Welcome to a new episode of Breaking the Rules. Today we first move emotionally and historically to Alicante, and from there we will move to the New York of the late 80's. Kamikaze tells us part of his story, representing the groups TFP, TDS, 156 and CPV.

We would like to welcome Nisa1 to the Breaking the Rules team. She will now be in charge of the English translations.

All the images belongs to Kamikaze.

Kami- I started tagging in '85-86 and did my first piece in '87... I'm not really sure how the whole thing started. I know that the first thing, the first contact with graffiti in person, was that we went to the Pryca near my house and stole a couple of cans of paint with which we wrote our names, the name of the break dance crew we had as kids and the names of the friends in the group.

Maybe a couple or three years went by before I got really interested in graffiti. Maybe it was the first films. Break Dance, although it didn't have much graffiti, you could see some in the club scenes, on the streets, and I suppose that stays with you somehow... Then the other movies too, but I can't tell you exactly what it was that made me say "Oh shit, now I need to write my name on the walls", but I do remember the beginnings.

At that time I was hanging out with Loco13 a lot, dancing and stuff, when we decided, for some reason, that we were going to start painting, but we weren't going to actually paint until we had a nice sketch. We were going to get our tags sorted out first, and I know we were clear about the tag being very important. I guess we understood a bit more what the whole thing was about thanks to the Getting Up and Subway Art books. The first thing we did was get our tags on paper. I remember mine was really weak, it looked like a “Falange” symbol, I'd put a thousand arrows, a thousand lines. It said Kamikaze, and it was a mixture of all that and the old graffiti of the Salamanca University graduates (the Vitor).

In fact, there was no graffiti in Alicante; Loco and I would get together to hang out in the afternoon or evening and do some tagging. At that time I was about fifteen or so. So after a while, we decided to go and tag, because we finally had one that we liked. We went out and... we saw a tag on the street. We were amazed that there was someone else that was as crazy as us, and what's more, the tag was cool, it had a vibe, style and so on. Mine was much uglier. Loco's had its own vibe.

“They welcomed me warmly, much better than the writers here would have, because a lot of times if you’re a toy -which I was the first time I went, I had done a few pieces, but I didn’t know how to paint well”

K- I remember one day, on one of our walks, I saw they had crossed out one of my tags and has written with a small marker something like "the person who signed this is a son of a bitch because this and that", I don't remember exactly what, but it was as if I was a fascist.

Musa71- Of course, you go around making symbols of the Falange... What do you expect?

K- Of course, of course, he gave me a hard time. That was the beginning, and we caught it with a tremendous fever, we went out every night. It was fascinating to see how quickly the movement spread. Loco had made himself a map of Alicante to bomb the whole city. "Do we have to be all city? Well then, we're going to be all city, from Alicante, but All City. We're going to mash it all up.” We knew which streets we were going to walk every night and in less than a week, we started to see other tags. I can tell you that within a month there were at least 20 kids tagging.

M- But you were quite young, weren't you?

K- I was already working, I started when I was very young and Loco wasn't very tied down, they let him go out. They didn't let me go out much, but my parents understood that when I finished work, at 12 or 1 o'clock, I'd spend some time with my friends before going home.

M- And were the tags with sprays, markers or what?

K- No, no... tags with spray can came many years later. Maybe we did some, but apart from that first anecdote (Pryca), spray paint was a luxury and we didn't have that need yet, because there was no graffiti. With the marker tags you could stand out, even with an Edding that wasn't too big, they stood out. We hadn't started using sprays because we hadn't started painting, and it was clear to us that until we had a half-decent sketch we weren't going to start. When we had the sketch, well, Loco did a half-decent one and I did a Kamikaze that I thought was half-decent too, we decided to rack paint. We had to steal paint to go for it.

M- I'm freaking out, because we're talking about two men and a big plan, you know? Not two kids who are just going to paint. There was a system. We're going to do the sketch, then we're going to steal paint....

K- That initiative was very Loco. He was very organized, he knew how he wanted to do his shit. Maybe I saw other things, but he had a very clear vision, and really for that time, the 80s in Alicante, he was quite advanced. He quickly got used to the sprays we had and managed to do what he drew at home, on the wall, which was difficult.

M- Do you know what I freak out about? In Zeus,' podcast, he told me that he and his friends used to go and steal paint from Pryca, now you are telling me the same thing...

