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The CA25 show chronicles 25 years of a graffiti association’s journey through a changing landscape of art, beats, rhymes, LIFE and family. Established in 1993, the City Art (CA) crew started at MacAteer High School campus as a small group of friends hoping to make a statement in the urban art scene, but has since expanded into a mural crew that operates in San Francisco, So-California, Texas and beyond. The show—featured at the Juan R. Fuentes Gallery at Acción Latina—documents 25 years of the graffiti scene in San Francisco. The following is a Q&A with CA founder Krease1, and members Zero, Kepto and Gorey.

What has kept this association, this family, this group strong over these years?

Krease1: Initially, when we first started the crew. I mean, we were all friends, we all used to hang out, cut school together, and it was definitely like in a time where if you went Macintyre in that era of the early 90s—’93.’92,’94—there was other crews that are doing their thing. Me being new to the game, I was kind of like “Okay, I’m still the kid or whatever” because I knew everybody. But, one of the cats I started with was Tone. He was kind of like, not the cool kid of the school, so I saw the potential in him and I told him, “Yo man, we should just do our own thing.” And through one of the old OG’s that I knew from the block, Tame1 from BPL, you know at the time there was another crew called CR. We went through the whole God-bless, to make sure we weren’t trying to get hacked or nothing. We got blessed by the OG’s to make sure we didn’t want any problems coming up in the game because there was too many crews that had the ‘two letter crew.’ The majority of the crews were three letter crews. And so we got blessed by them, and then it started as just us hanging at lunch and this like building, just drawing, sketchbooks, whatever and cutting class together. It was all about just like more than just like crews. It was a family. It was almost like a little gang. We had to earn our stripes in the graffiti world. A lot of fools, they didn’t respect us at first. We definitely had to earn our stripes. We went through a couple battles to prove it, but not too many crews can say they’ve had that longevity. Now we’re pushing 25 and taken it worldwide. A lot of crews, especially in ‘Frisco, kind of stay local or they die off. We were kind of able to adapt. We got different generations of the crew.

Can we talk about the other parts of the scene? San Francisco, the hip hop, the dance, anything aside from graf that contributed to the vibe.

Krease1: Definitely, ’93 was a defining moment in hip-hop. You had Wu-Tang and a lot of good classic albums—Tribe (A Tribe Called Quest). We definitely were influenced by the New York scene, the way we dressed. Everyone was dressed in Timbs at one point and camo. Even at one point, even our style, the 80s ‘Frisco style was kind of dying out. Leaning more toward the New York style. What influenced me a lot was a little mix of both. I grew up in the 80s and the 90s. Definitely, the gang scene was popping at the time. You couldn’t wear certain colors around the neighborhood. You couldn’t walk past 23rd if you were from past 24th. If you grew up in the lower end of the Mission you couldn’t pass 23rd. All those things, that pot of gumbo, that mix with everything. At least for me at the time, when I was growing up in the city was definitely like an eye opener.

Zero: I grew up in San Luis Obispo. My exposure to graf was Amuse; he went to my high school. I don’t know if you guys remember those ducks. I was coming out of 8th grade and I’m like playing in the creeks and I’m seeing these ducks. I get to high school, I meet Amuse and he’s like “Yeah. I’ll teach you how to do it.” He taught us all how to paint, how to get the can to the side, get the nice fade going, and obviously that’s where my style came from. And he ended up going down to Brazil during his senior year. Meeting up with Beano and Oshemyoz and all those guys and coming back with photos. And that was just when I was like “Alright, this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.” Done. Ended up going to Brazil and meeting up with Beano and painting down there for a while. That direction was definitely where I wanted to go. But really like, all the letters and throwies and all that good stuff actually really got exposed to that in Santa Barbara. I was locked up for a while in a boy’s camp with Otts and him and I just kind of weren’t gang members so we kind of just like hung together and made friends by doing envelopes. And he really helped me get my style going. I ended up sticking with characters for a while, but yeah Santa Barbara was definitely popping back in ’95, ’94. It was pretty dope down there.

Kepto: It was basically just freight lines. I’d get stopped by the train, I’d see maybe one to three panels out of 20 or 30 trains that had something really dope on it. It just kind of caught my attention. That was probably in ’94-’95. Then shortly after that, I was doing tags and doing toy sh**. Tagging up the bathroom at school, racquetball court. “Hello, my name is Stickers” whatever. Just trying to think of names, but that’s pretty much what influenced me. And then later on I would see track sides, do a little more urban exploring, but they’re really on the buff in Arizona so freeway shots, anything in your face it might run for maybe 48 hours and it’s gone. So you don’t really see rooftops off the freeway, nothing dope like some inner city sh**. There are cutty spots, but it’s kind of like you gotta turn your neck all the way around, you can’t be driving and seeing those spots.

