The best thing for me in my whole f*cking life is to hook up with people you respect, and you love, and you can feel the love they give you. Everybody is different, but when we can get together and do a mission, that’s like doing a bank robbery. Maybe it’s too rough to say bank robbery, but it's like… some shit can go down, you know? And you go to jail for this.
I've been in jail for graffiti, so I know... If the cops come here, they do everything to try to catch you. When I paint right now I’m still really trying to express myself... and telling, hey, nobody can tell me… nobody in f*cking the whole f*cking world can tell me how to do this shit. Style for me is important, but friendship and doing all these things with graffiti is for life, and it’s a lifestyle, you know? I grew up having a really bad childhood. I love my mom, and my dad was a motherf*cking dick. I had some troubles when I grew up, but when I saw all the people that were doing graffiti, I felt like I had a family, you know? One morning, my mom she said, Can you go and pick up some milk? It was like 7 in the morning. I was walking on the street going around my block, and two blocks further, and that was a new piece and I could smell the paint. And then there were the caps from the cans, they were laying all over, and I could smell the paint. I stood there and I said to myself… Oh, it was so incredible to see this masterpiece. I could smell the paint, and I was like this is what I want to do. I could feel that they don't have the permission for this. Nobody told them, you’re going to do this — they just did it, you know? On the corner. On a wall. On the street. It's only after I was hanging out at the stations and would see the trains passing by, and there was graffiti on them. And it was the same feeling, like I want to try to do this, you know? Freedom. That's the best way to try to explain it to other people that don’t do it, you know? It was all about the graffiti book. People always call it the Bible. Subway Art, the book full of painted trains, and pictures of people painting on trains. It’s human beings talking to each other with letters. When you grew up, in school the teachers would tell you, this is the letter A, this is the letter B, this is the letter C, and this is how it should be. But this book was telling me, these are kids doing it, and we f*cking do our own alphabet. And we f*cking do it how the f*ck we want. In Denmark there were these Masters here, you know? Whap Gang... Kyle from Whap Gang. Cres, Sketch, Jest... There were so many guys, they did their style from Subway Art, but they developed their style.
It was so big for me, you know? Many years ago, I went to New York and I met a lot of the guys I saw in Subway Art when I was a kid. I met those guys, and they actually come to me, and I talked to them. Wow man, that’s a big thing, you know? Rest in peace, Kase2. I like Kase2 and Duster. These are my heroes. And Zephyr and Quick. Probably some of my biggest heroes, ever. Because they have different styles, different flavors. Some are doing smooth, nice curves. Some are doing sharp and hard styles, and somebody is doing soft…it depends, you know? And that’s for sure, that’s where I got all my shit from. And that’s for sure, that’s where I got all my shit from. Since I was 11 or 10 I always wanted to go to New York. That was before graffiti. Because I always saw in the movies the high skyscrapers, the people driving around. I like to see all the old gangster movies and all that. So I started working at my grandma’s house. She had a big garden and I chopped trees and stuff. And every time I was working there, she’d put money on an account. So when I was around 16 or 17 I had money. And I was working after school and all that. And then my good friend SEK at that time, and he was 18, and I was 17… and we were like, all right, let's go. So we went. That was like a big mind-blowing for me. In ‘86, ‘87 …when I saw GHOST and all these guys like…Wow! So that's how graffiti can be too, you know? People are so serious about style, but it can be kind of like, f*ck you, style! You know? Wane, he hooked me up. One day, I was in the Bronx, at Wane’s house, and he tells me… it was like 10 at night, he said, I want you to meet this guy. I'm like, hmm what the f*ck? Okay, cool man, cool. We'd been out on a mission and I didn’t sleep so much. I was tired. But he kept saying that, I want you to meet this guy.
So we’re going to meet this guy at 2AM in Brooklyn. I’m like, okay cool man, that's that's f*cking far from here. We were in the Bronx. And he's like yeah, yeah, whatever.