K- No, the first time we stole from Pryca, but when Loco and I decided it was time to do our piece, we had no conscious filter at all... I feel really bad about many places we stole from. We would steal from anywhere that had spray cans.

“We’re painting, we’re really into this stuff and we have to go to NYC. We have to see it first hand, we have to breathe it in, we have to really live it and learn what it’s like”

M- Besides, it would be relatively easy, because they weren't used to it...

K- We were just kids, they couldn't imagine that we were going to steal cans, or that we’d be using them for this. Besides, we didn't have a clue, we stole everything, car paint, metallic paint, things that were absolutely useless, but of course we didn't know... We didn't have anyone round to tell us "you guys, don't even look at that". It took us a while to learn which paint was halfway decent. We had Novelty, Spray Colors and Dupli's, which were good enough to do a little something if you'd painted the wall white before, otherwise it didn't cover at all. Novelty and Spray Colors were half decent but they didn't have a range... only about 12 colors.

At that time, graffiti in Spain was generally kind of peculiar because everybody painted with the same colors. Then there were people like Loco, who was a pioneer in many things over here, he had read in some of the books how to mix paint (that would be between 86-88) and although it didn’t always work, you could see he was trying to do things a bit differently and have a bit more color range. He did his own mixes, just like Rhed, who still does it today, even though we now have enough colors to bore us. In the 80s it made more sense, I don't understand why we didn't do it more and why we didn't become experts.

M- Before, and we were also talking about it with Zeus, there was much less painting.

K- TTotally. This is something I realized when I went to NYC, the time I lived there. Realizing the difference of what graffiti was, what the life of a writer meant, compared to, not only, what we were doing in Alicante.

We were very motivated, very passionate, had an absolute dedication to tags, lots of walking, a lot of hours... But on a piece level, we were just learning. We’d do something in wastelands, on abandoned factories... The first hall of fame was an abandoned factory that we bombed on the outside.

We didn't have that concept of bombing because, as mentioned before, spray paint was a luxury. We stole a lot of paint at the beginning but the shops got their act together and it wasn't as easy to steal anymore. Buying paint was unfeasible, at that time paint wasn't designed for graffiti and it was very expensive, especially for kids who were mostly working class, we weren't swimming in abundance... It was unfeasible to spend 30,000 pesetas on paint.

The arrival of Felton was a change in Spain, from the range of colors to the quality of the paint, and the price. Suddenly paint was at a price we could afford. For me, however, the change caught me outside of Spain. I experienced it on the trips back to see my people.

M- You were already in NYC?

K- Yes, when Felton arrived, I was in NYC.

M- You of course know what you've seen in movies and documentaries like Beat Street and Style Wars, where certain moments and aspects are selected for content... But then you yourself arrive in NYC and find what?

Was it a big contrast?

K- Well, bear in mind that when I went to live in NYC, I had already been there 3 years before and at that moment, yes, it was a shock. It was very strange, because I was a kid, and now I think about it and say, "Shit, where are you going, where were you going?”

I was there for 3 weeks. What surprised me the most, and still surprises me after so many years, were the writers in NYC that I was lucky enough to meet. They welcomed me warmly, much better than the writers here would have, because a lot of times if you're a toy -which I was the first time I went, I had done a few pieces, but I didn't know how to paint well- and you went to talk to a bunch of people who were in control, you were kind of humiliated, weren't you? Well, I was a toy from a small town in Spain, they didn’t even know where Spain is, let alone Alicante...

M- They must have freaked out too, right? How does he know about graffiti?

K- That's the thing, as not many Europeans had been there - maybe a handful, 4 or 5 - we were an exotic thing. They flipped out “You do graffiti in Europe too?” "Look at what we've achieved”. On the other hand, there was a certain brotherhood among everyone I met, even the ones who were already in the art world, like Crash, Daze, Lee... LLee took me around his neighborhood, to show me his walls, and then he took me to Crash and Daze's studio, where I stayed for a while.

“It was a shock to see the differences between how they lived it there and how it was lived here, how we lived it at that time. Now there are a lot of writers who are very involved, the same or more than there, but before there wasn’t that concept of bombing so much, except for the flecheros in Madrid, who had a bit of that vibe.”

M- I imagine you’d be freaking out, like a dream come true...

