Wild Style is arguably the very first movie and one of the very few that shows the true essence of what Hip Hop is about. When Hip-Hop was being passed off as a fad that wouldn’t last beyond “Rapper’s Delight,” a vivid reenactment of the introduction of this artistic culture to the world was made. In 1983, film director and cultural artist Charlie Ahearn premiered the flick in Times Square, breaking records by selling out at all screenings for the three weeks it played.
A member of the collective artist group Collaborative Projects, Ahearn was initially exposed to Hip Hop in the late 70s through graffiti when he went to film the youth in the projects in Manhattan’s Lower East Side that studied martial arts. He was soon approached by Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Braithwaite about making a movie encompassing all elements of Hip-Hop (emceeing, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti). Fab 5 Freddy brought legendary graff artist Lee Quinones to meet Ahearn to discuss further the approach of filming graffiti and introducing it as a legitimate art form. Ahearn found out that Lee was the same graf king whose work he admired while filming in LES. With Ahearn as producer and director, the three began embarking on a journey to gather the individuals who would be the faces of this landmark film.
Developing its name from an abstract letter design made famous in the graffiti world by graff king Tracy 168, Wild Style featured some of the most prolific pioneers from all aspects of Hip-Hop. The Cold Crush Brothers, Rock Steady Crew, and Grandmaster Flash were just a few of Hip-Hop’s trailblazers that debuted on Wild Style’s silver screen. The Furious Five could not appear alongside Flash and had to be cut from the film because of prior obligations to another more mainstream motion picture depicting the development of Hip Hop that came out later called Beat Street. This is why Afrika Bambaataa, the New York City Breakers, The Treacherous Three, or female pioneer MC Sha Rock were not seen in the film. Other notable legends included Busy Bee Starski, graff legends Dondi, Zephyr, and Revolt, who designed the Wild Style logo and the Fantastic Freaks.
Lee Quinones played the main character “Zoro,” the anonymous graf phenom introduced to the art world by his pal and fellow graffiti writer “Faze,” played by Fab 5 Freddy. Faze introduces Zoro to Virginia, a journalist portrayed by cultural icon Patti Astor, who later shows Zoro to art’s world stage of galleries and museums. The story is an accurate historical account of how Hip-Hop, in general, was introduced to mainstream America and, later, the rest of the world. It also showed the poverty and despair that existed in the South Bronx, out of which the culture of Hip Hop emerged.
Over 30 years later, Wild Style is still an American pop culture icon. The players that participated and performed in the movie have made themselves legends in their own right. However, most will recognize their appearance in the film as the catapult of their career. The movie has been sampled on various classic Hip Hop albums, including ATCQ’s Midnight Marauders, Common’s Ressurection, and the Five Mic classic, Nas’ Illmatic. Wild Style was voted one of the top ten rock n’ roll movies of all time by the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame, and VH1’s Hip Hop Honors acknowledged the film’s influence in Hip Hop with a tribute in 2007.
Hip Hop is a 50-year-old testament to resilience, creativity, and art. As with every music genre, it comes from a backdrop of rich history and tradition. For those unaware, the most basic part of hip-hop history is the understanding of the five pillars that make up the genre. Hip-Hop has five pillars, and these are rap (emceeing), DJing, breakdancing, Graffiti, and knowledge. Of these artistic mediums, rap is the most familiar to a majority of people, so much so that the word has become interchangeable with Hip Hop itself, which is a larger umbrella of multiple art forms and traditions. On the opposite side of the popularity contest is Graffiti, an old, yet essential pillar with a convoluted and remarkable history. In honor of Black History Month, journey through the history of spray cans, tagging, expression, misunderstandings, and every other facet of Graffiti in Hip Hop.
Graffiti as an artform predates rap, and perhaps the other two elements of Hip Hop, by at least a decade. It is also decidedly the legacy of two artists: Cornbread and TAKI 183. Cornbread was the tag name of Daryl McCray. The daredevil artist, at the peak of his notoriety, reportedly tagged a Philadelphia zoo Elephant, as well as the Jackson 5 airplane. However, Graffiti in Hip Hop is sometimes never traced to him, but instead to TAKI 183, the Greek-American artist who dominated the Bronx in the 1960s.
