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KAP. TPA

( From the files of the TPA crew .)

STARTED : Late 70's

AREA : Jamaica Queens.

ALIAS : PARADISE . KAPS, KAPSTER, SPY 007

WRITING GROUPS : TPA, TC, AF, RTW, OTB. TKA, CITY

LINES HIT : EE's, F's, GG's, N's,  RR, M's, B's, D's, A's, 2's, 5's, 6's.

 

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© Interview conducted by SYE ONE -TPA.  7/ 28 / 05

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I’m originally from Jamaica, Queens, born in Bus-Land as the writers would say and I started my writing career from Queens Village, & Hollis. My oldest brother used to write in the 70’s with a whole bunch of the neighborhood crew out of Jamaica. I can’t recall being influenced by him but it’s an actual fact that I was writing since the third grade. My first bust was for tagging in the bathroom at PS 95. However, my true writing experience was shaped by one person. In Junior High School 109, I’d see mad Graffiti outside the building and although it all looked good to me, there was one Brother that I recognized because he stood high above the rest and that was KID 56 or K56 TKA. My first tag was Krazy Ass Paradise! Before KAP I also tagged Spy 007, and Spon 1. Paradise is the one that I liked because it’s also my MC name but it was too many letters to put up, or so I was told. KAP was born out of my Krazy sense of adventure and daring. You know there’s always the kid in the crew that’ll do damn near anything; that was me. I’d do almost anything just because I knew that the rest of the crew wouldn’t. One day I heard a kid refer to me as crazy ass Paradise and I took it as a dis! We got it on and after I whipped his ass I liked the concept of the name so much that I kept it with a slight modification of course. I used a K instead of a C to show how Krazy I was. Go figure! The year was 1981.

  

 

 

  

 

KRAZY ASS PARADISE

 My first experience hitting the trains was with Two Queens’ cats that I went to Bayside High School with, PEST & DOSE were the brothers that introduced me to the lines. We hit 75th avenue on the E & F line and then Van Wyck. Talk about an adventure! That night I knew I was gonna write for real. The way I felt after

  

bombing and the adrenaline rush, along with the smell of those tunnels let me know I’d be back for a long time to come. If you were going to get your name up you had to... Rack it up, rack it up, and rack it up! Those were the days for real!!! But wouldn’t you know that I purchased my first few cans? You know, buy 1 take 5 and all that dumb shit. It finally dawned on me that it didn’t make a difference so I just racked em’ all and it was all gravy! I hate to say this but I never got busted racking spray paint and I was a fool at the racks. I’d ride the bus into Long Island and come back with 100 cans. Once PW got the GOONY GOO-GOO MOBILE we took racking to the next dimension. I never ran out of paint! I remember once when the crew went racking out at Pearls in Long Island and in 6 trips in to the store the whole rack was empty! My first real writing partner was CER!  The hard hitting “C.D.L” (Cer, Demo, Lust) combination was all over and I hit the scene at the WRITE time. It was CER and SCOP that took me out of Queens and up to the Bronx where the action was hot and heavy in the D-Yard. I fell in love that night. As for my only other true graffiti partner, ain’t no doubt it’s PW aka PEWE is PEOPLES for real! I remember how people used to shit on me when I first came through and had no style, couldn’t even write a straight line. Well they did the same to my  boy P-DUB. I knew PW since the 6th grade at PS 34. He was up but lacked style. After

 

 we hooked up he just went crazy with this thing and you know the rest…TPA  ALL THE WAY! My first crew was AFC (Armed Forces Crew) which I shortened to AF. After I blew up I was put down with mad crews but  TKA, CITY, RTW, TC, DTB and OTB were the only ones that I’d actually put up. I was/ I am an ANIMAL and TPA was all I needed to be down with.