K- Well, I haven't told you about the arrival to NYC. I didn't know anyone there and the plan was Loco and I were going to go together. The plan was "We're painting, we're really into this stuff and we have to go to NYC. We have to see it firsthand, we have to breathe it in, we have to really live it and learn what it's like". At that time a visa was required but Loco got denied. That moment was like “you can't, but I can”... We had the tickets booked and everything. I had the money and all the fucking desire in the world. It really pissed me off that I couldn't go with my colleague, and that he wasn’t able to go, but saying I'm not going out of solidarity seemed a bit of an idiot thing to do. I'm glad I didn't stay. I went.

M- But didn't you have any fear...?

K- Sure, it definitely grounded me; on top of that, the year before I had gone on my first trip alone, hip hop and graffiti, to London. I was beaten up once, almost got beaten up again by another guy, and I had to run because of another problem. The trip to London was horrible and I have it crossed off my list. I hate London, the weather in London, the food in London.... London sucks. I hate it.

M- hahaha but have you been there again?

K- Yes, many times, to work. I go and do my job, 3 days, I go eat at the Indian restaurants that I know because the food is crazy good, and that's it, I'm gone.

M- You don't even try to paint there?

K- No, no, it disgusts me, I go see a couple of colleagues I have there, and to eat. First work and then eat. I hated that trip and I hated everything I knew about London hip hop and graffiti. They were all shits, just very bad vibes, falsehood. And it didn't just happen to me, it happened to other friends... You went to London and you got in trouble with the people, they acted cool and they took you to a wasteland and try to rob you, it happened to me and it happened to other people.

Well, with that experience, imagine my thinking, if London was like that, what about NYC. And of course, I haven't told you how I got there....

I wrote to Henry Chalfant a few times, and he helped out a lot. I think that in the first letter I sent him some pics of our pieces, a very fifteen-year-old letter, very excited, very naïve, but very authentic. I sent him the pictures, told him who we were and asked him about belt buckles, prices, where to get them, and I don't know what else. About two months later, I received a package with four belt buckles, with the names of the members of the crew, and a letter from the gentleman. I was amazed. The letter said: these are the buckles, they cost that much, send me the money. Just like that, Hey kid, I made them for you and now if you want to be a straight up guy, you pay me the money and if you don’t I guess I’ve been robbed… We paid him and I wrote to him two or three more times.

So I went to NYC, with Henry Chalfant's address, which was the only thing I had. I didn't have anybody's phone number, I didn't know anybody. Of course, at that time, airline tickets were bought at travel agencies. The cheapest place they could find for me to sleep was on a university campus in Hoboken, New Jersey, but it was connected to the Path Train, a train that makes a very short journey, connecting Manhattan with NJ, and it took 15 minutes. I arrived, got the room and went to Henry Chalfant's address. I rang the bell and he opened the door.

I told another colleague about it a long time ago, and he told me the 80's were the bomb. Now it's unthinkable. He welcomed me, he showed me his photo albums, I had goose bumps, a tremendous saturation of information, incredible.

That same day or the next, of course I didn't have much else to do, I met Cavster and Kirs, who were in the studio, and they offered to take me around and give me a tour. Vet said to me, "Do you want to go and see some pieces?" and of course I was a little kid, scared. I'm in NYC. I remember asking Henry "Are these guys legit?" bçause after London... He told me they were a good bunch. Vet took me to the 238 bridges in the Bronx. Going up, we were stopping at places, he was showing me walls and stuff, very nice. A real character though: we were stopping because the guy was always carrying a beer in his hand, and when he'd run out, he'd go into a bodega and steal another one. I would ask him but how do you steal them, man?

M- Your English? The communication?

