key argument · 4 mentions · first at
A highly stylized form of graffiti with overlapping letter patterns.I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And we are doing a wild style today here on Stuff You Should Know. One of those episodes where it's like this topic is cooler than we are, but we're going to give it our best to try to get across.
- Cornbread — Concept · Referenced entity · 3 mentions · first at
Nickname of Daryl McCrae, considered one of the first graffiti artists in Philadelphia.Yeah. So, there's a guy named Daryl McCrae who will tell anybody who sits still long enough that he was the person who invented graffiti.
- WC 188 — Concept · Early graffiti crew example · 1 mention · first at
Referenced as one of the first graffiti crews (Writer's Corner 188) that helped standardize techniques and share tips.That same year that the article on Taki 183 came out, there was the first graffiti crew kind of came together.
- Tag — Concept · 1 mention · first at
And the point was to get that out in as many places as you could and like you were super cool if you did it in like a very risky or hard-to-reach place like the wall in front of the cop shop.
- Chuco — Concept · Key argument · 2 mentions · first at
A style of graffiti associated with Mexican gang culture, featuring old English or western saloon lettering.Like the 1930s where mural art and sort of public art during the Mexican Revolution was a big thing and so Chuco kids in the 1930s sort of brought that same style to LA and other cities, right?
- Throw-up — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
Yep. throwups, terrible name, is the next kind. it can incorporate your tag as like your signature, but it's it's usually more than that. It's it's tag plus.
- Cholo style — Concept · Key argument · 2 mentions · first at
A style of graffiti associated with Mexican gang culture.Culture on the west coast and then spread around like you can see that on the east coast but it's definitely I feel like more west coast thing and that looks super cool too.
- Piece — Concept · 2 mentions
Yeah, me too. and then you got the best kind when you might get a whole subway car and many hours to decorate the thing or a whole wall. And those are called pieces just like you would.
- Handstyle — Concept · Key argument · 4 mentions · first at
Personalized way of writing tags in graffiti.Style. And that is your own personal way of writing your tag essentially. And graffiti artists will come up with like their own entire alphabets that they just designed themselves. And there's a really great website that's super.
- Anti-style — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at
A style of graffiti that is purposefully primitive.There was one more style that I ran across called anti-style or ignorant style. And essentially it's like what most people would call toy. It's just primitive. It's amateur-ish, but it's.
- Ignorant Style — Concept · 1 mention · first at
There was one more style that I ran across called anti-style or ignorant style. And essentially it's like what most people would call toy. It's just primitive. It's amateur-ish, but it's.
- Reverse Graffiti — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at
A form of graffiti that involves cleaning a surface to create an image.Yeah, I think so. and then Livia dug up this thing called reverse graffiti, which I had never heard of.
- Hip-Hop — Concept · Related topic · 4 mentions · first at
Graffiti is one of the pillars of hip-hop culture.Yeah. we covered some of this in our hip-hop episode, for sure, but this is, one of the pillars of hip-hop culture, as we'll see, but, graffiti needed its own thing. And.
- Hip-Hop Culture — Concept · Key argument · 3 mentions · first at
Cultural movement that includes graffiti as one of its pillars.And so as being a part of hip-hop culture, I don't know if we said the other ones, MCing and DJing and breaking.
- subway — Concept · 10 mentions · first at
Every everything like on the inside of a martyr train or a New York subway car, like that's all marker.
- tags — Concept · 10 mentions
- subway car — Concept · 5 mentions · first at
Every everything like on the inside of a martyr train or a New York subway car, like that's all marker.
- pieces — Concept · 5 mentions · first at
Subway car and many hours to decorate the thing or a whole wall. And those are called pieces just like you would call an art piece a piece cuz it is an art piece for sure.…
- handstyle — Concept · 4 mentions · first at
All marker. Yeah, it is. It's very important for what's called handstyle as we'll see.
- lead — Concept · 4 mentions
- hip-hop culture — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
Our hip-hop episode, for sure, but this is, one of the pillars of hip-hop culture, as we'll see, but, graffiti needed its own thing. And graffiti in the United States, we…
- Apothecary — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
And then lastly, the I want to call out Apothecary, who never really got off the ground. that's Yumi's tag from when she got into this. She's always been interested in B boy culture. So, of course, she came up.
- Chuco kids — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
Like the 1930s where mural art and sort of public art during the Mexican Revolution was a big thing and so Chuco kids in the 1930s sort of brought that same style to LA and other cities, right?
- tagging — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
Yeah. And before they called it tagging in 1990, back in the day, as they say, they would call it hitting maybe or bombing or just writing.
- street art — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
Market, there were a couple in the '9s, the Montana and Moloto brands of spray paint actually target street art markets and have all kinds of weather resistant paints and crazy…
- knowledge (fifth pillar of hip-hop) — Concept · 2 mentions
- mural art — Concept · 1 mention · first at
Because I was come on, Livia. but very good point here in Mexico in like the 1930s where mural art and sort of public art during the Mexican Revolution was a big thing and so…
- Mexican Revolution — Concept · 1 mention · first at
But very good point here in Mexico in like the 1930s where mural art and sort of public art during the Mexican Revolution was a big thing and so Chuco kids in the 1930s sort of brought that same style to LA and other cities, right?
- public art — Concept · 1 mention · first at
But very good point here in Mexico in like the 1930s where mural art and sort of public art during the Mexican Revolution was a big thing and so Chuco kids in the 1930s sort of brought that same style to LA and other cities, right?
- Writer's Corner 188 — Concept · 1 mention · first at
Writer's Corner 188. They met at the corner of Ottabbon and 188th Street, 188th Street as they say in New York.
- WC 188 — Concept · 1 mention · first at
And the crew was called WC 188. And it was like one of the first ways that people started sharing different style tips and kinds of markers that did different things. It was just the.
- toy (graffiti) — Concept · 1 mention · first at
Yeah. If it's just junky amateur-ish graffiti, it's toy graffiti.
- block style — Concept · 1 mention · first at
Yeah. Unless it's the block style, which I like.
- Blockbuster — Concept · 1 mention · first at
Times they're more straight than bubbly, which is the differentiation like you were saying. I like blockbuster too, Chuck.
- throw-ups — Concept · 1 mention · first at
It's a kind of a style that could be used in throw-ups and they're a lot of times used on using rollers, but they're really large letters. A lot of times they're more straight than bubbly, which is the differentiation like you.
- Old English style — Concept · 1 mention · first at
And then if you've ever seen like and this is a little more west coast like the old English style or like the western saloon lettering that's known as cholo style a word that…
- western saloon lettering — Concept · 1 mention · first at
And this is a little more west coast like the old English style or like the western saloon lettering that's known as cholo style a word that you know is sort of associated with…
- ignorant style — Concept · 1 mention · first at
There was one more style that I ran across called anti-style or ignorant style. And essentially it's like what most people would call toy. It's just primitive. It's amateur-ish, but it's done on purpose because it's done by.