In fact, many sources name TAKI 183, and not Cornbread, as the founder of Graffiti in Hip Hop. This is because it was he who led the charge in New York, the birthplace of the genre. TAKI was short for Dimitraki, his birth name, while 183 stood for his home address at 183rd Street, Washington Heights. It has been alleged that Taki learned Graffiti from JULIO 204, who Graffiti’d with Cornbread in Philly before moving to New York.
Taki infamously tagged subway stations and cars. Moreover, he tagged the walls of public buildings, including those along Broadway, and inside JFK airport. Where Cornbread was daring, Taki was speedy. He was such a problem for New York City, that his “vandalism” made the front page of the New York Times in 1971. Remarkably, he was just 17 years old at the time. As his legacy, TAKI 183 led to the development of a generation of artists, who, in trying to compete with him, would eventually merge Graffiti with Hip Hop. It is also he who invented the tag style of pairing a mononym with an address.
1970s: Hip Hop Is Fully Formed
A woman walks past a subway train covered in graffiti, in the Times Square subway station, New York City, New York, May, 1973. Image courtesy National Archives. (Photo via Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).
The 1970s was a time of birth and rebirth for what would become the other three pillars of Hip Hop. On August 11, 1973, a group of teenagers threw a back-to-school party that would change history. Held in the rec room of a Bronx apartment building, the iconic party was deejayed by Kool Herc, a Jamaican-American DJ, who pioneered deejaying. After the art of deejaying, came breakdancing, a form of dance invented to mimic the breaks between the tracks which the DJ mixed. The fourth horseman, Emceeing (rhyming) would also happen organically in a similar manner.
The ‘70s also saw a new generation of Graffiti artists and styles. Phase II, Wild Style, Futura 2000, Fab 5 Freddy, Lee Quiñones, Dondi, and Lady Pink were important figures in the movement. Unsurprisingly, as Hip Hop became more widespread, Graffiti and the other elements were forced to jostle for public space. This usually took place in melting-pot locations like The Roxy, a roller-skating rink and roller disco located in Chelsea, Manhattan.
The Roxy was opened in 1978, and it was one of very few spots for urban art forms. There, breakdancers could perfect their moves, and Graffiti artists could test new forms and styles. In the same vein, DJs and rap MCs like Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, and Kool Herc provided entertainment. It was either that or competing for dominance. As the ‘70s rolled to an end, the mainstream community began to develop an interest in these Black-centric art forms. This would become the gateway for the explosion that would come in the ‘80s.
Hip Hop was arguably the biggest cultural renaissance of the century at the time of its origination. It brought street elements and urban grit into the American cultural landscape. Street photography was equally popular, with Graffiti serving as an essential backdrop, resulting in Hip Hop becoming an overwhelming influence. Therefore, to “look like Hip Hop” was to be cool; To have “street cred” became something to aspire for. This is why iconic pictures like the 1987 photograph of English pop group The Outfield with a Graffiti background exist. In summary, by the 80s, everybody wanted a piece of the Hip Hop pie.
However, all of Hip Hop’s “pillars” existed distinctly as separate art forms for the most part. The only common denominator was that they were adopted en masse, at the same time, by an entire generation of young Black and Brown people from working-class New York communities. The conjoining of DJing with emceeing came first and dominated the music scene. Breakdancing followed naturally, but Graffiti was left out of Hip Hop’s reign for a bit.
This was until it was time to export these Black-centric art forms to the larger society. These “exports” were events like the New York City Rap Tour of 1982. Furthermore, viral music videos like “Buffalo Gals” by Malcolm McLaren, a white artist, were recorded in the streets, parks, and skating rinks. On display in these areas were visibly noticeable Graffitied walls and floors.
Graffiti’s Impact On The Overall Hip Hop Scene
This does not diminish the contributions of Graffiti artists who inhabited the spaces of music and art at the same time. For example, Phase II and Futura 2000 both put out rap albums and contributed to the development of Hip Hop outside of Graffiti. Basquiat also produced and arranged Rammellzee VS K-Rob’s “Beat Bop,” and made an original artwork for the cover. However, the most impactful artist who actively worked toward the unification of all of Hip Hop’s elements was Fab 5’s Freddy. “I developed these theories that all these elements of urban culture were beginning to seem like one big thing,” he said. “I helped explain to people that Graffiti was part of Hip Hop. It was always something I saw as one cultural movement.”