K- My English was already relatively good... I only met Vet that day, he took me to his place, he gave me some sketches. The whole atmosphere was like a brotherhood: you do the same as me, but over there. Cavs and Kirs, they were very into trains, Vet not so much, he made some, but he also made walls, he did a bit of everything. Cavs and Kirs were really into it, and they took me to see trains, because there were still trains running. Most of the lines had already changed to clean trains, but there were 3 or 4 lines in Brooklyn and Queens that were still running, the J, the M, another one and the shuttle in Brooklyn or Queens. They told me the cool platforms where more trains ran. Goosebumps! All crazy on the platforms with my camera, taking pictures and "shit I've been here for x hours and I think I've already seen the first one again, now I'm going to the opposite platform to see the other side!". Crazy, freaking out, amazed. Then another day, Henry says to me something like "Kami, do you want to go to the South Bronx? There's a colleague opening an exhibition today and you might be interested"... he passed the phone to me, the guy spoke in Spanish... He gave me the address and I went to Third Avenue in the Bronx. It's a gallery on the first floor. A very humble loft with some graffiti paintings hanging. Kase 2 was there and he freaks out because I recognize him and he's amazed that I come from Spain. Overseas. He says to me "tomorrow we're meeting up".

Then Phase 2 arrives, they introduce me to him and we walk and talk from there to Manhattan. He didn't stop talking and it was a shame I didn't have a tape recorder because the amount of information that man gave me was incredible, the complete shit! and I didn't have the capacity.. I didn't understand or know that much about graffiti, I didn't understand the people he was talking to me about, that guy was a walking encyclopedia.

I met up with Kase again a couple of times and he took me around his neighborhood, shouting "Hey, this is my friend Kami, he comes from Spain, people know me there. Overseas!” He gave me sketches, which I still have, I hope to have them. I thought it was amazing how everyone welcomed me in general.

Then Kirs and Cav took me to Canal Street where all the writers were developing their photos and in the shop were Ket, Sento and Ven... ffrom there we went for a drink. We went to a Chinese place for lunch on Canal St while we were waiting for the photos and that's where I met Sento. I got a really good vibe with him. He was amazed that I came from abroad and he liked the fact that he could speak Spanish with me. He said that very few people spoke Spanish well there and he liked my accent because it was different. In fact, when I came back three years later to settle down, he was one of the people I really wanted to see because we got on so well...

M- And then back to Spain?

K- Yes, but bear in mind that it was only three weeks, and it was a shock because I went to the graffiti Mecca during the last stage of the trains, but at the same time although it was a trip rich in learning and experience, I didn't integrate into the life of a writer, I didn't paint. I was offered to go and paint a couple of times. The first time Cavs and Kirs, and I regret not going, but I didn't feel ready. I was going to fuck up their car. Then Kase 2 and Sento invited me to paint a wall, and when I got there I saw that A-One was there... and the same thing. They had paint, they invited me but I didn't dare because they were fucking Kase 2 and A-one. I didn't control Sento that much… I regret it, but it wasn't my time or place.

M- That's very respectful

K- Yes, but I regret the trains... even if I'd only gone to sign a few things... because they were full.

M- Well, then you go back to Spain, to Alicante…

K- It was more shocking when I came back from NYC, from living the life of a writer there. When I lived there, I had to leave the country every six months because of the visa, so I went to Madrid. It was a shock to see the differences between how they lived it there and how it was lived here; how we lived it at that time. Now there are many writers who are very involved, the same or more than there, but before there wasn't that concept of bombing so much, except for the flecheros in Madrid, who had a bit of that vibe. Here, hip hop graffiti was very much a neighborhood thing, you painted a wall in a neighborhood wasteland or on an abandoned factory, but the tracks and roads started much later.

Yes, Madrid is a movement, like a territory itself, but I think it was more a matter of convenience: I paint in my neighborhood because I control it and I don't know where to look for walls in other neighborhoods... I don't know for sure either because I didn't live there, and Alicante was very small, we all knew each other. In Madrid I was only there on occasions during the 80s and it wasn't until the 90s that I settled down.

M- Between NYC travelling and NYC living?

K- About 3 years went by... and I lived there for about two and a half years... Then I went straight back to Madrid... Living in NYC, painting there, getting into the scene, I suppose it helped me to adapt those things to here when I moved back. It's not that I wanted to be a pioneer of anything, because the “flecheros” were bombing and you could see them in many places, but there wasn't a lot of highway and train track bombing. I started to paint a lot of silver pieces and taking my friends to different places to spread the name, which I don't think was done so much before that.

“ If you want to be a graffiti purist you have to spread the name, and put it in many places in many ways, if you don’t do tags, and you don’t paint more than one or two places, you’re not doing graffiti, no matter how much you do letters and your name. You’re bombing social media.”

M- It's hard not to go back and forward, because I find interesting things... you go to NYC for 3 weeks and then come back to Alicante...

