Interview: Wisk One WCA, BC, RTDK, IFK, AOK
Interview by: Mystic 11/2/99

Q- What Do you write?

Wisk One Wca

Q- What other crews are you from?

I started IFK, RTDKillers and BC on the west side.

Q- Are you currently an active writer?

No, I'm not active right now, I'm taking care of my kids and working my ass off and doing what you know what all the older writers do.

Q- Well were sitting at a spot where you were once really active, the corner of Westwood and Wilshire Blvd, in the city of Los Angeles, what does this spot mean to you with respect to graffiti?

Wow.. It brings me back to some really sentimental times with me and my boy Ser, my writing partner for years ever since I started; in fact I actually met him pretty much like a block north of this corner; and that was interesting because Westwood used to be jumping back then...and there wasn't too many writers on the west side so you knew who everybody was and I was one of them, Ser was one of them, Shogun was another one, M.C Silk used to write on the 8 line, Risky, there was a lot of west side writers that weren't even known that don't even have names that people could even recognize like my boy Edit..rest in peace. .his boys from the Latin Kings they were old school, they went to our school, Uni high.

Q- As far as this spot, specifically, what was one of the most memorable experiences you have had here?

This is the place where me and Ser made our stand on the Wilshire line, back in the day when people were like trying to rock the Wilshire line and people were trying to check out who was up on the Wilshire line, and me Ser were the kings back then, Gin, and Moe that was Metro, he was up, he was from RTD Killers, actually all these people I'm mentioning are from RTDKillers; Rare rest in peace, Fly, all six of us at the time were from RTDkillers. Just like how you hear the bus right there, you would just see us bombing it, and no one would care back then.

Q- You guys would be all over that bus right now?

We would just be bombing that bus really discretely. We would check out the back, we'd go , "... yo let's check out the back..."oh shit he got that spot". You know what I mean? it was totally dope. Or It would be like,"...oh damn I got that it's still up.." Or its like.."man I wanna catch a throw up on that". If we were really adventurous we'd actually just hop on the grate and just take a little ride to the next stop, take a little break..

Q- For the record what time period are we talking about?

That's a good question, it would have to be..uhh..the late eighties, I started graffiti in 85', so lets see I went all city in 88', so It would have to be anywhere from 86' to 87'.

Q-Considering you've been part of graffiti for both this decade and the last, what was graffiti like in those times of years versus doing graffiti in the early 90's?

Late 80s and the early 90s for me in LA were the shit, you know, It was a dream for all writers that ever wanted to have the freedom to express themselves the way they always wanted to without being,"... hassled by the man" and being hassled by.. even wo-man, with their purse hitting you on the top of the head (laughs) RTDKiller style. There was a lot of people that were like if their morals were a little bit different then they would have probably been just like, "hey...what the fuck is that?!" But everybody was just like,"..yeah whatever". It wasn't really a problem back then you know what I mean? its a problem now, its like a serious problem now, you can't even fathom it, we can't even fathom it, we don't even know the seriousness of how much the cops are checking us out now, and you know I've heard a lot of writers and their biggest gripes are like oh you know, "there so many heroes out there.." its like na there's always been lots of heroes so kill that one, but the main thing I think now that's challenging for 90s writers going into the next millennium is the cameras..the cameras, you got all this high technology going on that their just trying to get you now. Look at my boy Gkae, they got him for so much time, and its like he's a graffiti writer. How are you gonna put a graffiti writer with my homeboys from south side, you know what I mean?

Q-Speaking on Gkae, we've actually asked a coupe of other writers, how do you feel about Gkae being in jail and locked up for a three term for doing graffiti?

I'm totally against it; I think we should all collaborate on something to get him out. But ain't no one trying to hear it though, really Stick. They ain't going to let Gkae out, its the system bro; to change that you would have to come on some next level, you know what I mean, to change that. Gkae ain't coming out, he's gonna do his time and you know he'll do his time well he's a good kid, IFK.

Q- Do you think that the charge of graffiti should equate to a felony and should even be a criminal charge or should it be no more than a civil penalty and being fined for the damage you do?