Freddy took his Hip Hop gospel very seriously. In 1983, he made an independent film: Wild Style with filmmaker Charlie Ahearn. He made sure to show off as much of his theorized Hip Hop elements as possible in the film, including a massive concert in the Lower East Side. One year after Wild Style, Beat Street hit the shelves, produced by Harry Belafonte. It had the exact premise as Wild Style, but was far more commercially successful. After the two films, Hip Hop became a Hollywood product and was sold far and wide. Afterward, it became an identity, and people were finally catching on to Freddy’s gospel.
Graffiti Gains Favor
Indeed, Freddy was an active and conscious participant in building Hip Hop to encompass all elements, including Graffiti. Nonetheless, a number of other pioneers did it unconsciously. For example, the first time Graffiti was spoken of favorably in a major outlet was by Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice. He also made sure to give rap a shoutout in the same article. In 1983, the Graffiti photographer Henry Chalfant made his critically famous documentary film, Style Wars. Style Wars was a documentary about Graffiti in New York, the teenagers who made it, and the governmental powers who fought them. However, by the time the film hit the shelves, Chalfant had also fallen subject to Freddy’s gospel. As a result, he included the street struggles of rapping and breakdancing too, albeit to a smaller extent.
Legacy
From Jay-Z’s Basquiat haul to Chris Brown’s colorfully Graffitied mansions, Graffiti and Hip Hop are a timeless duo. Furthermore, they continue to complement each other today. This will go on as long as the genre remains alive. Whether succinctly or overtly, the two art forms will always rely on each other for identity, prominence and meaning. Graffiti may not be as talked about today, but it’s responsible for much of the genre we know and respect.
What dictates cool? Originality, tenacity, courage, creativity? Is it the will to stand alone beside your own thoughts and ideas or simply just being the first and fliest to ever do”it”? Whatever the definition may be, Bedford-Stuyvesant’s own Fab Five Freddy was its embodiment throughout the ’80s and ’90s. As the host of Hip Hop’s most important TV show Yo! MTV Raps!Fab Five Freddy brought Hip Hop culture to the living rooms of millions of Americans and thousands abroad. Through the sheer exposure alone, Fab Five Freddy turned Hip Hop from an underground subculture to the dominating force of a blooming international popular culture.
For a long time, Yo! MTV Raps! was Hip Hop’s grandest stage. It was the Soul Train for the 80s generation and paved the way for shows like TRL and 106 & Park. As its host, Fab Five Freddy was the public’s ambassador to a new and exploding scene. Some of the most historical moments of the culture happened behind Fab Five Freddy’s microphone, and in honor of his born day here is a list of some of the most memorable.
1989 Grammy Boycott
In 1989 The Grammy’s awarded their first Hip hop Grammy to DJ Jazzy Jeff&The Fresh Prince for “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” What could have been a huge moment for Hip Hop culture was turned into a farce. Although the award was given out, the Grammys refused to televise the reception speech. This discrimination outraged the rap community and caused a widespread anti-Grammy campaign to get underway. Fab Five Freddy was actually on the scene and able to get a short interview with The Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff about the incident that can be seen in full here.
Interviewing 2Pac with Digital Underground
In one of 2Pac‘s earliest interviews, Fab Five Freddy gets a chance to pick the brain of a young man who would grow to become one of the most influential figures in Hip Hop.
Leaders of the New School Break Up
In one of the tensest interviews ever conducted on Yo! MTV Raps, one of New York’s brightest groups, completely self-destructed on screen. Leaders of the New School had already been under scrutiny with rumors of standout Busta Rhymes looking to venture onto a solo career. What started as a normal interview broke apart into the group stepping off-camera to have a heated discussion. When the pow-wow finally broke up, Busta Rhymes apologized for the group’s actions, concluding the interview. The group officially announced its parting ways in the week following the interview.
Grand Finale Freestyle
In 1995 MTV decided to pull the plug on Yo! MTV Raps. What resulted was one of television’s greatest show finales of all time. With a cypher featuring Rakim, MC Serch, Erick Sermon, Chubb Rock, and a few other legends, Yo! MTV Raps bid a fond farewell to the fans and supporters that tuned in day after day for their daily dose of Hip Hop culture.