K- I'm very motivated, and when I'm passionate about something, I jump right into it. I was probably unendurable to my friends in Alicante when I came back from NYC. But being a kid, living what I had lived through and with so little information... The books and movies, plus 4 photos of when Alex went to London, who went with a colleague from Barcelona, Turtle, the breaker, and brought photos from abroad. Of course we freaked out with these pieces... I remember I started to exchange letters... I don't know how, but we got some photos from Germany... maybe in a fanzine, and there was a Loomit graffiti with a phone number and I called him.

M- Let's see, first Henry Chalfant and now Germany?

K- Yes, I do a conference in Germany and I call Loomit...It was a work number but I call him and introduce myself, I'm Kami from Alicante. He gave me his address, I sent him photos and he sent me back 50 or 60 photos at once. I’m amazed because imagine the cost of developing the pics, copying, and the fact that he liked to print them out at a bigger size... At that time we used to freak out with his murals, super productions 8m high and 30m long. A hall of fame in Munich with big and elaborate murals…

The first time I went to Germany I went to Munich to visit him. He came to pick me up at the station in a hearse, with the back full of cans. Loomit was this incredible character, with that hair and driving that hearse full of paint around. Things and nonsense from the 80's, now I'm not going to look for friends on the internet…

These are the first generations of writers in each place, in Germany and in France they were more advanced than us, with more media support... In Germany for example there have always been community houses for the youth. Places where people with problems do activities... They have more access to information and training, with workshops to teach kids how to do break dance or graffiti. In my travels I could see that they were more advanced, and the difference was that in those countries they had more information and it was easier to travel in general.

About Nyc...

K- You're putting yourself in my situation with Henry Chalfant, who opens the door for me, shows me all the pictures and tells me all the moves. But put yourself in his shoes... Imagine all the hardships Henry's been through with the graffiti writers in NYC and... he must have thought “Now what? Writers from all over the fucking world are coming?” Maybe it's cool, but...

M- Well it would be cool to ask Loomit if anyone else called his phone....

K- K- Yes, and Loomit sent a lot of photos. There was a time when I was corresponding with a lot of people, especially when I lived in NYC. I don't know how it started, but I even exchanging letters with Atome, from Australia. A very unique style. One day he asked me if I would host him in the city and he came out a couple of times.

I see it all so innocent and with so much enthusiasm and how it all turned out great. But from afar, it's something unthinkable nowadays... The fact that you make something, that the masters of that take you in and teach you.

I don't think it can happen with Obey or Kaws, just getting their phone number and be there with them, to have their contact and that they dedicate a few hours of their life to you. I find that very difficult. There's more money involved in the game now and people are busier doing that, than spending a few hours with a guy on the other side of the world who's doing the same thing as you. I knew who Lee and Kase were, but Vet, Kirs and Cavs did not.

I mean, we also treated people who came from Valencia to Alicante like that, but I didn't imagine it would work like that in a place as crude and raw as NYC.

M- Now the information is in the palm of your hand. To begin with, people already come with the idea of painting in the most "emblematic places in the city" so they can say they've been there. The wall lasts two hours, but they'll have a pic..

K- Well, there have always been people who painted for the picture, people who wanted to appear in fanzines. The social media has intensified that even more. I understand that you don't care about the piece because you're painting in the street, and that's what it is, but graffiti is about having your name everywhere. If you always paint in the same place and you know the piece is going to be gone in two hours, it doesn't make sense.

M- Part of the problem is also having to adapt what you do to different surfaces, whether it's a window or a door... because if you always paint in the same place, the perfect wall... it ends up being boring.

K- I agree to a certain extent, because it depends on who paints it. But that's not graffiti, according to the purist concept, even if it's your name, and letters. If you want to be a graffiti purist you have to spread the name, and put it in many places in many ways; if you don't do tags, and you don't paint in more than one or two places, you're not doing graffiti, no matter how much you do letters and your name. You're bombing social media.