Anyway, so we drive. . We come to Brooklyn, and it’s f*cking minus 10 degrees, it's really f*cking cold, it’s snowing and shit. Anyway, so this guy standing there, out of nowhere. And he comes in the car, like, Wassup? Let's go down there. And we paint, and that was Ghosty Ghost. Me and him, we just look at each other like, you paint here, I’ll paint here. And then we paint, and bla-bla-bla. Two days after, I go to Manhattan with my friend at that time, going, talking, and then I hear like [imitates shouting]. And I’m like, what the f*ck, I’m walking in Manhattan, is someone yelling at me? What the f*ck? I don’t think so.
So I look around and Ghost is standing there like, what the f*ck are you doing here, motherf*cker? And I’m like, what the f*ck are YOU doing here? - I dunno. - Alright cool. You wanna go by my house? - Yea, sure man. And then from that day we just clicked. That was it. That was a big, big, big, big, big experience for me, and a big, big… I felt like, alright motherf*ckers, now I’m really going to show you motherfu*ckers, you know? I’m like, hmm, this is nice, man. Now we can show them together. And see? The alphabet is still around. Chess is like you’re playing what's coming out of your mind, you know? I’ve said it before, graff for me is just like what you're playing on your mind, and that’s really important. Sometimes I’m aggressive, sometimes I'm in a bad mood. And then I do like really aggressive letters, you know? Sometimes they can be aggressive, but sometimes they can be happy, you know? Letters can be happy. It depends on how you feel. When I was playing chess, sometimes I was playing happy, sometimes I was not playing happy. I was playing really aggressive, you know? It sounds strange, man, but letters for me are still around in my head… and I’ll do it ‘til I die. Every different name is like three different personalities. And I'm trying to go into those different personalities. And say, okay this is another guy, but he’s influenced by the other guys. It’s just a little thing I have, to try to make different styles, you know? I would never, ever, ever only paint legal. I would never paint only trains. Never paint wildstyle, never paint straight letters, because that's too boring for me. Like I said before, it’s like a challenge, man. Challenge, challenge, challenge. For me, to do different levels of graff, like legal or trains or…that's important for me. Let me say this. If you come outside, and you open up a book, and the book is only about one thing, talking about one thing…I mean, that’s okay. But for me, a book is about different things. I'm not saying it’s the correct way to do it, I’m just saying for me, it’s more funny I get more power seeing like, oh shit, you don't know what's going on, on the next page, what’s going to happen then, you know? We’ve been on a really, really hectic mission like [panting]. Everything is like…everything can happen, you know? The thing can do like this [splat sound]. The moment when you’re standing there, and everything is cool, it could do like [splat]... and then you can see 2 cops, you can see the dogs, you can see the sirens like [woop woop]... And then suddenly, it's not fun. It's not nice anymore. Then everything turns. But when you go over that and out of that, you did what you did to come up, and you see the sun goes up… That's where you’re like, wow, this is f*cking life, you know? This is beautiful, man. And at least 2, 3 days after you see people to go to work and do what they do, and you just have this feeling inside. What you’ve done with your friends, together, like—we did this, man! F*ck that shit, you know? We didn't get paid. We didn’t get f*cking paid for anything. We just did it because we liked it, you know? I'm really broke sometimes. I'm really broke. I don't even have money for food sometimes. Anyway, I can sell a canvas, and then I'm like, f*ck that shit, I'm doing it. I'm trying to hustle on my own way, you know? And then somebody asks me, Can you paint this little wall? And I’m like, yeah, cool…but I need 200 cans for this. So I got cans for painting and I get happy about it. Now I feel alive, now I have paint. But then again, I'm looking at people that have big cars, they have three kids, and a big house, and stuff like that. I'm not sure about if that’s good or bad, but I'm just looking at my... whole… specially how people look at me, like he’s the guy that’s still doing what we did like 20, 30, 35 years ago. And maybe I'm a loser. I don't know, man. But I feel like I'm a loser because of that stupid shit. But at least I'm happy because I can paint, you know? Trust me, man. I’ve got respect for all writers. And rest in peace to all writers who aren’t here anymore. In New York, I met a lot of those guys. And I respect them. And they ask me, so you’re the guy... I'm like yeah man, thanks man, thanks for everything, but you know, I'm still on the mission, you know? On my own mission. I'm not on a mission for showing people what I can do. I'm on a mission for showing me what I can do... with letters and shit. And I'm not done yet. I'm not done, man.