Gorey: I was pretty much in elementary school in the 90s. When I did my first tag and I understood what graffiti was, it was probably like in ’94. I was a little young kid, but I would take the bus to school. Back then if you took the bus, there’s no escaping the graffiti. It was the 14 Mission. Ain’t nowhere to avoid it. It was literally like, there was kids running on the bus with like duffel bags full of paint, tagging it up in front of everybody, smoking blunts, just being kids from the city. I would be this little kid, this little fourth grader, looking up like “these kids are crazy.” My mom’s like “don’t pay attention to them, that’s the bad kids.” I was like, “They look like they’re keeping it lit though. They’re having fun. They’re drawing! They’re drawing crazy designs.” I didn’t really understand what it was until I found out my cousin was doing that, I saw him doing that on a piece of paper.

I came up with a crew. “KW.” It was just me and my sisters. I put them down, I had to break it down to them. I was like, “Yo I found what these kids are up to. You down?” They were like “We’re down.” We came up with names and started hitting up the playground. It was hilarious, yeah, my mom caught me and said, “Are you tagging?” I played it off and she found out anyway. She was like “It’s wet!” I was like alright, she made me write 1,000 lines that said, “I will not vandalize private property without permission” I did that sh**, then after I said some smart a** sh**, like “I’ll do that sh** twice.” Then my dad found out and I got a little a** whooping. I was like, “Damn, I gotta be cutty about this sh**.” That pretty much made me into a writer that would never, I didn’t really like getting caught. After that, it was just like a wrap, everything around me was like twist, CA of course, all kinds of sh** was happening. As a kid, there was a lot of characters happening too so I was like vibing with that sh** because I understood it before I even knew what the letters meant. I understood there was dope cartoons on the walls. I was like, “I want to be like that, I want to be dope like that. Like on the roof downtown.”

What would you want people to know about both the scene right now and also about the heyday?

Zero: I got a 13 year old daughter, so with her everything is: fit in, do exactly like everyone else is doing, wear the same sh** that they’re wearing. In the 90s it was about being unique. If you weren’t unique, you weren’t sh**. You were nobody. You were just one of those dorks. You had to be unique and somewhat. You just had to be different. I think the 90s, that’s what it was all about. Just being this like bright spark. And, yeah, I mean I try to guide Kicks all the time. “You’re going to get the same shoes just because so-and-so. How about these, no one’s wearing these?” She’s like “Sh. Dad… chill.” But I mean really, it’s a big distinction. We didn’t have social media, so it’s like if you wanted to meet someone, you met them because you bumped into them and there was an attraction somehow. Nowadays, it’s like, people are just jocking everything and that’s their common ground it seems like. I look at all the interactions. For us, we had to fight and claw to make friends or get laid. It was a different thing. You had to be you.

Krease1: You definitely had to stand out, in your face, especially in the graffiti world. It was competitive. You gotta be the most up with the weirdest sh** and the most craziest stunts you could do. Like who could climb a 30 foot building?

Zero: Being “up” was like a prerequisite to being interesting. It was just like, people just assumed that motherf*****’s interesting because he’s up and all of a sudden you’re making friends.

Krease1: Especially nowadays you still gotta be unique. That’s what’s so special about CA, we all have different styles. We all have our own little specialties. That and we’re recognized worldwide. Zero has painted in Brazil. Kepto just came back from Vietnam and then I went to Greece and Paris. Gorey went to Paris, went to Guatemala, Nicaragua. There’s not too many crews can say that…for being a local crew, to say we took it worldwide. They’re usually famous for their city, but that’s not many crews who can say they’re actually worldwide.

Kepto: I feel like one of the reasons we’re so relevant today is because we kind of push each other even if we’re 600 miles away. We see what each other are doing before. Social media, email, we used to send flicks, hard copy flicks through the mail. That was the old school sh** for freight trains because you’d catch someone’s freight train in LA or Philly. They would flip them back, and then crews would form. And there wasn’t too many people doing it in the early 90s. So it really connected a lot of people.

I feel like everyone in the crew kind of pushes each other even if it goes unsaid or unspoken or not complemented we all do that in a sense.

Who inspired you? Who changed the way you look at things? Who do you want to mention as a prominent figure that helped you?

Gorey: The first thing that really made me be like ” I’m gonna really do this sh**” was when I was in middle school. I was at the boys and girls club, and there was a music studio. The dude who ran it his name was Papa Joe. He would always see me in the art room doing graffiti. He’d be like,” You should come do that down here.” He put on Style Wars (hip hop doc.) and I had never seen that before and I was like “Yoooo.” It just broke everything down for me to the point where I was like “This is a wrap. I’m doing this.” I had an idea, but just that point in the right direction. He would always give me compliments.

