Who's actively painting in the crew these days?

PART: My self, CAMP, ESO, VERSE, FLITE. It was pretty much closed for a while, but we have kept it flowing. The main guy is KOOL 131. He's the president of the crew. He's living in Iowa right now and is trying to get his life straight. It worked for him, so I'm trying to get him over here so we could do some things together. ESO put JAY (B.B.C.) down when he was in France. I don't mind crossing the state lines, it's all good.

How do you relate to the European graffiti scene? Anybody's work you like?

PART: I think it's good. I'm really impressed with the caliber of the talent.
LOOMIT is one who has unique skills. He's got raw talent with a combination of a commercial and graff' style. He's acquired paint skills rapidly. How long has he been out? Ten years? To acquire that level so fast is good.

Speaking on police brutality and the event that took place in early august (1997) in the Haitian community of Brooklyn that shook the world. This even hit the international news here in France when in the summer sports events seems to be the dominant and only thing happening. While we were in NYC, six weeks after the event, the victim was still on a hospital bed. CAMP recapitulates some of the facts:

CAMP: In the beginning they tried to say my man was gay and what happened to him took place in the club and wasn't related to police brutality. What happened was two women where fighting at the club. Supposevaly he tried to stop it. In the scuffle he was the only one arrested. On the way to the precent they stop for blocks later and begin to stomp him. Then they took him to the precent and locked him up. Later on they took him to the bathroom and shoved a plug up his behind, turned him around and shoved it down his mouth. They didn't call an ambulance for an hour, and when it got there
it took them an hour to get him out. Shit was ill!.
ESO steps up: I'm not the type to generalize over police, but stuff like that happens and this is not an isolated event. One time is two many. You got a lot of brutal guys in the police. We all have this silent accord that we are all going to try and live together. The police is supposed to enforce this social contact. Their are people who don't fallow this, and that's why there is cops. The point is that some cops take their badge as a licence to be brutal and to use their power abusively. These cops who did that to the guy in Brooklyn are no different than gangsters. A lot of cops have that frame of mind. If they don't like your face, they will stop you. If you don't speak to them properly, you get punched in the head and put in jail. The only difference is that gangsters rip you off. They both use this gestapo tactic. One of the problems is that the criteria to become a police officer is very lax. Dealing with people by using a bat and a gun should be the last resort when confronting a psychopath. I've seen cops who come up to you with their hand on their gun, and if you say the wrong words they will shoot you. They are supposed to make society function and progress, but 90% of the time that's not happening. Most people think that cops are brutal.

Ass everybody has something to say, we all are talking at the same time. Many others events that took place in NYC over the last years were brought up.

I liked some of your pieces in Harlem (see photos), like the one where you painted the comparative portrait of the old and new boss of America. (every body laughs).

ESO : I think one of the problems we have in our communities, wherever they are in New York, is a lack of understanding of the world we live in; The people who are usually in mix of reality are the last ones to know what the fuck is going on. The lower classes don't know. The reason they don't know is not because they are not intelligent. They are so busy trying to survive that they don't have the time to look around and see what's happening. They know they live in a very stressful and ruff situation, and try to make the best that they can in that situation. They don't have the time to ask themselves why am I angry? It's like you fall in the river, you can't think why did I fall in the rapids, why did I trip on the dam stick? Your thinking 'I got to keep my head above the water'. Graffiti art is what the lower class relates to and understands. What I try to do with my stuff is use something that they understand and make them think. Not show the same old stereotype of guns and who died? and I'm the fucking mack. That's what you usually see in pieces, and that's why 90% of them suck. They don't address the situation. Their is 25 to 30 years of graffiti already, most of it has already been said. Try to take a new direction. I think it applies to graffiti just as well as any other art form. The best thing that art can do, no matter what kind of art, is to record it's time and to inform the people about it. Graffiti has to address that concept. People are definitely willing to look at it, so use it as a tool to make them aware.
Every time I'm doing a piece, someone comes up and asks me who died? They automatically that graffiti has become a memorial piece. That's fucked up. Don't let graffiti become just that. Some artists have portfolios full of that shit. I'm not pointing my finger, but that just propagates death and destruction. You are recording the death of your culture. Their is more to it.

In other European cities, you never see memorial pieces in poor neighborhoods every other bloc like in the New York ghettos.

ESO : 'How many memorial pieces is their for Tupac and Biggie? Fuck 'em both! What did they do? They made a lot of money propagating gangsterism and that's it. I'm sorry they died and I wouldn't wish that to my worst enemy, but they are not heroes who died for the cause. They were good at what they did and could have done something, especially Biggie Smalls who was an ill MC. Tupac was very visual in his music and had the acting locked down, but the guy was an asswhole. I don't want to insult them, I'm just really not into it. I've been in graff' since 1977'78, before any of this shit blew up. I saw rap starting from mix tapes being sold in high school to a multi billion dollar industry. These guys in real life are business men who drive Rolls Royces and live in mansions in Bel Air. They are not gangsters, so what's with the gangster image? Who are they kidding? I'm sorry they died but I'm not putting their faces on a wall. You got to make your choices and live buy them and that's that.'