A Wannabe Graffiti Artist Tagged Over A Dead Legend's Art And Promptly Got The Shit Kicked Out Of Him

Ima clear some things up real quick cause my Ig stories werent the full story. Firstly I DID NOT CALL THE COPS. I wanna make that real clear, fuck 12, fuck the ops, n fuck anyone who looks like em.

I was walking around LES and saw a empty spot on the bridge so I went for it. When I was painting I clipped the tag under me about a few inches deep by mistake.

Out of nowhere I got sucker punched by some dick and I dipped without my paint. I took a sec, thinking he just didn’t like my shit (I don’t do text) and asked peacefully to get it back. We threw hands and we beefed it out like men.

After, I was walking away (bloody) and a dude came up to me and asked what happened. I told him I got jumped but I was all g, just gonna go home but he was already calling the ambulance (AGAIN NOT THE OPS). I guess he had said it was a mugging or some shit cause the ops showed too. I had paint on my hands and a fresh piece, they knew what went down. They told me if I got in the back they’d let me go. I’m not trying to catch a case. I’d NEVER point him out. I was angry, but even when I saw him, I didn’t peep.

Well because I didn’t give em anybody they decided to arrest me and I spent the night in jail. I took the L but it was the right move. I didn’t find out till after that the piece I clipped was Zexor.

As far as it goes in regards to tagging over Zexor, if I had known who it was, I wouldn’t have done it. The man is a hero to me, and my b I didn't recognize the piece in the rush I was in to get my tag up. I’m laughing at yall telling me I don’t know graff culture when the mans literally had docs of himself talking about taggin over ppls shit with his face exposed. I looked up to him. I took notes.

I’m fucking from New York. Born and raised. The paint from my cans aint ever gonna wash off these hands. Yall don’t like my work? Good. Yall call me a Rat? Good. Yall make me famous? Even better. You wanna get tight at me cause I'm trying some new shit that’s chill, be basic. I love this city but I stand by what I said, this shits toxic. Yall out here talking about raping my moms n killing me? Nah. Not my New York.

BOZO

There's few things I enjoy as much as someone with an extremely punchable face getting punched in the face. This is the Tekashi69 generation in the flesh, doing - no pun intended - bozo shit and expecting everyone to be ok with it. The problem with that is… that's not how the real world works. Never has and, hopefully, never will.

I call him a wannabe in the headline for the simple fact that he is a poser and proved as much when he was riding around in the back of a cop car, hands free, phone out, snickering like a bitch. I'm not in the graffiti game, I think that's painfully obvious, but not quite as obvious as the adversarial relationship between graffiti artists and the police. A real Itchy and Scratchy relationship those two groups have held since the dawn of time. You get your nose shattered by other artists for breaking a part of the code and you are instantly presented with a crossroads: either you learned your lesson and smarten up OR you give up the game forever. He chose the latter, which is fine, but you can't then log on to the world wide web and go back to puffing your chest out. Talking about, "Not my New York," makes me think this is potentially the dumbest person on the planet. 

He shut his comments off on the first half dozen or so posts on his Instagram - always a sign things are going well. The post above had comments in the 700s when I checked last night. But, for the posts that still allow limited comments, you can get a general gist of the tone people are taking towards him.

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I didn't know what "toy" meant until I came across Bozo's comment section. And it's just another example of why I've always appreciated graffiti culture. "Toy" just means you really fucking suck. Your work is childish, it holds no deeper meaning, you are merely defacing public property with the scribbles of a four-year old. It's a top insult and I look forward to working it into my rotation. Like, Marty Mush is a toy when it comes to the English language. Boom, roasted. 

Bozo's biggest counterargument to the haters and the trolls, of which there are many, is that Zexor - the deceased graffiti artist who is revered in the New York scene - also used to tag over other people's shit.

When Banksy held his residency in New York back in 2013, some of his pieces were immediately tagged by lesser known artists. From my understanding it's very much a top down game. If you've already made a name for yourself in the game, you can tag wherever, whenever. If you're at the low end of the totem pole, you better keep that shit on the other side of town. It's like surfing in new waters, that respect from the locals is earned not given. You cut in line for a wave and you're going to catch a beating. You bide your time and earn your wave and you're all set. Bozo cut in line for a wave.