- breaking — Concept · 1 mention · first at
Culture, I don't know if we said the other ones, MCing and DJing and breaking.
Places & events
- U.S.A. — Place · Geographic context · 2 mentions
Episode focuses primarily on graffiti history and development in United States cities (NYC, Philly, LA).Hip-hop culture, as we'll see, but, graffiti needed its own thing. And graffiti in the United States, we basically think of as sort of a late60s East Coast thing. and this…
- Spanish Harlem — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
Early location where graffiti culture started with tags like Julio 204 and Taki 183.Said, some of the first people were just writing their names and they would come up with this tag and some of the earliest tags came from Spanish Harlem where you would have your nickname and then a number like Turk 182.
- New York City, New York — Place · Setting · 4 mentions · first at
Key location where graffiti culture developed significantly.And it gets cleaned off before it even leaves the transit station. So that actually worked. And by 1989, apparently like whole car graffiti was just not around anymore in New York.
- Mexico — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
Country where early mural art influenced graffiti.Because I was come on, Livia. but very good point here in Mexico in like the 1930s where mural art and sort of public art during the Mexican Revolution was a big thing and so Chuco kids in the 1930s sort of brought that.
- Youth Development Center — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
Place where Cornbread started writing his tag.Yeah. He was but a 12-year-old. He's a Philly guy. And he was in juvie. And in Juvie, he said, I don't want this white bread. I want cornbread. My grandmother made cornbread and I love that stuff. So he got the nickname.
- Ottabbon and 188th Street — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
Location where the first graffiti crew, Writer's Corner 188, met.Writer's Corner 188. They met at the corner of Ottabbon and 188th Street, 188th Street as they say in New York.
- Amsterdam — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
City where graffiti culture spread in the late 1970s.Oh wow. so graffiti starts to spread around the world. Britain in the late 70s. Amster Amsterdam in particular in the Netherlands and their punk scenes in the late '7s. They started doing some of this stuff.
- Paris — Place · 1 mention · first at
Lady K is French, I believe, right?
- Copenhagen — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
City where graffiti artist Ren is active.Yeah. And then also, so check out her stuff and then check out Ren's rens who's working in Copenhagen. It is mindn numbing how amazing this work is. Like I just can't even imagine conceiving a lot of a lot of it, let alone being good at it.
- Chicago — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
Location where Twi Tharp had graffiti artists do scene decorations.Right. Yeah. they became really influential. the next year in 1973 choreographer Twi Tharp, she had the United graffiti artists do basically the scene decorations for her performance in Chicago. I can't remember.
- The Great Finger in the Wendy's Chili Caper — Event · Listener mail topic · 1 mention · first at
Listener mail discussing the coverage of this event by late-night hosts, highlighting Letterman's involvement in racing.Yeah. This is from Ben in Connecticut, who's been listening for quite a while and recently heard our selects episode, The Great Finger in the Wendy's Chili Caper.
- Los Angeles — Place · Setting · 22 mentions
Location where early graffiti culture developed.Because I was come on, Livia. but very good point here in Mexico in like the 1930s where mural art and sort of public art during the Mexican Revolution was a big thing and so Chuco kids in the 1930s sort of brought that.
- Philadelphia — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
Location where early graffiti culture developed.No more. so he took that nickname, started writing it at on the walls there at his institution that he was in. And then when he got out in 1967, he would take to the streets of…
- West Coast — Place · 3 mentions · first at
Yeah. man, Atlanta just doesn't have the skateboarders. That's a West Coast thing. I never see I always see those guys trying to do the tricks, but they never land the tricks. Exactly.
- East Coast — Place · 2 mentions · first at
Graffiti in the United States, we basically think of as sort of a late60s East Coast thing. and this isn't one of those things. I do see where Livia put in like cave drawings, but I'm not even going to talk about that.
- Philly — Place · 2 mentions · first at
Yeah. He was but a 12-year-old. He's a Philly guy. And he was in juvie. And in Juvie, he said, I don't want this white bread. I want cornbread. My grandmother made cornbread and I love that stuff. So he got the nickname.
- 188th Street — Place · 1 mention · first at
Writer's Corner 188. They met at the corner of Ottabbon and 188th Street, 188th Street as they say in New York.
- Ottabbon — Place · 1 mention · first at
Writer's Corner 188. They met at the corner of Ottabbon and 188th Street, 188th Street as they say in New York.
- rail yards — Place · 1 mention · first at
They're they're not spray painting the moving subway cars. They would break into the rail yards at night and all of a sudden you have this huge canvas just sitting there.
- Netherlands — Place · 1 mention · first at
Around the world. Britain in the late 70s. Amster Amsterdam in particular in the Netherlands and their punk scenes in the late '7s. They started doing some of this stuff.
- churches — Place · 1 mention · first at
That's right. And some of the rules, which I kind of like to see, you don't tag churches, you don't graffiti churches, you don't graffiti schools.
- schools — Place · 1 mention · first at
Which I kind of like to see, you don't tag churches, you don't graffiti churches, you don't graffiti schools.
- hospitals — Place · 1 mention · first at
You're not supposed to, at least hospitals. You're not supposed to do this to someone's house or their car or certainly a headstone at a cemetery or nature like trees and rocks.
- cemetery — Place · 1 mention · first at
Hospitals. You're not supposed to do this to someone's house or their car or certainly a headstone at a cemetery or nature like trees and rocks.
- SoHo — Place · 1 mention
Media & podcasts
- Style Wars — Media · Referenced documentary / recommended watch · 3 mentions · first at
Cited as an important documentary that documents early NYC graffiti culture and remains a recommended resource for newcomers. - Wild Style — Media · Referenced work · 5 mentions · first at
Considered the first hip-hop movie ever, released in 1982, featuring graffiti artists and the Rock Steady Crew. - Chuco — Character · Cultural precursor reference (Chuco kids) · 1 mention · first at
Used (as 'Chuco kids') to describe Mexican/Mexican-American mural and public art influences in LA that fed into later graffiti styles.Like the 1930s where mural art and sort of public art during the Mexican Revolution was a big thing and so Chuco kids in the 1930s sort of brought that same style to LA and other cities, right?
- Stuff You Should Know — Media · Host podcast · 2 mentions · first at
The podcast where the discussion about graffiti takes place.Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.
