It’s not everyday a Brooklyn girl heads up to the Bronx. I hear “Tats Cru” have their headquarters up there. Tats Cru are these amazing graffiti artists that are natives to the Bronx and take their job seriously. I enter “The Point”, and it’s named “The Point” after it’s neighborhood, Hunts Point.
I spot Bg working on a banner, up on a ladder, spray can in hand. He welcomes me and tells me Bio is on the roof painting. I get to the roof and find Bio, spray can in hand, finishing up a piece.
Then Nicer arrives, we are all talking about the Bronx and graffiti. How and Nosm are traveling.
I’ve always been interested in how a graffiti writer gets their name. I feel it’s an art form in itself.
Nicer- I was always experimenting with names and I used to write Nice, writers practice with what letters they write the best with. In the 80′s, writers would add endings to their names also.
I did a piece with an R at the end. Around that time a friend introduced me to someone as Nicer and I liked how it sounded, so I kept the name.
Bio-In 1979, I used to write Vio, and a friend named Vue, wrote a tag with B. I liked the way it looked and kept it. Besides another friend started calling me violin, so I was in need of the change.
BG183- I used to play baseball as a kid and would “bring”in the batter. I took the letters from bring,B and G. The number 183 comes from people always telling me I had 183 different styles.
What was Tat’s Cru first paid gig?
Nicer: In 84 or 85 we got hired to paint an auto supply/bmx shop’s gate front. We discovered the shop had a ton of spray paint and our only mission was to jack as much paint as we could. We were young and had no other means of getting supplies. We didn’t even care about the money. We were so excited about the paint. We would take paint and tell the owner we needed more paint. Did the owner get suspicious? No, he just started to complain about all the paint we were using.
When did you realize graffiti was getting the respect as an art form?
Bio- Once writers like Crash and Daze started getting into gallery shows, I knew it was becoming something. But I didn’t care about the galleries back then, all I wanted to do was paint the trains.
Did you ever think you were going to make it as a graffiti artist in the art world?
Nicer- No, I painted just to paint. If you were to ask me 20 years ago, if graffiti would be as world wide or have access to all sorts of graf programs on the internet, I would have predicted impossible. Now all sorts of corporations are using graffiti. I think when it is used, it’s our generation that knows about it and appreciates it.
Any infamous bombing stories?
Bio-In 85′,BG and I were on the elevator tracks at the lay ups by Zerega Ave. in the Bronx. We realized detectives were there. BG looked around and saw there were cops everywhere. How did you get away? We ran and ran until we got to the next train station and would go down on these poles in the train station. All for the sake of painting? Yes