Kepto: I’d have to say I was just getting started getting letter development and just not being just a bomber and tagger. Just trying to up my game. Fyce (Phyise) MG crew, ICR, he would always show me love. People would do me sketches and stuff, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing their letters even though they were trying to show me the ropes. So I just kept it original and he always gave me good advice to just stay original. Create my style and just adapt, add to it, create more to it, even if it’s kind of wonky and wack in the beginning. Just stick with it, it’ll develop over time naturally. I always kept that in mind and that kind of helped me relax a little more. I didn’t enjoy painting walls, I would just do trains and maybe like a little 40 minute piece and then, you know, it’s gone so you could just let it go. If you got a wall in the city you got to look at it every time you drive by it. You might be like, “That sh** is so wack!” four months later. But that was a cool thing, I kept it kosher. I painted hoppers, I didn’t really have a tunnel spot to practice. I just painted hoppers so I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes. I knew it was a yard on the east side of town that nobody was really fu***** with, and I didn’t really want to go in other writer’s yards and blow up their spot.

Zero: As far as influence goes I got to give a shout out to Amuse. He took a bunch of toys who were just freshmen in high school. He’s like, “Here’s some cans. Paint. Here’s how you do it.” I mean coming from San Luis Obispo, a small town. We didn’t have the whole bus hop or even the gang sh**. I mean that was all X3 stuff. It was just out of the graffiti thing. Even when they had green lights on graffiti artists, it was just separated in the town that I was in. I got to give shout outs to Amuse because even though he would surf with Twist, he still took us under his wing and taught us how to do it. My life has been hard. I’m a art director now, I support a family. I’ve been able to afford to stay in SF. I mean, everyone I know that I was here with in the 90s, they’re gone unless they’ve got families that have got houses here.That’s how much this city’s changed. Definitely shout out to some of those older guys. It was an art form.

What does it mean to mature as a writer, artist, human and still be considered a part of this group (CA)?

Gorey: It pretty much means, you got to do a lot of planning if you want to still do this sh** because if you do this it’s going to take over your life and if you let it because it’s that kind of passion that we have for this art. If you want to do it, it’s all about the longevity and it’s all about the next generation always. And I’m always looking out for the next hitter, the next young person who has that same spark in their eye that needs that push forward because I know that’s what getting down with CA did for me. It was like, “Okay. I reached this level right here, but now I got to show them what I can do and learn from everybody from everybody in the crew.”

Kepto: It’s easy to want to be stuck in ’97, but you gotta realize that everyone owns a cellphone and they’ll call the cops real quick so it’s not like it used to be. You can’t be three 40’s in a pair of JNCO’s. My state I like to live when all the music I fell in love with, I was really absorbing hip hop and all this sh**. You won’t see me bumpin Fetty Wap or none of this. You got to be wary. They got facial recognition, they got cameras and satellites, they can really pinpoint you if you do something. It’s all about being strategic, you got to really plot your spot out, check it out, scope for cameras. Hope a drone doesn’t come and catch you slipping. Try and get up, get your spots, and get in and get out. And then go home and be as safe as possible. Still execute, sometimes you gotta be fearless just to get home and smoke that victory joint or victory beer and go to sleep.

Krease1: My thing was be irrelevant. Like you said, keeping that 90s mentality and rolling through the new era you definitely especially San Francisco at least. It’s a dying art. It’s been kind of more commercialized. You rarely see the ‘Frisco proper one flow. You kind of see a half-ass flow. We try to do a barbecue every year just to get together and catch up because we’re all grown ass men and some of us have kids and some of us have legit jobs; some of us don’t. It’s not just a crew. It’s a family. We definitely build off each other. And just looking for the next talent.

CA all day

Interview conducted by Josue Rojas, transcription by Kirk Stevenson.

About the interviewees:

Zero – Started with CA about ‘97 in the summer all the way through 2000 something. Don’t get to paint much anymore, but when I can I do.

Krease1- One of the founders from CA started in ‘93 Macintyre high school with the homie “Tone1” it’s pretty much still when I can still write. As far- still trying to push it. Worldwide. We started Class Act clothing

Kepto- Grew up in Arizona originally. Came out here in 2005 for a CA barbecue. And then, got put down a couple years later. Moved out here in 2009 and just been trying to crush it ever since. Just trying to be active out here.

Gorey- What’s good? Gorey CKT,CA,ROF trying to rep every crew. I got down with CA pretty much just a little later in my graf’ career I guess. Local SF writer from ‘Frisco. You know, so CA has always been like a staple for SF graffiti if you know what’s up if you’ve seen shit going down in the 90s. Definitely was a factor. I just try to do my part and make sure we still relevant out here.