- Wildstyle — Media · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at
Style of graffiti and a movie about hip-hop culture.New York City. has a pretty cool I think they make showings of his photographs sometimes. And then the movie Wildstyle actually came out a year before Style Wars, 1982. It's…
- The Rock Steady Crew — Media · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at
Breakdancing group featured in graffiti-related media.Them talk and show what they were doing and explain why they were doing this. And then interspersed is like break dancing of from the rock steady crew when they were just…
- Happy Days — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
TV show mentioned in passing.Yeah. Possy from Happy Days famously was a Clandistan artist using spray paint.
- The Great Finger in the Wendy's Chili Caper — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
Episode of the podcast mentioned in passing.Yeah. This is from Ben in Connecticut, who's been listening for quite a while and recently heard our selects episode, The Great Finger in the Wendy's Chili Caper.
Full transcript with timestamps
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And we are doing a wild style today here on Stuff You Should Know. One of those episodes where it's like this this topic is cooler than we are, but we're going to give it our best to try to get across how neat it really is.
Oh man. Uh, I'm not going to say when. Maybe you can guess, but there's one portion of this that it'll be the most like middle-aged white dude thing ever.
Okay. I'm I'm looking forward to it because I I can't guess. Okay. I'll see if you you'll probably know when I go into my voice.
Okay. Is it that old witch voice that you like to do? No, no, no, no. You'll know the voice.
All right. Is Is it an Italian thing? No, not Italian. All right. I'll figure it out then. We're talking graffiti, obviously, Chuck. I don't know if if everybody knows that.
Yeah. I mean, we covered some of this in our hip-hop episode, uh, for sure, but this is, you know, one of the pillars of hip-hop culture, as we'll see, but, uh, graffiti needed its own thing. And graffiti in the United States, we basically think of as sort of a late60s East Coast thing. Uh, and this isn't one of those things. I do see where Livia put in like cave drawings, but I'm not even going to talk about that.
Sure. Because I was like, come on, Livia. Uh but uh very good point here in Mexico in like the 1930s where mural art and um sort of public art during the Mexican Revolution was a big thing and so Chuco kids in the 1930s sort of brought that same style to LA and other cities,
right? In the 1930s and 40s um before the spray can was invented. But I feel like that is a genuine sort of precursor to what we know as modern graffiti.
Yeah. because they were well they were writing on walls sometimes they were using paint and brushes. Um markers didn't exist, spray cans didn't exist yet, but they were using what they had a lot of times just to tag their neighborhood as like this this turf belongs to this gang. But they added flourishes that kind of gave rise to some of the details and touches that are still around in graffiti today. So, it is definitely a valid um river that flowed into this larger river that flows into the ocean of graffiti that's on planet Earth, which would be the hip-hop culture.
Uh, I mentioned the spray can. That's obviously a vital part of graffiti. That was invented in 1949 by a painter in Illinois, a paint company owner named Ed Seymour and his wife. And I tried to find her name. What's her name?
Bonnie. Oh, I couldn't find it. You found Bonnie? I had to look really hard. Yes. But I found it. Bonnie. Isn't that a lovely name?
Nice work. Yeah, I do love the name Bonnie. Uh, but they said they were trying to coat um radiators with an aluminum coating. So, they invented the spray can. And right away, like, you know, people that were protesting or maybe um artists on the down low uh because you can hide a can pretty easily. Uh you can work with it very quickly. It works on a lot of different kinds of surfaces. So all of a sudden spray cans, you know, really paved the way.
Yeah. Possy from Happy Days famously was a Clandistan artist using spray paint.
Oh, really? I don't remember that one. Oh, I could Hey, I could have seen that being a Happy Days episode.
Yeah, but would have been Yeah, exactly. Maybe Ralph Malf might have gotten talked into trying it and then just freaked out. But
probably would have been Richie. Yeah, I guess so. Man, that was such a good show.
Like a real lesson learner episode. Yeah. Uh, yeah. and the fawns who you'd think would be like a spray paint graffiti artist like vandal
is the one who talks to Richie like that's not cool. Hey, so there's a lot of advantages to using spray paint. Um that's why graffiti really kind of started. This is like where its roots really took root. Um markers are another thing that people use. Um and most people think of spray paint with graffiti, but markers are important. Um, and they didn't come around until the 1950s. So, you had spray paint before you had markers, which is surprising to me. And if you want a nice little trivia question, Magic Marker was the first marker for commercial sale starting in 1953.
That makes sense because that's became sort of the uh proprietary eponym in a way.
Exactly. Yeah, for sure. Not so much anymore, I feel like, but in our era, for sure.
Yeah, because it's fun to say. Yeah, it's a it's a marker that creates magic. Exactly. I didn't really consider markers as graffiti, but I was like, yeah, like every
everything like on the inside of a a martyr train or a New York uh subway car, like that's all marker.
All marker. Yeah, it is. It's very important um for what's called handstyle as we'll see.
That's right. But we need to talk about cornbread right? Yeah. So, there's a guy named Daryl McCrae who will tell anybody who sits still long enough that he was the person who invented graffiti.
Yeah. And he makes a really good case. So, unfortunately, there's some other people who were doing the same thing at the same time, but you could still say Cornbread, which was his handle, his tag. Um, was one of the very first people who took up graffiti starting in 1965.
Yeah. He was but a 12-year-old. He's a Philly guy. And he was in juvie. And um in Juvie, he said, "I don't want this white bread. I want cornbread." My grandmother made cornbread and I love that stuff. So he got the nickname cornbread.
I don't think he got the cornbread though. I doubt if he got the cornbread. That's that's very labor intensive to make cornbread
for sure. I mean compared to just opening up a bag of white bread, you know. Also though, I think at places called Youth Development Center, they don't give you your preferred food. They give you what you're going to eat.
Yeah. Like Oliver Twist style. Yeah. No requests, please. No more. Uh so he took that nickname, started writing it at on the walls there at his institution that he was in. And then when he got out in 1967, he would take to the streets of Philly, writing his name, cornbread. Uh especially like if he knew that his uh sweetie pie was on the bus, he would ride it along the bus route so she could see that and be impressed.
Sometimes running alongside the the bus. Yeah. Like while it was going. Um other bus lines. And that was sort of the, you know, the beginning uh along as we'll see and, you know, which was already happening in Spanish Harlem of sort of the early point of graffiti, which is like a name, you know, later on they would call it a tag.
And the point was to get that out in uh as many places as you could and and like you were super cool if you did it in like a very risky or hard-to-reach place like the wall in front of the cop shop or the top of a water tower or something like that.
Yeah. And so you add in the flourishes that Chuco kids came up with in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s in LA, um with getting your tag out there as many places as you can. That's the that is definitely the beginning of of um of graffiti. And this is where most people point to as the start of the whole thing in the 60s and 70s in New York City. Um all of this started to blossom. all these things kind of came together and just the right hands and graffiti uh became a thing just slowly but surely. Um like you said, some of the first people were just writing their names and they would come up with this tag and some of the earliest tags came from Spanish Harlem where you would have your nickname and then a number like Turk 182.