I think that people have taken it to suck a high level of just hating it so much, they just hate it so much bro; I think that Ed Koch ex mayor of New York City said it best that were just an eye sore to them; so there so sick of it, having to clean it up, people having to pay money for that, its like fuck that man, "were gonna catch these kids, were gonna put cameras out there, were gonna put people out there that just go out there and just do this." And there intentions are very malicious towards us; we all have to recognize that as writers, we have to guard ourselves, just like we would guard ourselves when we go into any specific neighborhood; when we do we have to recognize what were into right here...I ain't trying to put no philosophy down or nothing like this .. but you know were the last of it, you know what I mean, and they know it , they know it.

Q- Speaking about Mayor Koch and New York, you were out in NewYork in the late 80's how was that for you?

That was great, I basically got really invited and embraced so well from writers in New York city. I don't think no one really knew what writers were really about. When I hung out with Reas years, this is like maybe a year and half, two years before I even went out to the city, he was staying at my house, and we were bombing. And I'll tell you a really good story..that one day me Miner, actually I was like yo Miner let's go bombing with Reas and he's was like, "...yeah whatever." So we go bombing and I take him to what's now called the Panic Zone, back then it wasn't called the Panic Zone, no one really knew what was up with it, my boys from K2S put me up on it, and so I go down there, and were right there, were in Miner's car, Miner is driving us, we have no car, so Miner is driving us and so its me Miner and Reas and were putting our colors together and of course Reas don't have that much paint, were hosting him and he is supposedly our boy whatever, you know, anyway to make along story short, and not to make anyone look bad me and Reas just left and I know that kind of upset Dave and everything but the thing is that we were out there to bomb, that was the whole thing about graffiti, its not where your from really it should have been where you're at what were doing, what our mission was, you know what I mean?, so we triumphed through all that, and we went bombing, and I shared all my paint and we did this big ass.. and you've seen the picture of it, this big ass Reas and Wisk, and I'm standing in front of it and its like two times bigger than me, but back then it was gigantic. This is like two years before I'm even in New York bro, yeah actually that was the day he put me in AOK that was in uh.. 88, so 88' and then he comes out again but he brings out my boy Mesh, Jesto, JA , we all know what's up with that, who else comes out? Chisel came out, we just had a blast.. then they were just like, "yo you really need to get to the city man..." and I'm like talkin' about trains, I'm like, "..man what's that shit like?" That's what I wanted to basically do graffiti for is to bomb on trains that's the whole reason I wanted to gather my skills I wanted to get good I wanted to have control I wanted to do some shit for my own ... fun, just hella fun. And I get to the city, and the way I got to the city is because I did this the thing on Eye on LA no not Eye on La , the Today Show, and they paid me like five bills for like five minutes of talking man. I was just like "oh yeah whatever the city is screwing us were gonna screw them back, I'm standing in front of my piece...what have you.. so I get paid, I fly out there. Yo I'm thinking I'm just gonna visit and now I'm staying (laughs). And you know I was really thinking about it, out there one day is like one week out here, I was like how long did I really stay out there? I was out there and I kept on racking beer, food I was staying at my boy Reas's house, God bless him, and were totally just chilling, we would hook up with Ven and do trains and stuff, I cant say that many plural trains, but we would do a train and then another train, we wouldn't do just like "trains". We just did like panel down whole cars in the tunnels. I remember the first ones we did was like a five in the morning shot, I'm like damn , " what's up man why you waking me up?" He was like, "were going to go do a train.." this is Reas, I'm like ,"yeah man.." I wake up then I get all high, we'd get all buzzed out.. Then we walk down and we meet Ven and Ven's downstairs, they already had this all..just waiting to have fun; they're really great hosts out there I really appreciate all that; So were going bombing and I was like wow the tracks; when you jump into the tracks, like straight jumping from the platform onto the tracks right, so I was like I wanna be cool too shit, so I jump in tracks I'm like, "... ahh man that shit hurt, wo wow what the fuck?" you get used to it though, jumping in the tracks all the time, and its like you see the rats, and its like you just smell this its like I don't know , you can just tell there is just this mystique about the tunnels, it just makes it seem wow I'm supposed to be here, I'm supposed to do this its like where's my victim, where's my train, where's my target, where's my... were so hungry for it were just boning out through the tunnel looking for this train, thank God this train is right in the middle, just laying up right and Ven's like, (impersonating Ven) "....yo this train is laying up and shit, yo what the hell, yo Wisk you're gonna have fun.." and all this kind of stuff and Reas is telling him to shut up its like totally comedy, totally rad we just had a good old time, and were just like bombing this train and I'm like I get to the train and I'm thinkin I've seen all the pictures and the platform and how the train comes up, I had no fuckin' idea how huge this train is.. I remember reading in Subway Art, Dondi talking about this huge big crate of steel, he was describing all this shit, and now I know what he meant because when I got to that train I was like, ."...damn this shit is big!"

