Welcome to a new episode of Breaking the Rules. This time we have the presence and experience of MS1, graffiti writer from Málaga, witness and architect since 1990 of the history of graffiti in his city.

Today, along with our guest, we have Hen 67 here, as the new host of these podcasts.

Hen-Welcome MS1, writer of the TCB, LKP, WMD, Vampire Warriors .. and I don't know how many other crews because he has been painting for so many years... that he can be from all of them.

What year did you start?

MS1 - I started in 1990, and I did it because I saw the pieces that were being painted in Málaga, in 1989. I remember that a friend from my high school, who was a classmate of one of those guys who were painting, took me to see them in 89 and I was amazed. So I started to write my name and when I started to tag it was already 1990. Probably the beginning of the 90.

Musa71- How did you get your name? Did you paint alone or with someone else?

MS1- Well, look, first I wrote Mejias, which is my surname, and I realised, after a month or two, that everyone knew who I was and of course it didn't suit me very well.

Hen- He wasn't a very good spy.

MS1-Then I got MS1, because everyone was the "one", so I got it with a 1. I started painting with a couple of guys from my neighbourhood, tagging with them. One of them knew the people I’d discovered painting in Málaga. That guy introduced me to them and we started going every afternoon to the area where they met.

“ There’s one thing that strikes me a lot, nowadays I see a lot of people painting pieces or getting a wall done but then they don’t have any mastery of the signature...”

Musa- The people you had seen painting, the people who painted before you, those from '89.... Those people weren't the first ones, were they?

MS1- No, they weren't either. In fact, when I was younger I was already seeing pieces. I really discovered graffiti when I saw other people's pieces in '87. But I saw those pieces and they didn't make me react, or want to put my name or anything like that. At first when I saw that, I freaked out, because they were known all over the city by people who didn't paint; I saw them and I knew where each one was, because they were big pieces, in very visible places. Everybody saw them, but I don't think that at that time any graffiti movement took off, nor did people organise themselves to start painting. That generation of '87 stopped painting in '89, but I think the people who started painting in '89 were influenced by those graffiti that had been there before. I've talked to the guys, I know them personally and I know that they were influenced by break dance, and by the Beat Street films, Guerra de Estilos and by Subway Art, which was brought from New York by a DJ from Malaga, to those kids who painted in '87. They still have the book. Trulli showed me that first edition.

Musa- It's a pity they didn't paint more in the 90s and onwards.

MS1- One of those guys from that time, who wrote Escaño, came back in the 90s, painted for a few years and then stopped painting again.

Musa- That's what I imagined when I decided to do the podcast, and when I enlisted Miguel in that adventure. I imagined that apart from what we already know about Madrid and Barcelona, where there was access to information through films, books and travel... in other cities there would be pioneers, people who laid the first foundations and steps of this culture... and that's what I want, for that information not to be lost.

Hen- Also in the case of Ms1, he is preparing a little thing that he will tell us about later, he does have the information because he has bothered to find out what his links were, his contacts and the great majority of them, as he says, come from the breakdance.

Musa- Tell us a little about what the city was like at that time, what was it like for the people who lived there, for example what are your memories? The city would be a certain way that helped you to paint, there would be less security, being less developed... I want to get a picture of what Málaga was like.

MS1- The city didn't have the investment in structure that it has now, with the Ave, the international airport, with a museum culture, it has come a long way. I used to see it as a place that people visited for summer holidays, the weather, which is very good. In the 80s, at the end of the 80s, there were a lot of plots of land and open spaces where you could paint in peace, without being bothered or asked questions, in the city centre. They were not on the outskirts but in the neighbourhoods themselves.

Musa- How did you start? With markers?

MS1- Yes, with markers, with Edding 850, and kanfort, but later on... At the beginning I had no idea how to fill in markers... I was discovering all that little by little. At first we used to go to the Corte Inglés to steal the Edding 850 because that was the only place where you could find it in 89, 90.

Hen- Without an 850 you were nobody.

MS1- Of course, actually everyone who was better at painting at that time painted with that rmarkers or something bigger and it was like it was a sign of who had a bit more experience or who was a bit more of a novice. If you didn't paint with a fat tip you were a novice.