Um and Turk would be your nickname, 182 would be the street you hailed from. Uh, I think Turk 182 was entirely made up. I don't think it was a docu drama, but one of the first two was Julio 204 and Taki 183.
Yeah, Taki 183. Uh, Taki was a nickname, a Greek nickname for Demetrius, still is.
Uh, but Taki was a uh, this was in like 69 or 70 was a delivery worker. So, Taki went all over the city. So, it was a really good way to get um the Taki 183 tag all over the place. And it got so far and wide that Taki was actually part of a a New York Times article in 1971 and all of a sudden it inspired people saying, "Hey, like this is the cool new thing to do on the street."
Yeah. Or else they hated Taki 183 for defacing New York all over the place. Good point.
That same year that the article on Taki 183 came out, um there was the first graffiti crew kind of came together. Writer's Corner 188. They met at the corner of Ottabbon and 188th Street, 188th Street as they say in New York. Um, and the crew was called WC 188. And it was like one of the first ways that um, people started sharing different style tips and um, kinds of markers that did different things. It was just the first way that different people doing the same thing came together and figured out how to do it better.
Yeah. Uh, and like I said, it was sort of a quantity over quality thing for a while. Uh, I think that's sadly kind of part of it now a little bit when I see graffiti around Atlanta. There's some really good stuff and also some some really kind of not not so great tags that I see a lot.
Yeah. And more often than not, it's the not so great ones, right? Kind of like um watching adults skateboard.
Oh god. Yeah. I mean, man, Atlanta just doesn't have the skateboarders. That's a West Coast thing. I I never see I always see those guys trying to do the tricks, but they never land the tricks. Exactly. That's exactly like junky tags, which is I think called toy in the um the graffiti world.
Oh, really? Toy. If your tag is just sort of not great. Yeah. If it's just junky amateur-ish graffiti, it's toy graffiti.
Well, what if these people are like, "Hey, man. I'm not such a great artist. Lay off. I'm I'm trying." Well, they would say stop doing what you're doing and go do something else then because the streets are made for good graffiti,
not toys, right? Uh the subway was where things got really a little more like um artistic, I guess. Uh riding on a subway train in New York, uh you could obviously get your name out, you know, to more people because that's that subway's going all over the place,
right? Uh it's also risky and as we'll see like risk is a big you know I mentioned like the the wall in front of the police station like risk is a big big part of it. Um because like as you'll see like when they made great efforts in the in the 70s and 80s in New York to to stop this stuff it wasn't like they were like oh boy we better stop doing this graffiti. It was sort of like game on man like this is what we're looking for. Like now we know they're after us, so it makes it even more sort of challenging and risky.
Yeah. I mean, these early graffiti artists were by definition juvenile delinquents to a person. So the idea of adding more challenges to them just played exactly into their whole ethos, ethos, I could never remember.
And to be clear that with this sub, I just want to if you don't understand, they're they're not spray painting the moving subway cars. They would break into the rail yards at night and all of a sudden you have this huge canvas just sitting there.
Yeah. Exactly. And like you said, a lot of people would see it because that subway car the next day would be traveling all over New York. So that was a big deal. That's kind of what you think of when you think of uh late '7s, early 80s graffiti in New York. Subway cars is kind of traveling all over the place with really cool colorful graffiti on them.
Totally. Do you want to um take an early break or you want to keep talking and get into some different kinds and styles?
H maybe let's break down the styles first. All right, let's do it. So, um it turns out there's three categories of graffiti uh in in order of um easiness to increasing hardness. There's got to be a better way to put it, but I'm leaving it there. There's tags.
Yeah. Which, uh Livia calls very sterily basic identifying signs. I love that one.
Well, tags didn't come along till 1990. The word, right? But essentially, it's your signature. It's your nickname spelled out in a very stylized uh way specific to you. That's what handstyle is. And then when you use your handstyle to put up that nickname in a certain stylized way on the wall, that today at least that's a tag. That's one of the three kinds of graffiti.
Yeah. And before they called it tagging in 1990, back in the day, as they say, uh they would call it hitting maybe or bombing or just writing.
Yep. Um, throwups, terrible name, is the next kind. Uh, it can incorporate your tag as like your signature, but it's it's usually more than that. It's it's tag plus.
Um, a lot of times it's multiolor, like two or three colors, maybe even more if you've got the time. Um, it's, you know, it's more it's just simply said it's kind of more artistic.
Yeah. And they're almost always like bubbly letters from what I can tell. Uh, yeah. Unless it's the the block style, which I I like.
Yeah. Blockbuster. Yeah, I like those as well. Those are um it's a different style. They're not throwups. It's a kind of a style that could be used in throw-ups and they're a lot of times used on um using rollers, but they're really large letters. A lot of times they're more straight than bubbly, which is the differentiation like you were saying. I like blockbuster too, Chuck.
Yeah, me too. Uh, and then you got the the best kind when you might get a whole subway car and many hours to decorate the thing or a whole wall. And those are called uh pieces just like you would call an art piece a piece cuz it is an art piece for sure. Um, they're way more detailed, way more colors. They have all sorts of crazy cool effects like fades from one color or another. They might have sparkles on them. They might somehow have like a chrome effect. Um, there's a lot more decoration to them. They're just amazing. That's probably what most people think of when they think of graffiti or pieces.
Yeah. Um and these all are they get they start out easy like you just practice doing tags then you move on to throwups and then you move on to pieces eventually. And so they also take different amounts of time like once you get good at tagging you can do this in like less than a minute maybe five if you're just starting out. It can take a a minute if you're really really good and have been doing it a long time to put a throw up up. Can take 15 minutes if you're still figuring out your way. Those pieces, this surprised me. They can take days to do with multiple crews working on the same thing. It can still take days. And if you're just one dude making a piece, a masterpiece, it can take months, weeks, and months to to get it done.
which I mean if you're doing this illicitly like on a wall somewhere having to go back like night after night to to do this and not get caught that's it's rather thrilling if you ask me.
Well and the uh just the the time investment for something that a third of the way through or halfway through or toward the end could get could go away.
