The Birth of Graffiti: Notes from the 215 Festival

Mr. Naar makes no claim to be a hip-hop scholar and there is little chance one would mistake him for one. He had the air of a well-worn academic, complete with an almost British accent, throughout his soft-spoken talk on his newest book, The Birth of Graffiti, a collection of mostly unpublished photos of the NY scene. At times he seemed almost embarrassed, insisting that he has done much work outside of graffiti, and downplaying some of the praise heaped on his subject matter. Still, despite the apprehension, there was clearly a tenderness for the people behind the art and their stories. The photos themselves are beautiful and understated. The graffiti in those days was crude in comparison to the sprawling tags we see today and his framing of them did much to highlight the frank rawness of '70s New York. Often the pictures are just of walls filled with names as high as a person could reach. Many showed the writers pointing over the shoulder at their creations, their heads turned, smirking off-stage. Mr. Naar had the stories behind some of his subjects and did his best to document the writers he encountered. With some he established friendships that lasted years, while others he lost contact with or never found. Overall, he seems a man conflicted with his connection with the medium. In his own words, "I am a photographer. I just shot what was around me." Regardless of his intent, his work still holds up today as an important early look at a culture that would soon sweep the world.

In sharp contrast with Mr. Naar, “Cornbread” McCray came on stage full of excitement and filled with stories. Like many people, I always thought all things hip-hop started in New York, preferably Brooklyn. Of course, being a Philly native, I said this with the requisite amount of screwface on. I mean….just because new york is New York don't mean I have to let them, you know, let it get their heads all big like they ALL THAT or something, you know? But I digress. If it is so that graffiti was hip-hop’s first words, it just may be that Philly was the culture’s pre-school.

The story goes that a cool decade before Jon Naar started The Faith of Hip-hop, one Darryl A. "Cornbread" McCray fell in love. Lonely after his recent release from reform school, Darryl quickly started crushing on Cynthia, known authoritatively as the prettiest girl in their school. Darryl was a ladies man, even in those days, but it seems Cynthia was a hard nut to crack. His jitterbug talk didn't appeal to her father and he gained a reputation far and wide as being "mischievous." Not one to give up without a fight, Darryl set on the best romance-based ad-campaign since Hallmark, scrawling everywhere and on everything "Cornbread loves Cynthia." All the while, he managed to keep his true identity a secret, leading to a firestorm around the school as to who this Cornbread was. After the appropriate amount of time, Darryl revealed his secret identity and the pair embarked on a sweet, destined love affair. But it was not to last. Fearing Cornbread's power and charisma, Cynthia's father banished her to another school just a few months later. Darryl was saddened by the loss. But by then, Cornbread had taken on a life larger than petty romance. With all the acclaim it got him at school, Darryl reasoned, tagging just might be his ticket out of the hood.

He started with walls. Walls all over the city, in every hood and on every turf. Despite the inherent danger in the marking of unknown territory in the late '60s, Cornbread claimed all of Philly as his stomping grounds and was credited by some for uniting rival gangs. By ’68 the whole city had taken notice of him, so much so that his death was mistakenly reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer after the shooting of a youth known in the streets as Corn. Seeing this as an opportunity to take his fame to the next level, several days later Darryl snuck into the Philadelphia Zoo and tagged "Cornbread Lives" on the side of an elephant. A few weeks after that, officials where shocked to see every floor of their newly built Center City skyscraper covered with Cornbread. A fake shooting was staged drawing police away from their cars so that Cornbread could go everywhere the pig did. And in his most daring stunt, Darryl McCray managed to write a nod to himself and Philadelphia on the side of the Jackson Five's personal jet and had, in his words, "a mental orgasm" as Cornbread flew into the sky, travelled across the country, and touched down in Hollywood. The inevitable copycats followed, tagging every square inch of Philadelphia from City Hall to the Liberty Bell and leading years later to Wilson Goode's crackdown, the establishment of the city's famed mural arts program, and quite possibly inspiring taggers in New York, San Fran, London and beyond. Love can do some crazy things.

In all seriousness though, I honestly felt conflicted about my stance while walking out of the talk. Sure, it’s an amazing story and all, but could it be that the basis for my beloved hip-hop could just be a kid with a crush on a girl and a thing for having his name in the papers? Is it true that the first person in art’s establishment to acknowledge graffiti as art actually stumbled on it completely by accident? Where is the Che-style radical artist making a statement against the futility of public property?

Instead, what we got was stark photos of teenagers putting up their names for no reason but to claim a place of their own. We got the stories of kids one-upping each other in acts equal parts ballsy and stupid. No pretensions, no aspirations, just action for the fun of the moment. The things kids do. Can art spring from such places? Picasso once said he spent his whole life trying to draw like he did when he was five. For all the thought, ego, and thought of ego that went into his and other career artists' lives, I wonder if they’d envy the chance to just go to their home street, take in the sight of it and sign?