Certain celebrities have enjoyed the kind of success (and here we're talking remuneration, not just reputation) that can't help but draw our attention to the sharp contrast between where they came from and where they ended up. In other words, the case of the writer A one tells us a lot about both the urban ghetto we know so well and the world of art which sometimes seems to want to exclude us simply by making it so difficult to understand. A one now lives and works in Paris, where along with a handful of other refugees from the glory days of the New York graffiti scene, he has become one of the small number of people who have been able to sell their talent in the international art mart. In today's world, wanting to sell a million copies of a rap title is considered a legitimate goal, but transposing this feat into the arts is easier said than done. Here A one tells us all about it.

What's your background?

A1: The monks of the 13th century, the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and all the great calligraphy works throughout the world, East, West, North and South, are all part of an underground, unspoken language. Only certain tribes could understand these codes. Beef with other tribes would appear in these written messages, and conflicts could arise if disrespect was manifested towards these inscriptions. Writing as we know it today is the future and the transposition into this era, of what it was back then. I never remember it being graffiti. I think of it as a chain that has been attached to us and still remains.
Now this might sound corny, but I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Meaning back to when I was 4 or 5 years old and living up in the projects in the Bronx. Me and my crayons got my butt into many whippings for tagging on the walls of my house, long before I even was conscious of the tags on trains. I was always drawing as a kid. Going to school and of course cutting school, you hook up with the neighborhood crew and start tagging. This was before Sugar Hill Gang came out and Hip Hop was still confined to certain areas of New York. Rappers and DJs would battle at free parties. At these parties you would see the older kids coming from the train yards with spray paint cans.
The first person who taught me how to ride a bicycle was Lil'Chilly. He was around at the same time as Stay High 149 and Superkool, etc. You could say that we were young and imitating the big fellas. So we got our little tags up in buildings and blazayblah, and some investigated it more seriously to see what this was really about. Many people used to tag as a fad. Riding the train, you could check out the pieces. Hanging out at the bench, or the Brooklyn Bridge, just getting into trouble, looking for girls, it was about more than just writing. It was a neighborhood thing, and if you wanted to call us writers, well, yeah, okay, we write. I use to enjoy cutting school and just writing by myself. Later on I was down with the Ebony Dukes with heads like Smiley 149, Duke 149, BS 19, people from around my 'hood (Mitchell Projects). Someone else who lived right around the block at that time was Kel 139. I used to notice his pieces on walls around the way. I was practicing my pieces on roof tops. Before I went out in the public, I wanted my name to match my style and be A one. I hooked up with the original Dr. Pepper T.K.A., he put me down with his crew. He introduced me to Mace T.C.P. and Riff 170. I saw drawings in Riff's book that have the basis of many elements, like letter connections and 3-D, that have inspired everybody today. But it was raw. Ghetto characters like you would see on the back of a denim jacket. At that time, just by looking, you could distinguish distinct styles originating from different neighborhoods like uptown or Brooklyn. Then as the movement went all-city, the styles influenced everybody and where a person came from was no longer necessarily relevant to his style. This was when rap had arrived downtown and movies about the culture were being made. I was getting up on the One line then. I had the privilege to do the last train car with Bear 167 (RIP) in '86 or '87. That was one hell of a train. We were in Brooklyn and inside the yard one night were Sharp, Delta 2 and Spin. We knew each other anna rehto hcae wenk eW .nipS dna 2 atleD ,prahS erew thgin eno dray eht edisni dna nylkoorB ni erew eW .niart a fo lleh eno saw tahT .78' ro 68' ni )PIR( 761 raeB htiw rac niart tsal eht od ot egelivirp eht dah I .neht enil enO eht no pu gnitteg saw I .edam gnieb erew erutluc eht tuoba seivom dna nwotnwod devirra dah par nehw saw sihT .elyts sih ot tnaveler ylirassecen regnol on saw

I also had the privilege of painting one of the last trains with Dondi C.I.A. (RIP). We never really hung out together, but I did my last train car in New York with him on the N train. It was a window-down Bus-A one piece. We did it for old time's sake. Painted trains were being pulled out of service at that time. So I had the opportunity to piece with some of the best of them.
I am down with T.D.S., T.D.T. my crew Roc Stars, T.F.P. (I know you are out there, Case), TC-5, R.S.C. and the Zulu Nation Chapter 12 since like 1980. I did about five little nice productions in the winter (mid 80's) with Noc 167. That was the same time the first R.S.C. tour came to Paris. Me and Noc were supposed to be part of it. To make a long story short, me and Noc didn't go to Paris. With the help of Jean-Michel Basquiat (RIP) who funded the paint, we did a few walls together. We put him up on the wall. It seems like all the homeboys I mention are gone.

What was your relationship with Basquiat, whom the art establishment has affiliated with the writing scene?

A1: I knew him and Keith Harring. When Jean-Michel was doing interviews, he would come out and say he never painted a train. He would say that writers are people like Futura, Ramelzee, A one, Dondi, etc. He used to write on walls when he used to live in the street. But when he had a place to paint, he preferred to just paint. When he started to paint canvases, he still used a little bit of spray paint on them. Now some people have bad ideas on him, but towards myself and a few other writers he was like a big brother. He inspired me to keep painting and to be serious with it, to be involved and affiliated as a Black man in a dominant white-oriented art world. To be respected for what you do is important. When he lived out in the street, nobody had a dime for that brother, but when he had a million dollars, he would throw milk on the heads of these same people who then started to smile at him. In his work, you have a lot of stick letters similar to those he would put up in the streets. He was the first to admit he was not the king of the line or any of that crap. He had a one-man show at the Fun Gallery around '81 or '82 and let me hang five paintings in the back. I prepared them at his studio downtown and homeboy gave me some good advice on how to deal with the politics behind the art world. He knew that at that time, Toxic, Koor and Ramelzee and I had a sort of manager or art representative. He knew him and told us about certain things to look out for. He left me with a lot of things that are still in my mind to this day.
On the other hand you had Keith Harring who was painting big walls and accepted the name "graffiti artist." He was drawing on subway posters with chalk. Now, with chalk, you can pull out a rag and wipe it off if you get caught. No one is going to take you in for that. I saw a photo of him handcuffed for drawing with chalk on a poster, I think that was his proof for graffiti. He was doing a lot of street work with real markers and spray paint, but when it came to private property areas like the subway, he broke out the chalk. He was affiliated with a writer named LA 2 who used to be up big time on the Lower East Side and was down with K.G.B. He brought the tag into his paintings while Keith brought his little icons like the baby and what not. When he became famous he really started to show his homosexuality in his art work. I am not a homophobe and I think he did a lot of good things for graff', but also some things that confused people on what writing is all about.