I thought about that too, man. That's got to hurt. That would really suck. What about Wild Style? I referred to it early on. Uh, wild style is obviously super stylized. It's where you get sort of the overlapping uh letter patterns. Um, it's usually fairly bright and like you mentioned like a lot of shading. Uh, maybe a 3D effect. Uh, a lot of times these pieces have wild style involved,
right? Yeah. It's kind of like the the most advanced form, I guess, just because it's so it's just it's really hard to do and it's the most intricate usually, but it's also kind of like gone beyond what most people appreciate as graffiti. Um where they have no idea what this thing says. Like other graffiti artists can read it, but the average person is just like, "Oh, look at that mish mash of colors." It's kind of like um how uh metal bands u logos have kind of evolved too where you're like I I have no idea whose album this is. It's very much similar that Wild Style is
but one thing that stuck out to me Chuck Wild Style I'm like I I that probably came around in maybe the 90s at the earliest. It's from the 70s too. Like all of this stuff Yeah. is from the 70s. So in the '7s in New York City, the general guidelines for what constitutes graffiti still today were laid out and established by those people. Like it's still followed today. Um I think that's amazing.
You know, I thought it'd be added piece by piece over the decades, but no, they figured it out pretty much right out of the gate.
Yeah, that's cool. I love it. Mhm. Uh and then if you've ever seen like uh and this is a little more west coast like the old English style or like the the western saloon lettering uh that's known as cholo style uh a word that you know is sort of associated with um like gang culture like Mexican gang culture but that developed from that cho riding culture on the west coast and then spread around like you you can see that on the east coast but it it's definitely I feel like more west coast thing and that looks super cool too.
No, it definitely does. Um there's also they use a lot of characters, cartoonish characters of like gangbangers with bandanas like almost over their eyes, that kind of dude.
Yeah. Um they show up a lot. It just seems like there's a lot more cartoon figures in Cholo style than say like New York graffiti.
There was one more style that I ran across called anti-style or ignorant style. And essentially it's like what most people would call toy. It's just primitive. It's amateur-ish, but it's done on purpose because it's done by graffiti artists. a lot of whom are actually really good um who are like this has gotten totally out of control. Have you seen this wild style stuff? We need to like get back to basics and just have fun with this again. And so they're kind of trying to recapture what the earliest um graffiti artists from like the 70s were doing as they when they figured it out as they went along. A lot of people hate it, can't stand it. They think it's just d a dumb idea. But from what I can tell, if you're a good artist doing purposefully primitive work, it's actually pretty cool looking.
All right. Should we take that break? I do want to take that break, Chuck. All right, let's go get our spray cans, shake them up, and we'll be right back. This is the day of
want to learn about a teract how to take a perfect all about fractals until the hunt the Lizzy board murders and cannab
word up Jerry. All right. Right. So, we mentioned AR uh markers early on. Um and obviously, like I said, inside like on the wall of a subway car, uh a lot of times, maybe not even inside, but um if you just want to provide detail for a larger piece on like the exterior of a subway car or wall or something,
yeah, uh you could use a marker. And in the early days, uh Pilot uh marks a lot and dry DRRi and Sanford Kingsize were um they were very broad tip markers. So those were uh some some of the early markers that were the most popular.
Mhm. And you could also refill a lot of those uh with different kinds of ink. So the you know the felt was just sort of the the instrument and you could put whatever color or mix colors if you wanted to.
For sure. Uh and they would also like make their own stuff. It's a very sort of DIY style of art where they were making their own tools and components maybe like shoe polish bottles and stuff like that.
Yeah. Uh you also mentioned that it's one of the four pillars of hip-hop. There's technically five as far as Africa bombat is concerned. Um and that would be knowledge is the fifth pillar like knowledge of self, knowledge of where you come from, your history. Um real KRS1 stuff, you know.
Yeah. And so as being a part of hip-hop culture, I don't know if we said the other ones, MCing and DJing and breaking.
Yeah. And graffiti and knowledge. Those are the five pillars of hip-hop. Um, and like the other stuff like MCing and DJing and all that and breaking in particular, there's a real competitive element to uh, graffiti like um, where you can go so far as you end up in a war with other artists where you're spraying over their stuff and spraying over your stuff. And that is not you're not supposed to do that. Like if you spray over somebody's stuff, it better be terrible work and you better be really good at it. Um because that's a huge flex I guess you would say if it was 2024.
Yeah, for sure. Uh it has also intersected with other art forms over the years. Um in the 1980s there was a comic artist named Von Bode who uh was very influential to this culture. Uh he had a couple of characters Puck and Cheich Wizard. Uh he came up with um I think he came up with these characters like in the 1950s.
Wow. But then in the 60s they were in like self-published comics and then went a little more I want to say mainstream obviously not mainstream mainstream but like 72 to 75 they were in the national lampoon so a little more mainstream
right uh and if you think you've heard that name before that sounds familiar uh you might have heard the song shot by the beasty boys uh I'm like von Bode I'm a cheat wizard never quitting so you won't listen
very nice well said yeah I I knew I had heard that before. I was like, that's been in a song. I know it.
Yeah. And um Cheich Wizard is essentially like a giant wizard hat with some legs coming out of it. That's Cheich Wizard and he's like a wise smartass kind of well wizard hat. Um and I don't I I didn't see why, but for some reason graffiti culture just loved that stuff. So Cheich Wizard shows up and Puck the Lizard show up in a lot of graffiti from the 70s and 80s. And then one of the other influences I saw that um that Chew Wizard or Von Boat had uh his lettering for his comics, he like from what I can tell he came up with bubble letters and that that made its way into graffiti directly from von Bod's comics.
Well, graffiti and the book covers of uh of math books of Gen X Kids. Yep. I was big into the bubble lettering.
Yeah. using those um those pens with like the five different colors that you can click down.
Yeah, I was okay at it. Uh I definitely use those pens. I remember G's giving me a lot of trouble and S's giving me a lot of trouble.
Those are hard, but I I tried. How was your um bubble Q? Oh god, is that a thing?
It is sound possible. I think I just laid down the gauntlet for somebody to come up with that.
Oh wow. Uh so graffiti starts to spread around the world. Um Britain in the late 70s. Um Amster Amsterdam in particular in the Netherlands and their punk scenes in the late '7s. They started doing some of this stuff.
Yeah. Uh and then it also helped spread because of um of media a little bit. I mean most of it was fairly underground media at the time unless it was some like news report that had a scathing report. Um but there was a photographer named Henry Chfont.
Yeah. who did a few projects, one of which I highly recommend watching on YouTube, a documentary from 1983 called Style Wars, which is a really good watch.
It's one of those ones where you're like, I feel cooler just watching this thing.
Yeah. He just turned the he turned the camera. He and the director Tony Silver, who worked together, they turned the camera on these graffiti artists and just had them talk and and show what they were doing and explain why they were doing this. And then interspersed is like um like break dancing of from the rock steady crew when they were just starting out. Like it's just super cool like this captured time capsule like moment in time where this is all starting. Uh they they to like Henry Chowont like got it. He was like we need to document this is because this is going to be important.