Q- You weren't on no platform, huh?

No I was on no platform I had to bust it right there in the lay-up, so its like we could only do a panel down, because that's about as high as we could reach, and Ven could barely reach that, so were just doing trains, and that was a good one. The greatest thing about that though is that Ven had the keys to the trains, so he would get in that car and just stay there until it would get out of the lay-up and he would take it to wherever it was..cause he knew all the lines and just pull the emergency chord and take hella flicks. We were so lucky to have Ven on our team, because he took flicks of all that shit. They were really cool back then, they had little writer's corners and they strategically meet at a certain time and see all the trains they did that whole week, or whatever, it was totally cool.

Q- Do you keep in contact with you're fellow New York members any more?

I talked to Reas the last part of last year, it was really cool to talk to my boy. People like JA, I haven't talked to in a while, and seeing him dis people again its like wow...

Q- Did you think that was over and it was old shit? Are you surprised to see that still happening?
Its kind of funny, because he's as old as he is doing what he does, you can't be mad at him for it, its kind of funny really but its kind of sad too, I don't want to talk about it too much, because that's the whole point of his thing, he just wants all of us to talk about him, so the less you talk about him whatever, its like he don't care about you he ain't never gonna care about you, so why care about him, you know what I mean? To talk about JA brings up a lot of bad things especially for my home town. My home town had to deal with some stuff and I've even been mixed up with it too. In the 90's going into the next millennium, all that shit is dead for me, all this graffiti stuff is way way way way different now. When you talk about retrospect from 80s to the 90s, there's the same problems, there is the same disrespect, there is the same lack of respect, there's the same understanding that its territorial out here, no one is all city no more, who's all city? the last person who got close was Gkae, but he didn't have the buses so he couldn't make it.

Q- Speaking on that note, what do you think you're roll will be in graffiti, if any, come the next millennium?

I'd be very comfortable to listen to a lot of writers and learn from a lot of writers, and would also like for a lot of writers to go ahead and pick my mind and if I'm able to teach anybody just based on my experience on anything that they can enjoy off it. Because this whole, you've heard it before, this whole thing is really for us; its the fraternal, its not an order, but its the fraternal atmosphere that we have that we don't even know it. We love each other talking about what we did, and how fresh our crews are and were the ones doing it; it feels good; for me to think about that and all the people that I ever met, man all I want to do now is just learn from people. There so many new people now, there so many new styles out there, people are doing some ill shit, the new school is really really coming off, but not no where near where we thought they would be.

Q- Beyond wanting to learn and teach, do you actually ever see yourself, physically, getting back into graffiti and to what capacity?

I think that if I ever was to go back into graffiti, I would be among people that would take it upon themselves to make even more of movement than what were making. Like if we really had to make a serious movement, like a serious serious movement and they needed some people that had experience, I would actually do graffiti, I would bomb, I would have battlefields, I would have maps, I would have crews of people going out and strategically bombing the city. That would be great, just to strategically bomb the city, but as far as me actually going out and doing graffiti, It would be really hard for me to do graffiti knowing that I have four red-headed kids to take care of and if I took my freedom away from them I would not only affect them I would affect my mind. Sitting up in jail thinking about my four kids and how stupid it was to rekindle anything I used to love like as far as not dealing with my kids, because that's what it really comes down to now. I don't see me doing it; but if its a controlled environment like the stuff we did last month, that was really cool. I would love that, I would love to do that once a month just meet with some writers, talk, I can just learn from them, they can learn from me, hopefully

Q- Do you have any last words, any last thoughts?

I got way too many shout outs. I just wanted to give mad love to my writing partner Ser. I just want to give made respect to him, him taking care of his kids. Back when I was writing he was the ears and eyes he never got stoned at all and he was just a great person to be around that's my boy. He didn't pass away or nothing but we haven't been able to see him, like we seen him once and he just ghost's on us. So like if he ever sees this I just want to tell him, "man I love you so much man..." that's all it is...All City.

-end of interview-