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During the early 1970s I
engrossed myself into getting my Spiritual alter ego’s message seen. Writing
became therapeutic to me it became an out let to vent frustrations and anger. I
began to realize more the toll that the drugs, crime, and poverty of the South
Bronx was having on |
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people. I began to go on major missions racking up on paint,
markers and ink and tagging “Staff-161-, there was a small crew
from the hood which included A.J 161., DYNAMITE 161, TOPAZ 1, DICE1, KING
KOOL 156, SUPER SLICK 156 and SKIP 1. I decided that it was imperative that we organize,
during that period the Panthers, Young Lords, N.O., B.L.A were some
of the militant organizations around besides others, one of the common soul
brother symbols seen often was the “Power fist”, so I came up with
the name
“THE EBONY DUKES”,
Ebony refers to the color “Black” and Dukes refers to the
slang term meaning “Fists”! I established a creed that stated we were
about getting our voices heard, unifying the people, expressing our artistic
abilities and setting new trends for style. I didn’t want to appear to be
another street outlaw gang, so I made official membership cards instead of
colors. Later some Brooklyn writers came up with the wearing of colors; some of
the first Brooklyn Ebony Dukes were SPIN, BOP and KRANE who were
the major writers for that borough back then. Many of the Brooklyn writers
were members of the outlaw groups, Tomahawks and Jolly Stompers,
when I first noticed the Brooklyn writers wearing colors, I was a
little apprehensive and thought it was an entirely different organization,
I was surprised to learn it was the Dukes that
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I established but went to
the point of making colors outlaw style. I had not intended
THE EBONY DUKES
to be such a group, but the colors were nice, so I conceded. One of the
requirements of membership in
TED INC.
was that you write it whenever you wrote your tag the Brooklyn Dukes
were certainly fulfilling that obligation. I used to go the Atlantic Ave and new
lots lay-ups once in a while and I would see
THE EBONY DUKES
and
TED INC.
tagged all over! Most of the
major writers in all five boroughs became EBONY DUKES, basically
the only prerequisite was that you be visible and a major artist sponsor you. So
once that your tag was seen usually some one would sponsor you. |
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What eventually occurred
was I lost track of the membership so you had many writers who were writing for
the organization but never received a membership card. Phase II
was the leader of the
EX
Vandals
in the Bronx in the early 70's,
that’s why I also wrote WAR” (Writers Are Respected!) as well as
EX
Vandals. There
were some Queens cats that were bombing the Double R's, E's and F's trains
that were even down with us. Many thought once “I stopped
writing that I passed T.E.D Incorporated on to some one else. " Absolutely
not!" How could I do something like that? SUPER SLICK 156 was and still is
the vice president, AJ 161 would have to been third in command...
and you had the other original dukes from the hood like
TOPAZ 1, DYNAMITE 161 and others. SMILY 149 |
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I know, he was respected and I know he was down, but he
wasn't a part of the original team. What I no doubt did, in which I use
to do often, was authorize a writer to be a lead Duke in his hood and
establish a crew of Dukes in his hood meaning he could bring writers in to T.E.D based on the by laws and the original members giving them the thumbs
up. A lead Duke was some what like a president of a division of one of the
street gangs of the period. SMILY 149 was a lead Duke.
That honor was given to him by TOPAZ 1. I was
always on the move and would be at a different writers corner frequently: 149th
street Grand Concourse, Atlantic Ave., 180th street, Queens borough
Plaza, Clinton High School, West 4th street, what happened with
the organization is that most of the major leadership came out the scene,
Super Slick-156- who was the Vice president got a prison bid as well as
A. J. I didn’t get a major prison bid till later but the scene changed
dramatically and even though there was a whole new generation of writers
that came about (wild style!) most of the Old School originators moved on
into the
Hip-Hop
scene, and other things. Most included their writing experiences as a major part
of their lives that they’ll never forget, and some just want to forget! The fact
is if you were there and your tag got around, you made history! Art is just
creative self-express and there’s various ways to express one self. Graffiti
tags as it |
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was done by the
originators of the movement in the 1970s, was a cultural calligraphy that
expressed the views of the youth who experienced the turbulence of the
1960s Civil Rights and Hippie movements. The originators
were mainly of the baby boomers generation, all had that spiritual
connection we all felt we had this calling! Even when I was a kid in
foster care my thing was writing Poetry in school and you can see
it manifested in some of my old tags. All of the Ebony Dukes knew that we
were living our lives to a rhythmic beat; and in all actuality, your
heartbeat is just that; your pulse of life! And our lyrics to the beat of
life was our own special calligraphy: This is why the Hip-Hop
era proceeded us! |
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" City
wide Subway king. " |
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There wasn’t a train yard or
lay-up in the city that I didn’t visit at some point in my career. I was like a
nomad going from place to place, every place I went, I met new and different
writer, and would bring them into THE EBONY DUKES,
I also did suburban missions Yonkers, Mount |
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Vernon, Long Island, Jersey and
Freight trains, buses. A.J., Super Slick 156, Skip 1,
Topaz,
Dynamite would go to the bus yard on Tremont Ave. hit delivery trucks …… anything with a
writing surface. The number 7- lay ups were me and A.J's main
targets as well as some of the Original Dukes. The double R's and J's were
trains line we took over as well, Those subway lines reminded me of the I.R.T 2
& 5 lines which ran along tracks elevated through specific neighborhoods
where you could get a lot of visibility. A.J and myself would take
the 7 train to the last stop just to rack up at the Martin Paint store and other
spots out there along Queens blvd. By the time we got to Main street Flushing we
had shopping bags full of paint from 3 or 4 specific stops we made along the
way, finished off on Main street and head back to the
Bronx with with bags of paint bombing the insides of trains on our way
back. We are both very familiar even with Astoria because our mom was
working out there on Steinway blvd. She was working for some elderly
Jewish
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women, my mom use to spend days living in taking care of that women. She would have me
and A.J come out there so she could give us money and groceries to take home to
look after our younger brothers and sisters. Of cause on the way there and back
the double R trains got "Bombed!" Not only that we noticed the Martin Paints and
other stores on Steinway blvd, of cause half their paint stock were missing
before they got hip to the two Black kids that use to come around every so
often. Because of the large amount of paint A. J. and me accumulated, we
go into the habit of being extravagant and as a result we created what
came to be known as the “TOP TO BOTTOM MASTER
PIECE”, especially A. J. he wasn’t that artistic, so what he did to
compensate was go to extremes. I firmly believe that ALL JIVE-161- that
covered the entire side of a car covering the windows from end to end in multi
colors was the main “MONSTER PIECE”. That brought about “ TOP TO BOTTOM ERA”.