The Nyc thing was improvised, it wasn't that I arrived and started painting like crazy, it was more about trying to find a job and I really wanted to meet Sento, because when I met him we had a really good connection. I spent a long time without contacting anyone I had met before. I was living in the South Bronx, on Cypress Avenue, on the 6 line, it was quite an odd neighborhood, to say the least. I had a few pieces there. I don't remember how I got back in touch with Sento. I think I asked Renny, the colleague from the gallery on the first trip, where I met them, who helped me find a place to stay, but I didn't know much about him. I don't remember which writer I met again, maybe it was Ket. At some point, after making a few pieces, I met Sento again, and the good vibes were still there. We started to make some pieces for each other, and to hang out a lot, until he practically became my third housemate.

M- I've seen images of NYC, from that time, but what was it like?

K- Let's see, I came from a very small town, where graffiti was taken in a way, and painting was a luxury. We would tag with markers, and from time to time, with spray paint. There, suddenly, I found myself in the lifestyle of a real graffiti writer, of the continuous dedication - in Alicante there was also a continuous dedication with tags - but there it was in everything, in all aspects of graffiti. Tagging, painting pieces, walking around looking for spots, and painting one silver and another, three silvers, walking around. That didn't happen in Alicante, you did your piece and you went home, or with your friends, and that was it. It wasn't like “come on, we do this piece here, and we go on to see what we can find, then a simple piece”. When we ran out of paint, we'd bomb on the way home. We used to do this kind of thing practically every night. Not that every night we did three pieces, but every night we went out to do something. I didn't know that dedication in Alicante. And I thought it was very cool. The bombing but with pieces, it was quieter Alicante.

M- Did you move around Nyc?

K- Well don’t forget how big it is, so for convenience, not having to spend two hours travelling after painting, I generally painted in the Bronx, in the south. But when we went to visit Ket, for example, who lived in Brooklyn, we did some pieces in his neighborhood. I've painted in various places, a few pieces in Manhattan although very little, some in Queens, but in general in the Bronx.

M- The concept of All City, there it has a dimension... it's a brutal investment of time and energy...

K- When we read about All City in the books and we started to do it in Alicante, in two months you had everything bombed, everywhere. But of course, in NYC it's not the same, and that also applies to other cities. There it's another level. That's what graffiti is, a lot of walking around, an investment of energy and time, in making and leaving a mark.

The beautiful thing is the metro system that works 24 hours a day, and makes the city more active, more alive. There's not the same metro activity at night, and some lines don't run, but it's still 24 hours. It used to take me an hour and a half to get home from work at night, and I had to make three changes, whereas during the day it would take 20 or 30 minutes.

M- Had the city changed a lot in those 3 years between your first trip and when you lived there?

K- Of course, there were no painted trains anymore. When I went on my first trip, I caught the last of the last of it, but the trains didn't have the presence they had before, the most important lines, the ones that go through Manhattan and the ones that go up from Manhattan to the Bronx, were all clean. The lines that had something on them did go through Manhattan to go to Brooklyn or Queens, but they were less used. So I can't say there was a big difference, but of course, the first time I freaked out more. The second time, when I had just arrived, I was amazed and impressed by the place.

“There, suddenly, I found myself with the lifestyle of a real graffiti writer, of the continuous dedication in all aspects of graffiti. Tagging, painting pieces, walking around looking for spots, and painting one silver and another, three silvers, walking around.”

M- Did you find it difficult to adapt?

K- I wouldn't know, at the beginning I was very lonely. There were these three people I knew in the building, and then when I moved into my apartment, in the same building, I lived a very solitary life, and maybe it took me a while to find my place or to feel comfortable in the place I had ended up in. But yes, the truth is that I adapted relatively quickly, after about a month and a half or two months. But as it's a city with so much to offer, and I'm not a person who tends to get bored or get too irritated with things, well, I don't know if it's just me or if it happens to anyone, you don't really adapt to NYC, suddenly you're there and you stay there. Nobody really adapts, because when I was living there, everybody who lives there wants to leave. Nobody wants to live there, but none of these people can live outside either because the city is so active and fast that when you go somewhere else, everything is much slower.

I don't know if you adapt but you learn to be. One of the things that surprised me, just like the first time I went, was the way I was welcomed, and the hospitality of the writers. Very rarely did the writers in NYC make me feel like a writer from outside, like a guy from outside, like a visitor. I don't know, I never had that feeling, which I've had in Barcelona and Madrid. Not there, I've never had that feeling of being taken as an outsider. Maybe because I settled there and started painting on my own, and then little by little I got to know people. They took me as one of the locals. As if they had met someone from there, with a few curious questions about Europe, and maybe someone who did things with Europeans would ask me questions, things, advice or recommendations or words in other languages, but in general I was treated on a very personal level and that surprised me, both the first time and when I settled in.