  

 

 

  

 

 

 During the early portion of my career, I stayed getting chased out of yards and lay-ups but the 3 that will never go away are the Halloween Train at 75th ave, the D-Yard and Van Wyck. The Halloween Train at 75th was crazy. CER, PW, DEMO, EZO, MUSE, and a few others were knocking out whole cars each, when all of

  

 

a sudden MUSE calls out the cops; not just any cops but Curly and Ferrari. All hell broke loose. I lost 100 cans that night, my coat, keys, weed, money and my Mother’s camera. I had to ring the doorbell to get in that night and I know my parents weren’t feeling that. The next day Mom comes in and cracks me upside the head with a rolled up newspaper, talking ‘bout “What happened to your coat? Where are your keys?” Then she goes up in the cupboard and asks, “Where’s my camera?” The D-Yard actually held 2 classics. One night we cut a hole in the fence and tore the yard DOWN! On the way out the fence was put back together and the lock cutters were in the car! Nothing like a little pressure to see who panics. I won’t mention any names but that was some funny shit. I found a pipe and made a fulcrum and voila! The second D-Yard episode was a set up for real and I don’t know how we got out of there without handcuffs. We were deep in the yard that night and the yard was packed, mad trains, mad writers. Of course we were all together in one lane when all of a sudden the doors opened on both trains and the boys in blue plus some work bums poured out. That was some funny, scary shit but TPA lived to bomb another day. ALL of us! However my  personal mojo wore off at VanWyck. Bombing on a Sunday afternoon and I knew better but I went anyway and paid the price. PE3 wanted to hit 75th but when we saw Van Wyck packed  to the a sudden MUSE calls out the cops; not just any cops but

 

 rafters we couldn’t resist. Curly and Ferrari caught reck on my ass that day. Yeah, Curley and Ferrari got lucky one afternoon at Van Wyck but I was at it again the next week. I taunted those bastards til the end. They even had the nerve to call my house a couple of times, talking about they were coming to get me if I didn’t stop. Yeah right!

  

 

 

 

  

 

 Curly and Ferrari. All hell broke loose. I lost 100 cans that night, my coat, keys, weed, money and my Mother’s camera. I had to ring the doorbell to get in that night and I know my parents weren’t feeling that. The next day Mom comes in and cracks me upside the head with a rolled up newspaper, talking ‘bout “What happened to your coat? Where are your keys?” Then she goes up in the cupboard and asks, “Where’s my camera?” The D-Yard actually held 2 classics. One night we cut a hole in the fence and tore the yard DOWN! On the way out the fence was put back together and the lock cutters were in the car! Nothing like a little pressure to see who panics. I won’t mention any names but that was some funny shit. I found a pipe and made a fulcrum and voila! The second D-Yard episode was a set up for real and I don’t know how we got out of there without handcuffs. We were deep in the yard that night and the yard was packed, mad trains, mad writers. Of course we were all together in one lane when all of a sudden the doors opened on both trains and the boys in blue plus some work bums poured out. That was some funny, scary shit but TPA lived to bomb another day. ALL of us! However my  personal mojo wore off at VanWyck. Bombing on a Sunday afternoon and I knew better but I went anyway and paid the price. PE3 wanted to hit 75th but when we saw Van Wyck packed  to the My girl and Demo’s girl

 

were best friends. There were 2 clicks I wanted entry into; TPA & TKA. When I met DEMO he didn’t put me down right away. He encouraged me to keep getting up and to develop a throw-up. Once he saw me killin’ the bus yard he used to kill and developed a decent throw-up, he put me down with the crew. When I met CER he was skeptical but once confirmed it was on and poppin’ for real. Lust was the one that taught me to rock a straight line. At the time I had no idea how big the crew was but as I moved out into the arena of graff I started running into the crew everywhere. ANIMAL KINGDOM! Let’s mention a few of the greats: JOEY, VADE, PUBO, OE3, FUZZ, FLAME, SIR, EKO, EBIZM, PG 3, UNCLE ROCK, P13, KC3, CER, CEY, SCOP, LUST, SYE, PW, REC 127, EZO, SLOAN, ADAM can’t forget my girls ABBY and 2 CUTE! There’s more but my mind evades me right now. The E & F was our home line and we controlled everything.