I’m sure of that…. All we did was watch the trains go by on my block and nobody
ever saw anything like it, I followed with a blinding bright white, with black
trim monstrosity that consumed the whole car. I was at 149th street
writers corner when this beast rolled in people’s jaw dropped transit workers
were devastated. The only thing is that these monster pieces were short lived
being that they covered all the windows, they created a security risk and would
be taken out of service and cleaned immediately, this brought about major crack
down as well …… they were my FAVORITES! |
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THE
CANON PIECE: Most
of my work was for shock value, which was a way to grasp the public’s attention,
there was always the subliminal message involved in any of my “concept work”… this one was actually entitled “THE
BIG BANG THEORY”……….the message was: I’m blowing up! this concept was
painted on the side of an IRT train by in the early 1970s.
Unfortunately the piece was ruined when a fairly new white uptown writer
“DEATH” attempted to squeeze his tag on the same subway car with Staff’s
piece. The writer’s community was in an uproar about this blatant violation and
wanted to take aggressive action. I was naturally upset by the
carelessness of the new writer but didn’t want to send a negative message as
president of
THE EBONY DUKES,
so TOPAZ, ALL JIVE.161, Dynamite, a few of the original Dukes went uptown
to
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deal with the matter
diplomatically; which resulted in a peaceful resolution of the situation
and the induction of a few white uptown Graffiti artists into
THE
EBONY DUKES.
DEATH
VIOLATING THE PIECE:
That was an unfortunate situation, what was eventually done was not what
most of the community wanted to do about the incident. Most of the
community had wanted to ban him from the major lines by putting a hit out
on him (catch him at the lay-ups and beat him down and hot 110 his tags).
What I eventually decided to do was more diplomatic we went to see what
his excuse was. Basically he explained it something he did accidentally while it was laid up. Anyway, we let it slide; we brought him and his crew,
Crachee, Vamm into the DUKES as part of our uptown connection and
becoming the first white faces in the DUKES. What I’m sure occurred was
most of time people want to squeeze into your limelight when they see you
doing big things (WOW! look at that let me get my name next to it!) but
when you try to squeeze your way in you wind up messing things up! Just
find your own train, get your own limelight, there was enough for everybody.
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This is
one of the first, if not first major concept that I painted on my favorite line of attack the IRT numbers 2 and 5 lines. The piece
entitled: “The Shadow of Death” has a grim reaper character that
I got from the colors of the “Reapers” a street gang in his South Bronx
neighborhood. The over all concept was based on a portion of the 23rd
PSALM that reads: ”Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil” The South
Bronx neighborhood named
Fort Apache
where me and my brother A. J. grew up was a grim reaper piece depicts
my experience of being surrounded by this grim reality but yet surviving
through it shining. His tag came from the other portion of the 23rd
PSALM that reads: “For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they
comfort me.”
Staff –161-
went on to create other major concept master pieces using my other aliases
Mr.
ED 161 and
Corky
–161-. Staff’s
tags and pieces were on every transit live in the city, the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, and the A, C, D, E, F, J, RR, 3RD Ave. EL., Staff and A. J.
were the first originators of the huge “MONSTER PIECES” (top to bottom)
that covered the entire subway car. |
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THE GANG SCENE OF THE 70's :
Many of the outlaw street gangs of my time idolized the popular western on
television during the period. If you notice closely you could see it in
the way they dressed, the wide brim hats, the high boots and spurs and
holster. In the Bronx as well as other parts of New York city every
neighborhood had a gang but the biggest were groups like THE SAVAGE
SKULLS, BLACK SPADE, THE GHETTO BROTHERS, THE REAPERS, THE SAVAGE NOMADS,
THE GOLDEN GINNIES, in Brooklyn THE TOMAHAWKS and THE JOLLY STUMPERS.
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