Monday, April 30, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
THE HOMIE SAL @SKID ROW TATTOOS
The synchronicity between the opening of MOCA's "Art in the Streets" show and L.A. law enforcement's crackdown on graffiti hasn't gone unnoticed by postmodern cholo and tattooer's apprentice Sal Sanchez.
Recent arrests of street artists Invader, Smear and Revok are on Sanchez's radar. "The city of Los Angeles is cracking down on graffiti artists, sending people to prison and making an example of them for expressing themselves," he says.
Sanchez manages a design/tattoo studio on South Alameda Street, but at the moment he is bumping Scarface in his silver 1979 El Camino all the way to the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. He's going to see "Art in the Streets," billed as the first major U.S. museum survey of graffiti and street art. It traces the trajectory of the genre from the 1970s until today. Part of Sanchez's job involves maintaining two pieces that his mentor, Mr. Cartoon, has in the show.
"They're taking away art programs from public schools," Sanchez says at the museum as he makes his way through a world-class clusterfuck of street art armed with a feather duster. From Banksy to Chaz and beyond, the show is decidedly expansive. "Kids who are in the inner city -- all they have is expressing themselves with what's available to them ... and then get sent to prison," he says, disillusioned.
Prison is a place Sanchez knows a little something about. He was sentenced to eight years in the Texas state prison system on a 1998 drug charge. He even did some time in Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, aka "the Walls," the state's oldest prison; it boasts 472 executions between 1982 and 2011. Before being locked up, Sanchez went on the run and ended up in L.A., where he landed a part in a movie and a job at the design studio where he works now.
It was a big surprise when the cops picked him up on the Texas warrant as he was on the way back from the MAGIC Clothing Show in Vegas. "Two to 2,000 pounds," he says, intentionally evasive about the exact amount of weed Texas cops had found in the trunk of his car at the time of his arrest. He had not told his employers about his fugitive status.He was extradited to Texas in 2004. "The judge sentenced me to eight years. When I was a kid, I never really thought I'd go to prison. It's a little surreal. Eight years is a long time. A lot can happen in eight years."
Sanchez says he took advantage of every opportunity while he was serving his time, which ended up being four and a half years. He practiced his art, earned a GED and generally read a lot.
After tending to the MOCA show, Sanchez is back at the design studio, baseball cap pulled low. He runs a tight ship. The place is spotless, a celebration of automysophobia, possibly a lingering effect of institutionalization. It's so clean you could separate conjoined twins with an X-acto knife without risking infection.
"What I'm talking about is art as an alternative to crime," he says. "Being a drug dealer is not a very good career choice. Art is one of the methods I've used to deal with the emotions that came with being incarcerated. It's a tool. Art is what's keeping me free. Drug dealers? I don't wanna say that if you're a drug dealer you're gonna die, because that's not true. These people in power who are putting drugs in the street aren't dead."
While in prison, Sanchez sent his drawings to his tattoo master back in L.A. "The old-school way of being an apprentice and learning this trade is by your tattoo master picking you, and that's kind of like what happened to me. He saw something in me that I didn't see in myself."
Sanchez is now in his flesh-and-ink period because he found something that he connected to and decided to make a living at it. "I wanted something creative, so I surrounded myself with creative people. I'm getting a better result than I did trying to make fast money."
A realist, he acknowledges that he designed his own fate: "I had a really big part in going to prison. It's definitely designed to keep minorities and people from poverty locked up. Slavery is the word that comes to mind."
Sanchez asserts that an awareness of his role in the events that have played out in his life is imperative to a continued self-agency. "You need to shut the fuck up and pay attention to what's around you. I think people should stop fucking blaming the police, blaming their environment, blaming the ghetto ... blaming the streets. I mean, where the fuck is the accountability, you know?"
An advocate of alternative education, he promotes self-incarceration erudition. "If you're just getting out of prison, and you're looking at your situation like there's no way out of it, you're lying to yourself. Don't tell yourself that. Educate yourself. When I say education, I don't mean out and get a student loan and go to university, because not everybody has the opportunity. If it's classic cars that you like -- custom paint -- I say you go get a job at a body shop. If it's fashion or something to do with graphic design, go get an internship at a design studio.
"If you wanna make a career out of selling drugs, it's really important that you educate yourself about what you're getting into. People are naïve about what they're involved in. I think there's a lot of people out there who don't know that there's another option besides the easy way out -- selling drugs, being a fool. I dunno, there's so many things that people get sucked into, I can't really put a word on it."
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Ewok Limited Edition Graffiti Basketball for Spalding and NBA 2K
Monday, April 23, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
New Gangrene -----the Oddotorium EP...for FREE!!!