M- Do you remember what interested them about Europe?

K-Bear in mind that most of them didn't even know where Europe was, and I didn't meet many people with a special interest. I didn't go around saying I'm Kami from Spain or Morocco. I don't know, the people in general, the people who weren't my colleagues, the people from the neighborhood, were a bit confused because they didn't know where I was from. They didn't know if I was Hispanic, because I speak English but with an accent, and they didn't know my features either, because I could be from many places. The most curious one was Sento, who I think had already travelled to Europe once, and he was interested in gastronomy, he asked me about food, he likes cooking a lot. He was interested in a bit of everything, the culture. It was the time of the Hinchu Boys, and they would send me tapes for me to listen to, and Sento would freak out, "What are these guys doing?” During the time I was there, every six months I would receive a tape and they kept getting better and better. Sento would freak out, and we'd be busting our chops, listening to them at night, smoking weed cigars, crying with laughter. Sento was always interested, and Wane would ask me about European stuff when we saw each other.

But in general, I didn't hang out much with writers either, like here. I don't hang out with a lot of people. So I was with Sento most of the time, sometimes with Wane, Wen and I've spent time with Ivory, who is very nice, and Camp during the last time I was in Nyc, when he was starting to paint, also very nice. Ket was another one I saw often, and he always helped me a lot. Maybe they asked me more questions on the first trip, because there were five of us who had gone from Europe and we were a bit more alluring. The first time I remember they asked me about graffiti, and if we painted trains. But I’m telling you, I felt accepted, like a local.

M- You're not a person who hangs out much with writers, neither here nor there. But was that normal there?

K- It depends on the type of people. It's just that I arrived late to the whole thing, because it's clear that during the time of the trains until it finished, they gathered at 149th to watch the trains go by, to talk shit, to sketch on blackbooks, etc... but I haven't seen or experienced this. The truth is that when I lived there, I don't remember there being a meeting place. There was a shop, one of these pioneering ones, with sprays, magazines, caps and I don't remember what else they had... videos. A small, basic graffiti shop, they sold t-shirts painted by graffiti artists and I imagine that's where the writers would meet to talk and then the Canal St shop where they all met to develop the photos.

M- If you had to choose one of the best moments of living or being there, what would it be?

K- Let's see, of being there, many. On my first trip, I have it very clearly in my mind, was when I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on foot. I went back and forth from Manhattan to Brooklyn, I went for a walk and then came back and during the walk, especially on the way back, to see all Manhattan lit up, crossing it, or even from under the bridge where you have the typical view from the movies, it seemed incredible to me.

Then, when I was living there, maybe some Zulu Nation or Rock Steady Crew parties, but especially the first ones, which were tremendous. It was very unusual, because it was from '91 to '93, and there was already a hip hop industry there and some famous people; the Zulu Nation anniversaries lasted 3 days and were held in a dinky little club, where there was room for 500 or 600 people at most and where everyone sang and went. I saw all the hottest rappers of the moment there. KRS One, for me it was the best, the best live show I had ever seen. Onix,, I took Beto and Cowboy. With Nafri we went to see several concerts, KRS One again,EPMD, Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers. All the cool stuff, Black Sheep, which is part of my soundtrack of living in Nyc.

I mean my hip hop soundtrack would be Black Sheep and Cypress Hill but if I had to put a soundtrack to graffiti, to missions, to the night, to walking with the cans, climbing up bridge girders and going into tunnels, Black Sabbath, the Paranoid LP. That's the soundtrack for graffiti, evidently because of Sento. Almost every time we went out on a mission, the Paranoid album was on, or at least a couple of songs.

M- You were already into music, did NYC mean anything to you in that respect?

K- I was into music but in a hobby kind of way. I liked it, I wrote some lyrics, and every time I came to Madrid, I would get together with Nafri to hear what we had done, but I don't have much of a memory of my rap moves in NYC. I remember the concerts, and I know I wrote lyrics that I would take back to Madrid to do with Nafri, but if I think about NYC, I don't think about that. It was the reason I left, listening to the Nafri, Meswy and Frank demo that Nova brought me. When I heard that, it was a change, a giant step up from what we had done before with Nafri and I freaked out. Later Nafri came to see me, we talked a lot and I told him that it was very clear that we had to make an album and that if he also saw it clearly, I would go back to Spain and settle in Madrid.

