LA River Graffiti Extravaganza!
The Bronx River in New York has a hip hop heritage (with shout-outs on BDP's 'South Bronx' song on their 1988 'Criminal Minded' album), but the LA River can't be left out...
Each year the 'river' plays host to graffiti artists from the surrounding cities, who all congregate to show love, skills and talent on the concrete walls. This year the 'Meeting of Styles' event was rained off until this weekend. (Yep, hours of rain in LA caused the water to rise too high to allow the graffiti artists to do their thang!)
Check out the video...
Meeting of Styles Some guys were painting with brushes...I had to ask, "how accepted is that by the other crews?" Imagine, these guys are using oil paints and brushes vs. the spraycan guys. It's like the original graffiti crews dissing the stencil artists; then the graff guys dissing the wheatpaste artists. But the oil and brush crew is ok?! The answer: "If the mural is wack it doesn't matter what, or how it's painted! If it's good, it's accepted." Hmmm.
Since the 90s, Meeting Of Styles has launched over 60 events in 16 countries across Europe and North America and attracted over 60,000 people?! That shows the power of hip hop and street art. On my visit there were mums with their kids there complete with wellington boots ready to roam the river bed.
Eurotrash Ironically, this very American event was inspired by events in Germany in the 90s. Damn, the Krauts are running hip hop! The strangely worded background story can be found here. In summary, it's something about an abattoir closing and becoming a bit derelict which attracted the graff artists. When the site was threatened by demolition, the graffing Krauts said: "Yo, that can't be real, we got to do something about that!" Image it in German ;-) See the history and images at WallStreetMeeting.de
Make Money, Money Big up to Make One for hipping me to this graffiti extravaganza!
Labels: Graffiti, Hip Hop, LA River, Los Angeles, Meeting of Styles
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