Fresh off the heels of their full length opus "Vodka &
Ayahuasca," The Alchemist and Oh No are back, bringing their Gangrene
noise on a whole other level. The "Odditorium" EP begins where "Vodka
& Ayahuasca" left off, with Al and Oh lyrically blessing the masses
over gritty, psychedelic rock-tinged beats. The "Odditorium" picture disc
is as immaculately conceived as the music itself, evoking a vintage,
bespoke vibe drenched in a haze of potent intoxication for which
Gangrene is so well known.
The Odditorium EP will be available as a free download on 4/20 via RedBullUSA.com. This is the first in a series of exclusives as part of the Decon Dozen. To get all the future #DeconDozen goodies follow @Decon on Twitter.
The Odditorium EP will be available as a free download on 4/20 via RedBullUSA.com. This is the first in a series of exclusives as part of the Decon Dozen. To get all the future #DeconDozen goodies follow @Decon on Twitter.
La Coka Nostra ft. Vinnie Paz – My Universe (prod. Statik Selektah)
La Coka Nostra link up with JMT’s Vinnie Paz for the Statik Selektah produced “My Universe” from their upcoming Masters Of The Dark Arts LP, hitting shelves on July 10th.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Monday, April 9, 2012
Bloodbath Project x B-Real
Bloodbath and B-Real (Cypress Hill) have crossed strains to commemorate
this year’s 4/20 celebration. Presenting two graphic tees and a custom
wooden grinder, the pieces will be offered in the Bloodbath Online Shop
as well as a handful of special retailers. The wooden grinders have
imprints that host Buddhamaster and Bloodbath iconography, which are
limited to 100 pieces. The first tee echoes the same design as the
grinder, and the other displays a big thumbprint textured with an image
of the finest greens.
Whiz x mita sneakers x New Balance 1700
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Oh No + Dolemite = Ohnomite
Oh No's been hinting at this album for years now. When we first heard of it, Rude Ray Moore was still alive. He died in 2008.
The record features a who’s who of the hip-hop underground: MF DOOM, Evidence, Alchemist, MED, Guilty Simpson, Roc C, Damani, Prozack Turner, Ea$y Money, Pok Dog, LMNO, Phife Dawg, DJ Romes, Chino XL, Erick Sermon, Rapper Pooh, Phil the Agony, Jose James, Frank Nitt, Wildchild, Sticky Fingaz, Termanology & Roc Marciano. Cover art by Charles Munka, art direction by Jeff Jank.
A single on 5-inch vinyl will be released for the Oh No & MF DOOM track "3 Dollars."
Air Jordan IV ‘Military Blue’ Releases June 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
The Union feat. R.A. the Rugged Man & Doom “Coco Mango” (Maticulous Remix)
The closing of Fat Beats NY has left a gaping hole in hip-hop. The
void is so wide you could… enough about cavities. Things are still
rotten in NY, except in the case of R.A. the Rugged Man
and DOOM on the same track, that’s a great thing. They didn’t just lay
their signature grit on some hot shit that would’ve made the backpack
set pitch a tent on the corner of 406 6th Ave. R.A. and producer maticulous picked up where DOOM and Parisan beatsmiths Union
left off on the original. The DOOM version sans R.A., is distributed by
the Fat Beats Distribution label carrying the torch of independent
hip-hop at its finest, especially overseas where FB (not Facebook) was a
magnet for international rap acts by way of its Amsterdam retail store.
Euros hold weight! Currency, word is bond.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Kool Keith – “New York (Remix)” (Feat. Agallah Don Bishop & NYM)
Kool Keith is excited to announce that his forthcoming album, Love & Danger, will be released June 5th via Junkadelic Music, with worldwide distribution via Fat Beats. To celebrate the announcement, the Bronx native and founding member of Ultramagnetic MCs, is releasing a remix of the album’s lead single “New York,” now featuring Agallah Don Bishop and NYM.
Kool Keith’s new album, Love & Danger, which is produced entirely by DJ Junkaz Lou, allowed Keith to experiment with his talents even further, and also to display a wide range of emotions. “The Love & Danger album was a chance for me to be myself and do different things,” explains Keith. “It was me going through all kinds of temperatures – my highest of coldness to my highest of hotness, which is a lot like love and danger.”
That excellence appears throughout Love & Danger’s 15 tracks. “New York,” finds Keith paying homage to the city that made him. Elsewhere, “The Game Is Free,” features a guest verse from Megabone, and examines the idea of privacy in a society driven by ever-present media. Other songs on the album include features from Keith Murray, and more, while album’s closing track, “Goodbye Rap,” is Kool Keith’s sign-off to the game he has been a major part of for a very long time. “This is probably my last project,” announces Keith, “You just got the last of the vocals of me. I’m quitting the game. Goodbye, rap.”
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