Living there must have influenced me because it influenced me as a person, but NYC for me was graffiti. Rap was a connection with Spain, with Nafri, the friend I was closest to, as well as with Toxic from Hinchu, with whom we continued making music, although the bases he sent me in the end were for them. Rap was a connection with Spain, even though I wrote while I was in NYC.

M- But...while you were there you didn't make any connection with anyone who was into music? Or were the things separate?

K- It depends, there were the TATs, Fat Joe actually had the Bronx busting, he'd wrote Crack or Joe Crack.I could see the neighborhood was busting, and I didn't know who it was until later. It was a dealer that lived a few streets away from my neighborhood. I didn't have a relationship with the TATs, so I didn't relate to hip hop except on a public level, but it's true that one of my roomates, his name was Akim, from Zimbabwe, he had come to NYC for the rap. His brother, Doumi, had come to study a degree in New York State, and that was an excuse for Akim because a few years earlier they had a rap group. In the USA there was a strong Back to Africa wave. A lot of people wore an African medallion around their necks, not just musicians. These two sent demos to all the record companies in the country, and I don't remember which one released a maxi, which I think was the B-side, first thing by Dj Shadow. They were called Zimbabwe Legit. I didn't really like the music he made but he was very nice, a character. One day he came home on a high saying that they had called him through I don't know who, Afrika Bambaata and the Furious Five wanted to do an international song, and that they had called him because they wanted an African rapper. I said, “man take me, international rap, I rap in Spanish”.

We go to the studio, he tells them I'm his roommate who also raps in Spanish. They were very open and told me to do something. There was Afrika Bambaata, the Furious Five, Akim and a couple of other guys; a Colombian and a German. I'm very bad at writing something on the spot and I wrote something really ugly. We recorded it as a demo, all of us in the booth at the same time, but I didn't know much, and I was freaking out. The bad thing is that I don't have it recorded and if I had it, I would have lost it... but weeks went by and I wanted to hear it, so one day I went over to the studio. They opened the door and IAM were recording there. They were recording I think the second album. So I waited and I stayed there talking to Pascal Imhotep, we got a really good vibe. We smoked a weed joint and with the excuse of the weed they kept calling me and I went to the studio. I started to get on well with him, and the second time Nafri came, he came to the studio and started to freak out, because he hadn't seen a professional studio before. Well, years later, Pascal produced a track for us for the Grandes Planes album, "Oye, Oye. He once took us to a festival in Marseille where we played the worst Cpv concert by far. Horrible. I think it was worse than the one in Alicante. Then I came back to Spain, very focused on music, but very active and full of energy to paint. Not like in NYC, because in Madrid I focused on music and writing, but I was painting, and I was meeting people like Pocho, who helped me a lot at the beginning, when I didn't have money, and helped me out quite a bit.

M-Well, look, with this episode, we've made a mess of things again.

K- But you have to shut me up.

M- But how can I shut you up? Besides, we've made it clear that there are hierarchies, how the hell am I going to shut you up?

(Laughs)

K- Sure, don't shut me up, but you're slyly turning this off... the problem is that I have a very bad memory.

M- If it comes up we do another one.

K- We paint, we cook something vegan..

M- You've always liked cooking a lot.

K- Yes, since I was little, I think I made my first tajine when I was 14 or 15, and the truth is that I've always loved it. It's one of my motivations, just like before my main motivation was hip hop; just like when I travel around, I paint and leave my name because I'm a graffiti writer. For example, the first time I went to Kuala Lumpur, it was virgin, there was only a hall of fame where the rich writers of the city painted, and of course I painted in some really cool places. But lately I travel for many reasons and one of them is food, eating it of course, but I try to sneak into other people's kitchens, while people are cooking, with their consent of course, and see how they cook, to learn.

M- I don't cook much, but Miquel does, so next time we'll exchange recipes. Thank you very much for everything.

K- Thanks to you, and if anyone has been able to make it this far reading, I hope they've had a good time and that you continue to have a good time.

M- This is like one of those messages you send into space, hoping to find life. Take care of yourselves.