Hen- So maybe you were, a fucking novice, but because you had your marker with a fat tip....

Musa- And you have given a lot of importance to the tag... there are people for whom the tag is essential and then they don't stand out in pieces or throw-ups...

MS1- There's one thing that strikes me a lot, nowadays I see a lot of people painting pieces or making a wall but then they don't have any mastery of the tag, they make a super crappy one and it's clear that they have no practice when it comes to the tag and we've experienced it differently because in our time... for example in my case, I spent the first two years just tagging. You know? I didn't dare to make a piece because the people who made pieces, made them very beautiful and iI knew I wasn't going to be able to make them like that. I remember that it stopped me, I thought I'm going to continue doing tags.

“During the 90s I was so fascinated by the scene in Alcorcón and Móstoles and Madrid in general that I always focused my trips there.”

Musa- For me that defines quite a lot an era, that you started in a certain way and that as you say the status was to paint with the Edding 850. And the throw-ups world, what importance did you give to it?

MS1- I've abandoned it a bit these days, but I used to do a lot of them. I remember a time when I used to go with a group mate, Look, and we'd go to the depot at Malaga station, which was open at that time, and to the port of Malaga, which had a lot of freights, and we'd do a lot of throw-ups on the trains, between trains, in broad daylight, in the middle of the afternoon. At that time there was no control or current facilities and we could walk around quietly and I remember we did a lot of throw-ups.

Hen- With the throw-up issue and the issue of getting paint, nobody was going to start making them, given how much it cost to get the paint.

Musa- But there are writers who started with that and have dedicated themselves to do street...

Hen- Yes, there were, but not like now, because before, if you could get 5 sprays, you weren't going to spend it on throw-ups. It was more like, this is for the mural and I have to share with the people I got the paint with.

Musa- Where did you meet?

MS1- As I told you before, the guy from my neighbourhood with whom I started painting, took me to a meeting point in a neighbourhood called Santa Paula, here in Málaga and at that point people from the group TCB, which I later joined, people from another group called TMB and a group of other colleagues who didn't paint but liked rap or danced or were the friend of the friend etc. met there every afternoon. Every day 30 people or more met there. People would bring their sketches, the things they had painted....

Musa- The writer's bench over there. Do you keep any of that?

MS1- Yes, exactly. The people of my generation and the previous ones, we kept all that, more or less…all the stuff from that time. At that time, in the late 80s and early 90s, I took photos of everything I painted...

Musa- Tell us a little bit about the project, if you don't mind.

MS1- The project... it came about when we were in lockdown last year, in March. I had been in Helsinki a couple of years earlier to see an exhibition that my friends, my group mates, had invited me to. They organised an exhibition that was the history of graffiti in Helsinki. As a result of being at that exhibition and experiencing it, I came back thinking: "this has to be done in Málaga, because we have quite a beautiful history of graffiti and it can't be forgotten". It has to be documented so that everyone can enjoy it because it has a very interesting content.

I'm doing it with two mates, Fon and Sof, two guys from Málaga, who are also writers. We're going at a good pace, but we still haven't gathered all the material we know we can get... the pandemic and the lack of mobility prevent us from making appointments and meeting up with the people we want to meet and who are contributing the material. We work every day, Monday to Friday.

MS1- Apart from the research work, we have already made a small introduction in the local public institution where we want to present it because in those facilities they have already made a very cool exhibition of the history of skateboarding in Málaga, and some other exhibitions about local urban culture. We have already made a first contact with them and they are super interested in us presenting the project there.

There is a local urban culture festival called Momen Festival, which will support us in presenting the project. It's held annually at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios de Málaga, and there they hold the festival, which also includes documentaries. Every year I see some pretty cool stuff there. But the project is not going to be part of that festival. We're going to present it in a place called La Térmica, an exhibition centre run by the Diputación Provincial de Málaga.

We can’t include everything because there is a lot of material and it will be impossible but we will create website and we also have the idea of print it.

Musa- That's cool, because yesterday Hen was saying that there are some books on the history of this or that city, but in reality there aren't that many... and it's a movement that has been going on for more than 30 years.

Hen- Yes, because Madrid can easily say that it has two or three volumes, Barcelona appears in Pioneros de Graffiti by Gabriela Berti but it's not a book about Barcelona. So Barcelona doesn't have any books right now.