34 years ago on this date, MTV premiered the first episode of the Hip Hop generated video show, YO! MTV Raps.
Everybody has their own personal memory of MTV Raps. Whether it was during the era of comedians Ed Lover and Doctor Dre or during the Fab 5 Freddy reign, YMTVR gave the world its first continual, visual experience of Hip-Hop music. Not to downplay the world famous VJ Ralph McDaniels and the esteemed Video Music Box show based in NYC as well, but the scenarios, special guests, live performances, and other exclusive footage was only available on Music Television’s first Hip Hop show.
Created by late film director Ted Demme, Yo! MTV Raps‘ first video to appear was Rakim’s “Follow The Leader”, which was shown on the 1987 pilot, however, Shinehead’s “Chain Gang” was the actual first video shown during the show’s debut season. It helped spread Hip Hop across the globe with the help of MTV Europe, MTV Asia, and MTV Latino.
The series finale aired on August 17, 1995, with an unforgettable freestyle session. There were several attempts by MTV to relaunch a Hip Hop video show that had a cultural impact like Yo!, including Direct Effect and Sucker Free, however, Yo! MTV Raps remains an unparalleled aspect of Hip Hop culture.
During the time when Hip-Hop was being passed off as a fad that wouldn’t last beyond “Rapper’s Delight”, a vivid reenactment of the introduction of this artistic culture to the world was made. Wild Style is arguably the very first movie and definitely one of the very few that shows the true essence of what Hip Hop is about. On this date in 1983, film director and cultural artist Charlie Ahearn premiered the flick in Times Square, breaking records by selling out at all screenings for the three weeks it played.
Ahearn, a member of the artist collective group Collaborative Projects, was originally exposed to Hip Hop in the late 70s through graffiti when he went to film the youth in the projects in Manhattan’s Lower East Side that studied martial arts. He was soon approached by Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Braithwaite about making a movie encompassing all elements of Hip-Hop (emceeing, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti). Fab 5 Freddy brought legendary graff artist Lee Quinones to meet Ahearn to further discuss the approach of filming graffiti and introducing it as a legitimate art form. Ahearn found out that Lee was the same graf king whose work he admired while filming in LES. With Ahearn as producer and director, the three began embarking on a journey to gather the individuals who would be the faces of this landmark film.
Developing its name from an abstract letter design made popular in the graffiti world by graff king Tracy 168, Wild Style featured some of the most prolific pioneers from all aspects of Hip-Hop. The Cold Crush Brothers, Rock Steady Crew, and Grandmaster Flash were just a few of Hip-Hop’s trailblazers that made their debut on the silver screen in Wild Style. The Furious Five could not appear alongside Flash and had to be cut from the film because of prior obligations to another more mainstream motion picture depicting the development of Hip Hop that came out later called Beat Street. This is why Afrika Bambaataa, the New York City Breakers, The Treacherous Three, or female pioneer MC Sha Rock were not seen in the film. Other notable legends included Busy Bee Starski, graf legends Dondi, Zephyr, and Revolt, who all designed the Wild Style logo, and the Fantastic Freaks.
Lee Quinones played the main character “Zoro”, the anonymous graf phenom that is introduced to the art world by his pal and fellow graffiti writer “Faze” who is played by Fab 5 Freddy. Faze introduces Zoro to Virginia, a journalist portrayed by cultural icon Patti Astor, who later shows Zoro to art’s world stage of galleries and museums. The story is an accurate historical account of how Hip-Hop, in general, was introduced to mainstream America and later, the rest of the world. It also showed the poverty and despair that existed in the South Bronx out of which the culture of Hip Hop emerged.
Over 30 years later, Wild Style is still an icon of American pop culture. The players that participated and performed in the movie have made themselves legends in their own right, however, most will recognize their appearance in the film as the catapult of their career. The movie has been sampled on various classic Hip Hop albums including ATCQ’s Midnight Marauders, Common’s Ressurection, and the Five Mic classic, Nas’ Illmatic. Wild Style was voted as one of the top ten rock n’ roll movies of all time by the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame and VH1’s Hip Hop Honors acknowledged the film’s influence in Hip Hop with a tribute in 2007.