Yeah. It's amazing. I mean, there's there's other things like photographs and this and that, but when you look at the birth of a of a new art form and sort of a burgeoning culture to have this this sort of one document
so like perfectly capture this moment in time like you were talking about. It's I mean that that should be in like the Library of Congress like that kind of stuff
for sure or whatever. What's the uh film version of that? I can't remember the name of it.
The Fiberry of Fombas. Yeah. Wow. Um, I know that deserved a wow. I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel here in year 17.
Oh, so you said that it was a it was like a document, right? Um, it actually is kind of referred to in in graffiti culture still today. Like if somebody's starting out and they're like, "What should I go what what can I learn from?" One of the things that people will refer them to is style wars. Because again, these these like essential guidelines were laid down at this time. Yeah. So, you can still learn a ton from watching Star Wars or Henry Chant got into a couple of other um projects, too. One with a photographer named Martha Cooper called Subway Art.
I've also seen newbies referred to that book, too. And then another one with another photographer, James Prigo, called Spray Can Art. So, Henry Choffont had a real impact on like documenting this stuff um that still is important today. Yeah, he it was kind of like it made me think of the guy I can't remember his name, but the the famous photographer who captured the um Southern California skateboard culture early on because they seem like kind of the only people doing that in such a sort of um artistic and profound way, you know?
Right. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Good stuff. Um two other things to call out. There was a photographer named Gordon Mata Clark who documented photo in photographs just like tags all around New York City. has a pretty cool I think they make showings of his photographs sometimes. And then the movie Wildstyle actually came out a year before Style Wars, 1982. It's considered the first hiphop um movie ever. I think it was a Fab Five Freddy project, but it has um the Rock Steady Crew. Uh one of the rare early woman graffiti artists, Lady Pink, she's in it. And then King ad Rock is in it before he was called King Rock before the BC boys.
Yeah. But there's a ton of like the whole premise of this. It's a It's a um movie, like a fictional movie, but the whole premise is this guy's being hired to um well, I guess put up some graffiti by this uh I can't remember another dude or a company or something like that.
All right, I'll check that out. Thanks. So, you know, we mentioned graffiti as art because graffiti is art. Uh but as far as being accepted into like the legitimate art community, that that sort of happened in fits and starts over the years. Mhm.
Uh there was an I guess the first academic article about graffiti was in 1969 in the Urban Review by Herbert Cole was called names graffiti and culture.
Yeah. And then a few years later in 1972 a big deal happened when uh or or big deal for that culture at least. Um, Hugo Martinez is a student activist at City College in New York and he helped uh start a a collective called United Graffiti Artist with a bunch of uh Puerto Rican teen graffiti artists. And that was sort of the first collective where he was like, "Hey, do this stuff on canvas
because this is art." And they had an exhibition at City College and then the very first graffiti art gallery show at the Razer Gallery in Soho that same year.
Right. Yeah. they became really influential. Um the next year in 1973 choreographer Twi Tharp, she um had the United um graffiti artists do basically the scene uh decorations for her performance in Chicago. I can't remember what it was called, but I weirdly the the dance was choreographed to Beach Boys music with graffiti in the background. It was a real mish mash.
Did you say Beasty Boys music? No, I said beach boys. And the whole time she just kept going Twilight, Twilight, Twilight while she danced.
That's good. You're getting better. Yeah, it comes and goes. Uh we did mention, you know, obviously um the other side of the coin is there is and still are people that think this is just vandalism. Uh they think it's um just like urban decay happening before our very eyes. And in the early '7s, New York got on board that line of thinking, at least the government did, when Mayor John Lindseay declared a war on graffiti. Uh that following year in ' 72, the city council said it's illegal to even carry an aerosol can in a public facility.
Mhm. And then uh in 75, they created the transit police graffiti squad. And you know, they're cleaning up subway cars, but like I said earlier, all this all this was was like game on. Like there's not a single graffiti artist that was intimidated or scared out of doing what they were going to do because of this. If anything, it heightened it.
Yeah. Another um example of that is they uh outlawed selling spray paint to teenagers in New York City. [clears throat]
Yeah. And so graffiti artists were like, "Oh, okay. We'll just start stealing it. That's cheaper anyway." So stealing your spray paint became like just a part of of graffiti in New York in the in the 70s and 80s.
Yeah. Not condoning that. Well, I said they were juvenile delinquents, and I wasn't kidding.
Uh, Ed Cotch, famous New York mayor in the latest 70s and 77, was very anti-graffiti
and would razor wire the subway yards, had guard dogs. Uh, he had cops like staking out houses and following kids home from school.
That's nuts, man. Yeah, that's just nuts. Um, so I think I don't know if Cotch Yeah, I think Cotch was still um mayor at the time. They came up with the Metro Transit Authorities clean car program and this one actually had an impact. Um, this was beyond Razor Wire and German Shepherds. Like this was if we find a train car has been hit overnight with graffiti, it's not going to go back out there until that graffiti is cleaned off.
Yeah. So imagine like working all night or whatever and getting your your piece up and it gets cleaned off before it even leaves the transit station. So um, that actually worked. And by 1989, apparently like whole car um graffiti was just not around anymore in New York. Like you can still see it on on cars, but they used to use the entire car. There's a really famous one by Futura 2000 and Dundee which is called Break, and it's considered one of the greatest full subway car um masterpieces anyone's ever done. It's beyond description. Just go look up Break by Dundee in Futura 2000.
What did you think of it? I thought it was amazing because it just completely departed from any kind of I know how just ridiculous I sound right now. It departed from any kind of convention. It used all sorts of new elements and stuff that I hadn't seen anywhere else. And um you really had to kind of examine it in detail and then also stepping back to kind of take the whole thing in.
I didn't love it. Yeah, I mean I could see that it's Sorry. You know. Yeah, exactly.
Or let's say this. I've seen a lot other stuff that I thought was like maybe just appealed to me more. I was about to say it was way better, but that's again it's just in the eye of the beholder.
Man, that was a really great way to put it. Uh so, thank you. I appreciate that.
Um again, I mentioned earlier that it was a sort of a DIY community when how I like figuring stuff out, sharing uh tips and tricks with one another. And from the beginning they would use various nozzles from other types of cans or you know caps they would call them uh from different products to provide different ways of painting. Uh I know that you know when you spray that I don't use this stuff but that easy off oven cleaner
you know sprays that big wide area. So they started using that to achieve the same effect with paint. Um, and they they uh I mean they were a real um I guess when they were buying the paint um made a difference in the the profits of Rustoleum and Kryon over the 70s for sure.
Yeah. But Rustoleum and Kryon were um Kryon were specifically avoiding marketing or making their products attractive to graffiti artists.