MS1- Granada has a book about graffiti in your city.

Musa- Yes, thank you very much, I'll have a look at it but let's get back to the subject. You started in the 90's, you spent a few years tagging... and then you decide to do your first piece... tell us a bit about how it was... I’ve talked to other people and they have told me that some of them had mentors, who taught them from 3d to shadows, lights, how to build a letter.... How was it in your case?

MS1- Well, in my case, all this technical part I learnt from the people in my group TCB, who were already painting before me and I learnt a lot from watching them paint... The first piece, I remember we did it together with two boys from my neighbourhood, and we did it in the neighbourhood between the three of us, and the next one with Look, my mate from TCB who had been painting since 89. In 91 I did my first solo color piece.

Musa- And latex, what about stealing paint...?

MS1- Yes, also latex. We use a lot of latex for our pieces; people saved a bit on their budget with that. Stealing was also very popular; the first place I went to steal was the Pryca. One day I heard that the Pryca in Málaga was the first one to open in Spain... it was our official supplier. Then in the neighbourhood where the people in my group lived, there was a very big drugstore that had everything and sold a lot of paint. They had Spray Color. We stole a lot there. Hinojosa, the owner, poor guy, must have been burnt by the "graffiti artists”.

Hen- He must have thought, ...I don't know what's going on in this corner....

MS1- Yes, in fact I remember they put a lot of cameras in that corner. The man would suffer...

Musa- From then on you started to go with the people from your crew and then you started to paint more often, other cities.

MS1- Yes, I remember painting in Seville, going to Madrid. I went to Alcorcón in 1992 for the first time and it had a big impact on me. We received a lot of tourist from Alcorcón in the late 80s and 90s, so we were very influenced by the graffiti from there, more than the Madrid graffiti. A lot of people used to spend the summer in Malaga, many of them well-known graffiti and music personalities. I remember that the first guy from Madrid that I met painting in Malaga was Dark from Alcorcón. I don't remember but I think it was around 89 or 90.

Musa- Did you paint with him or did you just watch him paint?

MS1 - He painted with Elfo and Mr Kan, with the TCB people, the older ones. A lot of people came from the ALK group, Jes, Juez, Oshe and many others. They also came from Móstoles. We had a lot of visitors from Madrid and that's where the influence came from. The QSC were on holiday in Torremolinos, all of them except Pocho, I think in '91 and I used to freak out when I met those crews that were really well known at that time, because of the Madrid Hip Hop records and all that... It was pretty cool when we met them painting or in a little club in Torremolinos. In fact I remember that in 96 I met Kool at the festimad in Móstoles and he freaked out when he remembered all that.

Musa- And from Barcelona, do you remember the first person you met?

MS1- The first person I met from Barcelona was Sutil.. Look gave me his contact because he received the CFC Magazine. He told me: this is the address, send him a letter, subscribe to his magazine and exchange photos with him. Then Sutil gave me the contact of another guy called Tarantini, another one called Mazer, Moockie, because the guy I talked to about Game Over was Moockie, although I also talked to Kapi from time to time. All by letter. I remember that for one of the first issues of Game Over I did a small report that they published.

“In Málaga we have quite a beautiful history of graffiti and it can’t be forgotten.”

Musa- And did you ever travel further? Did you come to Barcelona?

MS1- People from my crew, Look, Anuk and Dj Susto went to Barcelona. They did travel a lot to Barcelona, they had contact with the people there, they were really into the train scene and the graffiti scene. That would be around 93 and 94...

Musa- You also exchanged fanzines...

MS1- Sure, here we made a local fanzine, TCB fanzine, and that made us very well known. We received a lot of letters because we had an address where people could send their stuffl. We received a lot of letters from all over Andalusia and from all over the country, because the magazine acted as a bridge and reached all corners of the country. Maybe it took us a little longer to get to Barcelona from Malaga because of the distance. People from Málaga have been going to Madrid since the end of the 80s, or the middle of the 80s, to dance on the television show Tocata.

Hen- You were telling me that there were already excursions from the beginning to Nuevos Ministerios...

Musa- And your first piece outside Spain?