 from 75th Avenue to 179th street for at least 2 years. For the time that I was writing we hit everything except the 7 line. By the time I really got it going the 7 line was locked down and I wasn’t with the 7 lay ups. As for specific lines; A,B,C,D,E,F,G,J,L,M,N,R,1,2,3,4,5,6! YES, TPA PUT THAT WORK IN! I wrote with a lot of writers, some famous, some not so famous. I really tried to give cats from around the way a shot at some line fame but they’d go bombing a couple of times and think they were all city. After a while I recognized that there was a reason I bombed with KINGS. I’ve bombed with CER, DEMO, LUST, PW, SYE, SCOP, CEY, QUIK, MIN, RICH 2, K56, FE, PE3, ABBY, 2 CUTE, SLOAN, ADAM, EZO, MUSEK, SUR 167, REC 127 (R.I.P.) and one of my original block writers CRASH, no not the worlds’ famous. My hardcore bombing partners were CER & PW. The bond was DO or DIE for real!

WARS! For certain! I had beef simply because I was up so much and, to be honest, because I really didn’t give a fuck! If I went down in the tunnels and there was no room I just went over people. What was I supposed to do, go home because there was no room? NO GOOD! I’d go over anybody on any line at anytime. CER was the one that finally made me realize that I had to respect the KINGS of the lines. My most notable beef was with RTW. TPA had just put the finishing touches on a weeks worth of work on the E & F line with the intention of kinging the line once and for all. We hit every lay up in Queens and then smashed Brooklyn @ Ft. Hamilton. I even went to the E&F yard in Queens to finish the job dolo! By mid week mad cats was coming up to me or calling me with the news

that RTW had hit the line and was riding our shit hard! I saw some of it and it was really just them trying to make some room but they were kissing our shit and more because of peer pressure than anything else, we took it to them HARD! Any excuse was better than none so we killed their shit wherever we saw it. QUIK lived right in my neighborhood so he got it the worst. I did throw ups and cross outs on some seriously pretty work but alls’ fair in love and war. Not to be outdone QUIK lit a fire under my ass too. He smashed our stuff on the lines and finally squeezed ink all over my home handball court at 34 park, leaving us a message “ SEE YOU SATURDAY!” He’d called DEMO and set up a meeting to either squash the beef or get it on. To be honest, they were in no position to get it on as mad writers from TPA and a host of on lookers converged on the meeting place. Bottom line, we called a truce, went to the Ghost Yard and CRUSHED it! On the subject of wars let me set this rumor to rest once and for all. KAP and GHOST never fought! Not that I didn’t want to but when we finally met up outside of REC 127’s (R.I.P.) crib, I had just got out the hospital from having my left thumb surgically repaired and was in no position to get it on. As for all the other beef I had, it really didn’t amount to anything. I’d catch writers, beat flames out of em’ and go about my business. I was also into Hip-Hop big. Back in the days???!!! Ain’t nothing changed and the proof will be when the CD drops. Even as we speak I’m busy working on tracks. I’ll let my actions speak for me on this one, just ask anyone that was at the last OLD TIMERS’ DAY at 5 POINTZ, better yet, catch the footage on line. M.C .PARADISE ROCKS THE HOUSE!

I stopped bombing in 1986, drugs caught up to me in the worse way. I was one of those unfortunate victims of the crack epidemic and lost my fucking mind! I went to prison in 1987 for a homicide and didn’t get out until 2004. A truly sad chapter in my life but one that I learned from immensely. The world of GRAFFITI is a sacred one. It will never be as it once was but it will also never die. We have fought for and won recognition as an INTERNATIONAL ART FORM and as long as the generations coming behind us continue to piece, the world of graffiti will live forever. DEMO once wrote something on a wall that still stands to this day at the intersection of 99th and Hempstead avenues in Queens Village, “ A true artist can never die if his name can live on forever. “ Well I’m a PUBLIC ANIMAL and WE PLAN TO LIVE ON FOREVER!

 

 

 

We like to thank Kap for sharing his memories with us and Sye for making this possible. Should any one have any photos of Kap's work please contact us at MESSAGE@SUBWAYOUTLAWS.COM. Photo credits go to FEC, SLOAN and SYE.