They couldn't do that. No, this was this was um No, you did not want your your brand being accused of of catering to graffiti artists at the time. Um but it was still pretty good. It was useful. And one of the reasons why is because they were both chalk full of lead up until um the late 70s. And lead does all sorts of great stuff for spray paint. It makes it dry faster. Uh it makes colors brighter. It's more dur durable. It's moisture resistant. So when the leg got taken out, that was a real bummer for graffiti artists.
Um Yeah. I mean, I could see that having a huge impact. Yeah. Uh you know, in Europe, they did market, there were a couple in the '9s, uh the Montana and Moloto brands of spray paint actually target um street art markets and have all kinds of like, you know, weather resistant paints and crazy colors and different effects with their caps. So they they embraced it and basically said, "Hey, come buy our stuff." Uh yes, but if you're a purist in America, you probably are still using Rustoleum or Kryolon.
Yeah. One of the other things that really kind of evolved um that helped things along was um not having to take the spray nozzle off of Easy Off anymore and having nozzles that were designed and sold for graffiti art. Like all sorts of different kinds of nozzles that do all sorts of different kinds of things.
Yeah. Uh, I mean, you know, fat lines and skinny lines, different caps that achieve those effects. Uh, they had, uh, calligraphy caps. Um, if you ever been in a paint store and looked at, you know, sometimes you can even spray a little piece of cardboard they have there on the wall.
Lucky. But, uh, you know, sometimes it's a little round pinhole, but sometimes it's a it's a slot. Uh, and those are calligraphy caps, like a horizontal line. I never knew that.
I think those are big in cholo um graffiti too. Yeah. Uh, needle caps, they make splatter. So, if you want like controlled drips, you don't want uncontrolled drips or unintentional drips, but you might want your piece to have some drip look to it. So, you would use needle caps. They also add texture to the lines because they there's like a a like a splattery haze that when you step back just kind of softens the lines a little bit from the needle caps. It's pretty cool.
Should we take our second break? I think we should. All right. We'll come back uh right after this. Want to learn about a terodactyl? How to take a perfect all about fractals until the Lizzy board of murders and a runain explo.
Word up Jerry. So um if you wanted to get into this kind of thing, there's a place to start and it's called developing your hand style. And that is your own personal way of writing your your tag essentially. And graffiti artists will come up with like their own entire alphabets that they just designed themselves. And there's a a really great website that's super useful if you do want to get into graffiti um called bombingscience.com. They have a post of 61 different graffiti artists and their um alphabets essentially that they've created for their tags. And it's really cool. Some of them you're like, I have no idea what letter that is. But even still, they're just super neat that people have put this much thought into it and come up with a a font essentially, their own personal font that they use for graffiti. And the way that you do that is by practicing to develop your own handstyle. And that is essentially step
one. And you do that not on a wall or any public place or even with paint. You start out with pens and markers figuring it out.
That's right. Uh, and now we're gonna give you some tips. Oh, okay. There we go.
You're gonna want to shake that can up, guys. Gotta shake it really, really good.
Mhm. Uh, all kidding aside, you do want to shake that can up. Uh, because that's what makes the the the paint flow really well. Um, don't short change that shake. I feel like I'm I'm speaking for a lot of listeners and saying that I'm I can't help but feel a little forloren that you're not doing this whole list in that voice.
All right, I'll keep going. Okay, step two, guys. Can control. So, this is how you're going to avoid those unwanted drips. Get a feel for that pressure. It's going to determine how quickly you're going to move that hand to achieve that the end result that you're after.
Very nice. Can control it's called. And then finally, guys, you're you're really going to want to adjust that distance from the wall. If you're if you're closer, it's going to be thinner. It's going to be more saturated. It's going to be great for outlines. You step a little further away, it's going to diffuse out. It's going to cover a wider area. It's just science guys.
Very nice, man. All right. And seen. So yes, the upshot of all this is the figuring out the nozzle pressure and the distance from the wall are basically the two most basic things that you can understand and learn about graffiti, but it's also the things that come up the most.
That's right. And some of the rules, uh, which I kind of like to see, uh, you don't tag churches, you don't graffiti churches, you don't graffiti schools. You're not supposed to, at least
uh, hospitals. You're not supposed to do this to someone's house or their car or certainly a headstone at a cemetery or nature like trees and rocks.
You don't those big rocks in Central Park. Uh you don't you don't tag those. Uh that's not what you're supposed to do. And of course you don't snitch because you know what they get.
Uh they get a stitch or two from what I understand. That's right. Yeah. There's a story of a a artist named Cope 2 who was still considered legendary, but he was accused of snitching and just like overnight his reputation just went into the gutter.
Oh wow. Yeah, I imagine. Yeah, they don't they they don't take snitching lightly for sure. Um and then there's other things too like we basically been focusing on spray paint for good reason. I mean it's the the first medium or the the most used medium and then there's markers and all that but there's other stuff you can do that's considered graffiti too. You can get yourself um some sort of poster, get some wheat paste and stick it up like a old timey hand bill that you might see.
Yeah, you can make stickers. A lot of people make stickers. You can come up with stencils like a real Banky.
And um all of these things have like the advantage of most of the work being done at home in a studio out of sight, not in public, and then you can throw them up pretty quickly and and move on and not get caught. Um, I think that makes it a different form of graffiti in that sense, but yeah, it's still I mean it's still street art at the very least.
Yeah, I think so. Uh, and then Livia dug up this thing called reverse graffiti, which I had never heard of.
Yeah. And uh she used a very good example like when you um use your finger to write wash me on a dusty car, uh you're you're using an uh you know an inverse of something to create an image. So, um, a lot of times it's like, um, it's like a a political statement maybe or maybe to call attention to like pollution or the environment or something like that.
Yeah. And and it's also one where they're saying like, "Hey, I'm I'm cleaning a surface technically, not defacing anything, so come at me."
Yeah. And they'll still just come along and be like, "Oh, no. We're going to now we're going to clean this wall now that you've done this.
Now you put something beautiful up." Right. Yeah. So over the years um some people have really kind of made the jump into like mega mondo fame like art world fame who started out as graffiti artists. Uh one of them was Jeia Michelle Bosat. A lot of people point to him as a wildly successful artist who started out in graffiti. Um so was his tag. Uh he started out in the late 70s with a friend named Al Diaz. By the 80s, his paintings were some of the most expensive in the art world, and he was friends with Andy Warhol. And by 1982, he had a solo exhibition. This is like a a an art, like a graffiti artist. This is a huge leap for somebody to make. And I think he might have been the first. I think he came before Keith Herring.