MS1- My first one was in Helsinki. Yes, I had been out of Spain on holiday, but it took me a long time to leave here to paint. I've travelled very little outside. During the 90s I was so fascinated by the scene in Alcorcón and Móstoles and Madrid in general that I always focused my trips there.

Musa- Well, I also freaked out because I hadn't seen a place as cool as that. The first time I went there, it was Christmas 91-92 and it was a overwhelming .. I'd been writers for two years and a bit, but I didn't realise all that it implied, and to get there and see all that was brutal, pieces, murals, tags...

MS1- Yes, it caused me a big impression, I hadn't been in a place with so much graffiti.

Hen- In the case of Alcorcón, it's not that it was a “rara avis”, because there was graffiti everywhere, but at that level and with that style there weren't so many places.

MS1- I was lucky enough to go with Look and he was already friends with a lot of guys from there and one of them was Jes, who took us into his house, welcomed us very well, and we stayed with him for about five days. We couldn't have had a better welcome. I'll always be grateful to Jes, because when he didn't know me at all he took me into his house and took me to see all the graffiti in Madrid. During the 90s, from the beginning, all the people from Alk welcomed us, some at Juez's house, others at Jes' house, others at Oshe's house and so on, for a lot of years. And they also came to Málaga. Whenever I could get away, three or 4 times in a year, I would go there.

For example, Elfo was invited to paint in those exhibitions in Alcorcón during the festivities there, in September. In 92, he painted there, in the year of Mode 2.. I also remember a boy from Paris, Echo..

Musa- We were talking about the 93-94 jams... and that you knew people from Madrid and Barcelona, but what about the other communities?

MS1- I was in contact with Loco 13. I remember when he was organising the jam in August 93, “Que punto de fiesta”, he was telling me about the project, and I told him that there was a group in Málaga who were doing a really good work and making really good music, and I told him that if he listened to them they would surely be part of the jam. I gave him my demo, my personal demo of Nazion Sur, and he phoned me to tell me that they had to come. I put them in touch, because I was part of the crew of the music group. I explained to them what Loco13 was organising and that I wanted to do something cool that hadn't been done before. They came to an agreement pretty quickly and we all went to Alicante.

Musa- That's also very typical of the time, that within a crew, there was the music group, the writers, the Breakers...

MS1- Yes, that crew that encompassed all of us was Malaka Mafia, which brought together writers, breakers, dancers, DJs…

“The attitude on the part of the local writers at that time were a bit more raw, they were less social, and the European writers were a bit intimidated by the local scene. ”

Hen- Speaking of links to people from other communities... who are the first internationals to appear in Málaga? Jonone, Egs from Finland... but who else?

MS1- Well, one day in 92, I suddenly discovered some graffiti by a guy from Paris who wrote Popay.. I had seen his paintings in magazines and fanzines. I already knew his work, he was a well-known figure on the Paris scene. I discovered them cycling in the eastern part of Malaga and later, going to a village called Torre del Mar, on the coast, I discovered more paintings by Popay and his friends. The following year Jonone came from the jam we have mentioned above and wanted to visit Morocco, and before that he spent a few days in Málaga. He didn't paint, he came to disconnect with his girl, with his partner of the moment. He stayed at my house for two or three days, we visited things in the city. He had other interests when he was here. I insisted several times but he didn't want to paint.

We began to see pieces from people from Finland and Sweden since the mid 90’s, but that is because, for example in Fuengirola, there is the biggest Finnish community in the world outside Finland. They are residencial states with Finnish citizens. In fact, Maria, I had an experience that surprised me a lot when I was in Helsinki, at a party that friends there took me to. There were many writers of Matías's age, Egs, the original ones there, and at least 10 or 12 of them, told me they had been to Málaga and gave me details of the hall of fame they visited, and where they painted. In the 90s we didn't get to meet them. I tell you also that the attitude on the part of the local writers at that time were a bit more raw, they were less social, and those guys were a bit intimidated by the local scene.

Hen- Well, it's just that you call yourselves Malaka Mafia…

Musa- Do you remember the PDM? Apa and Rayka explained to me that the people they got on best with in Barcelona were them.