Yeah, Bosot had a a pretty good indie movie made about him. Uh I think it was Jeffrey Wright that played him uh back in the maybe 90s. It was really good. Uh but yeah, you mentioned Keith Herring too. They were they were friends. Uh we were just in New York for fall break and the family went to MoMA and the Whitney and we saw Bas Bosats and obviously Warhols and some Keith Herring stuff in person which is always a thrill.
Yeah. And Keith Herring, I know we've talked about before, but he started uh drawing uh in chalk on the like when they would take a advertisement down on the uh subway walls, there would be this like backboard there and he would put his art up there
and was very famous initially at least for the Radiant Baby was kind of his tag.
Yeah. Uh and if you don't know the Radiant Baby, like if you looked it up, you'd probably seen it somewhere before. It's very famous.
Yes. Yeah. It's like a crawling silhouette with like um light lines coming off of it.
Yeah. And very sadly, uh Jean Michelle Basot would pass from a heroin overdose in the late 80s and Keith Herring um died uh from complications from AIDS and HIV. I believe in 1990.
I read an interview with Bosot. It must have been in like 1988 because the interviewer it was like he got up no less than two or three times to go shoot heroin in this rather short interview. Like he could not not do it. He would have gotten sick like that quickly.
Jeez. There's also uh Shepherd Ferry is very famous um for his Andre the Giant has a posi stickers that he made and then also for his hope poster of Barack Obama during the 2008 election. Yeah. Shepherd Ferryy, good work.
Yep. What? And we've mentioned Banksy, right? Uh, yeah. I mean, do we have to talk about Bangsy?
No, there's a couple other ones that I want to call out that are still working today. Um,
yeah, let's do that. So, Dundie White, he's an overlooked one. He was the one who who uh with Futura 2000 did that full car called Break, but he hung out with Keith Herring and Bosat and Kenny Sharf in Futura 2000. like he was a he never really made the leap to the major art world. He was like a old school underground um artist.
Yeah. And did you mention No, you didn't mention Lady K. Who'd you mention earlier?
Lady Pink. Oh, Lady K. That Lady K is different. Lady K is uh French, I believe, right? In Paris.
I believe that's where she was born and she might be working there still. Either Paris or New York.
Yeah. Very cool stuff there, too. Yeah. And then also, so check out her stuff and then check out Ren's rens who's working in Copenhagen. It is mindn numbing how amazing this work is. Like I just can't even imagine conceiving a lot of a lot of it, let alone being good at it.
Yeah, it's beautiful. Beautiful stuff. It's really like I'm looking at some of them now, man. It's that's amazing. And then um there's one called Kid who is a vandal actually like purposefully vandalizes luxury brand stores who have collaborated with graffiti artists for their brands. They don't like that. So they will like it's not really like pieces that they're putting up. It's more like huge huge vandalizations of of these stores.
Oh wow. Yeah. Oh, that's is that the one that's like uh like stores that are kind of co-opting and graffiti is like the cool thing. He'll go hit them. Okay.
Kid. Yeah, but they're probably like great. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. Oh, wait. You mean the stores?
Yeah. I don't know. I've heard that they don't like kid very much. Oh, really? Okay.
And then lastly, the um I want to call out Apothecary, who never really got off the ground. Um that's Yumi's tag from when she got into this. She's always been interested in B boy culture. So, of course, she came up with graffiti a graffiti tag. And I think she realized like fairly early on, this is way too long apothecary to um to use as a tag. So, I don't think I think it kind of petered out fairly early on.
I'm going to have to tell Emily that because uh I mean obviously apothecary is right up her alley. So,
yeah, for sure. That's funny. Uh you got anything else? I got nothing else. I'm going to work on my my tag. I'm going to come up with a a tag and a font.
Nice. Yeah, get busy on your hand style, yo. Yeah. Uh, since uh we were just talking about handstyle again, I think that means it's time for listener mail.
Uh, yeah. This is from Ben in Connecticut, uh, who's been listening for quite a while and recently heard our selects episode, The Great Finger in the Wendy's Chili Caper.
I remember that one. It was incredible. And we were commenting about um the way Letterman and Leno covered that and that Letterman was was funnier. Uh you know, no surprise there for me at least. I assume you as well.
Yeah. Uh and then Josh mentioned Leno's well-known love of cars uh to differentiate the late night host. However, guys, David Letterman is well known within the indie car racing world as one of the owners of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Uh the team won the cart indie championship in 1992, the year the team was founded, and has won the Indy500 twice with drivers Buddy Rice in 2004 and uh Takuma Sato in 2020. So while Leno may be more well known for his love of automotive history and tinkering with race cars, David Letterman is also well known within the automotive world. Uh and that is from Ben, Connecticut. So I think the takeaway there is Letterman owns Leno once again.
Yeah. And what was who was that? Ben. Yeah. And it's it's so low hanging fruit to to bagg. So don't I don't think I'm original or cool for doing so.
I don't know. But it's I mean you still mean it. Yeah. Um Yeah. Thanks a lot, Ben. That was a very arcane fact that I definitely hadn't heard. And um I also just realized that arcane would be a great tag, too. Arcane. Well, you and uh if you and Yumi went out together and did this like arcane and apothecary together, they'd be like, "Who is this new power couple in graffiti?"
This crew is amazing. Wow. What hand style? I know. And I'd say, "Guys, you got it just right."
Uh yeah, thank you for doing that voice. You really I think you saved the episode.
I kind of stole that from uh Eddie Murphy uh when he used to do the white voice.
Oh, is that who that was? Yeah, just a little bit. I was gonna guess Johnny Carson on Helium doing George W. Bush.
Yeah, go back and listen. You'll be like, "Oh my god." Uh, well, I think that's it. Yes, Ben, thank you very much for that email, Ben. And if you want to be like Ben and get in touch with us, um, we love that kind of thing. You can send it off to Stuff Podcast at iheartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Questions about this episode
Who speaks in "Graffiti: So Cool It’s A Pillar of Hip Hop | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?
Josh Clark (Host), Chuck Bryant (Host), Livia (Guest), Yumi (Guest), Ben (Guest).
What is "Graffiti: So Cool It’s A Pillar of Hip Hop | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW" about?
The discussion focuses on graffiti as a fundamental aspect of hip-hop culture, tracing its origins from the late 1960s East Coast scene back to earlier influences, such as 1930s mural art from Mexico. The conversation highlights the evolution of graffiti techniques and styles, emphasizing its artistic significance and cultural impact.
What is mentioned in this Stuff You Should Know episode?
239 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Graffiti, Exploring with Josh, Little Chuck, Cornbread, Style Wars, Taki 183. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.
How long is "Graffiti: So Cool It’s A Pillar of Hip Hop | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?
The episode runs 48 min; the transcript is about 9,287 words in 182 timestamped sections.
More from Stuff You Should Know
About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 24, 2026.