MS1- I remember that the first ones to arrive in Malaga from the PDM were Caos and Eterno, who painted with us in the LKP alley, which was a mythical hall of fame that we had, which no longer exists today. They came several times, Rostro, Poseidón, Roe, Eddie, Setka, and some friends of theirs like Dosis, Fose... in the mid 90s. I painted with them every time they came.

Some of them created a crew together, the Vagabundos I think it was called, VGS.

Musa- I'd really like to hear some anecdotes, there are many years of painting, many memories... but let's see if you can tell us some...

MS1- I don't know, missions in the 90s, when we went to the yard to paint or when some of our group mates were arrested, in some missions that are very memorable. Well, I can tell you about some of them. One night when we were going to paint in the yard in the meadows, while we were painting the train, the doors opened and a couple who had just had an intimate moment came out of the carriage. The yard was open, people were taking their dogs for a walk between trains. You could find people doing heroin, or a couple having an intimate moment... I remember being struck by the people sleeping on the trains. Going to that yard at night was an adventure because you didn't know what you were going to find.

Musa- What do you keep from the past compared to now?

MS1- In the past everything was more spontaneous, now everything is more studied. At that time we improvised more and had less influence. Nowadays we have social networks, and a saturation of information that wasn't there before, and people today are more influenced by the information they receive. Before, everything was more self-taught.

Hen- There wasn't such a mix of styles...

MS1- I remember seeing a lot of graffiti from different parts of the world and it was easy to identify where the piece was from. Dortmund style, Berlin, Paris... it was very easy to distinguish. Now it has diversified a lot.

Musa- And the other way round, what do you take from now that wasn't there before?

MS1- The ease of finding materials, in Malaga maybe less, but in Barcelona or Madrid there are shops with 4 or 5 brands of spraycans. That didn't happen before.

Musa- Or the fact that you get your order home in a couple of days... Did you mix paint?

MS1- No, not that, but I remember that we used to trick the caps. We would stick an incandescent pin in them and do all sorts of experiments to see what would come out, and from all that experimenting you'd get caps with different strokes.

Musa- I suppose you also went to supermarkets to get them?

MS1- Yes, yes, to get deodorant, mosquito killers and furniture polish caps.

Musa- How many people will not have "remembered" us for having bought something without a cap...

(Laughs)

Hen- Apart from the caps… When I was younger, I used to open the Bollicaos to get the stickers...

Musa- We have a colleague, who goes to the supermarkets and smashes the bags of chips and the buns.

Hen- I do that.

Musa- I didn't mean to accuse you... hahaha...

Hen- It's the pressure tests. I was thinking: who is this genius who does what I do? It's just that there are certain products that have to pass that test.

(Laughs.)

Musa- How do you see Málaga now?

MS1- As a graffiti scene? The scene has diversified a lot in the city. There are more people painting, more variety of styles. It's gone a bit more towards the vandal side, they paint motorways, roads etc... The city attracts attention because it's quite busy. The trainline, likewise, is overcrowded. There is much more bombing, much more aggressive than in the 90s. In the 90s, there was painting in a very specific area, which was the western part of the city. In the rest of the city you hardly saw any tags. Now it has spread all over the city, the neighbourhoods and the whole province.

Musa- Do you think people in the city still appreciate graffiti or not?

MS1- From what I see in the press, there are a lot of people who are pissed off and tired of bombing. There is a lot more damage being done now and there are a lot of people who are against it.

Musa- Have you had any problems, any encounters now that you are a grown up?

MS1- Yes, of course there's always someone who comes and says something that doesn't make sense. Or gives you their opinion. Now I notice that people are surprised to see that I'm a guy in his 40s. They are surprised to see that I'm still painting. I haven't stopped to think about it much either, because I see people in Europe who are very active, and who are older than me.

Musa- I forgot before to ask you before, do you have a name for the book?

MS1- Not yet. but it would be something not too difficult, Málaga Graffiti or Graffiti de Málaga. 1987 to the present day, 2021 or 2022.

Musa- Last questions I ask everyone who participates in this podcast, who would you like to hear the story from?

MS1- Well, everyone from the beginning, Kami, Sutil, Jes…

Musa- Perfect because we are working on that. Thank you very much for dedicating your time to us, exercising your memory with us and travelling back in time through your story.