PlayOne Interview

When did you start writing?

First got into graffiti in 1996, I was a sketchbook graffeetist for the first 3 years or so, I went out and did a few tags now and then. I wrote on every desk in my high school. But I really only started piecing in 1999. It wasn’t until Noksy started painting in 2001 that a fire got lit under my arnuse and I started painting every weekend.

How did you choose your tag?

Because graffiti is fun and like to play… Um honestly, the older writers will verstaan my buscuit, but the younger ones will have no clue what the fuck I’m on about. The truth is I was a huge fan of House Party and by the time House Party 3 came out I thought I was Play, from the ‘Kid and Play’ combo!

What or who got you into painting?

When I was in primary school, once a month Mom would take me and my younger sis to town to walk around the flea market and eat breakfast. We would ride the Cape Flats line from Wetton to Cape Town Central. The pieces were quite saturated between each station. The stuff that there was, was always full colour steez. The first name i could read was obviously Falko, that piece was full colour with a black and white character next to it. After that just about any new piece of graffiti I noticed had Falko’s name saam wirrit. Dunno what happend to that Falko oke? He probably became a stand up comedian or something.
After that I bought The Source magazine monthly, spent 40 bones to get one page of graffiti out of it. It was New York wild styled the fuck out, I started copying the letters and messing around with characters. In 1996 when Spot started drawing his own letters, then he introduced me to Shy and his brother. The first time we all went out painting we bought Aerowak tins for R2 a tin(makes me sound kak old). We were listening to Luniz at the time, four of us worked on one LUNIZ piece, we had no idea what the poes we were doing. After that we walked around doing tags and outlines, we wore adidas, so we did big adidas outlines… Seriously dude, and pieces that said OLD SKOOL. After that we started PPC, (Paint Pervertz Crew). Soon after Spot and I found fairways line and painted there for years, doing full colour pieces with Spectra and Sprayon! We painted Fairways again the other day and realised 10 years prior we painting the same wall, crazy!

What is your favourite piece you have ever done?

I usually hate most of the things I paint, I can always find things I coulda done better. But there are a few I dig. I would say it’s a toss up between The Toxic piece I painted with Ekon in Durban and the Bones piece done with Werds, Korps, Eron and Lase in Joburg.

What do you ultimately want to achieve through graffiti?

That’s a great fuckin question, NOTHING! Don’t get me wrong being a writer has taught me shit loads of things, good and bad. I’d like to get more technical with my pieces, the kinda shit that makes people think you have photoshop installed in you hand, like Rasty. But, at the end of the day I never want graffiti to become my way of earning an income. I like to keep my 9 to 5er seperate from painting. Who really wants to paint graffiti as your job? Everyday?

I reckon I’d start to hate that shit. If you can hook up a commision now and again, make cash, get extra paint, by all means, rock that shit. I prefer writing my name on the weekend, kinda like playing sport, minus all the jock bullshit and showering with other men. Although Caxe and myself take a hot shower together after every wall and talk about how rad our burners were that day, that’s just how we do!

Many graffiti artists such as yourself now work as illustrators or graphic designers… Did you study to become an illustrator?

Nah, with illustration I’m self taught boet. When I left high school I wanted to be an animator, at the time there were no schools that offered that kinda course. So the next best thing was Graphic Design, I chose the design school that offered the shortest course which was two years. I really enjoyed that course.
I couldn’t find work after I left there though. Then I worked in a video shop for a year earning a whopping R200 a month. Until one of lecturers, who was still a mate of mine hooked me up with a job at a film company. The fucked up thing was Ekon was working there as a sound engineer at the time. I got a kak DTP job at that place, which i hated. My amazing tasks inluded folding, printing, packing dvds, doing kak websites and making loads of coffee. But, Ekon and I used the time to print stickers, I downloaded my brains out, built up my dvd collection, visited every graffiti site on the planet, twice.
While doing this job I hated I got a few freelance illustration jobs. The thing is in those days I was amazed corporate people wanted to pay me to draw… Actually, I’m still kinda amazed at that! One day, I made my full salary for a month of DTP bullshit, in four days doing illustration work! I was hooked on that shit. These jobs came at least once a month. My boss at the old job was giving me soooo much kak for falling asleep at work. Anyway after 5 years I left that DTP/Graphic design bullshit job. I started working as an illustrator full time and have been ever since. Nowadays I do a daily comic strip which pays my bills.

What illustration projects are you working on at the moment?

Between my 9 to 5er and Roadkill, it’s hard to dalla freelance. Plus my style isn’t everyone’s cuppa tea. I’ve started an illustration company called CHEST OF DRAW’ ERS, which is made of: myself, Fong and Spot. But, like with anything freelance, there are months filled with work and months where it’s a bit droeg broetjie. I always make time to work on personal projects to keep myself sane. I’ve recently got myself a bamboo wacom tablet, which basically allows you to draw on a mouse pad and whatever you draw appears on screen, fuckin awsum! I love it, I can apply graffiti tequniques to digital painting, plustens, you have the advantage of CTRL Z.

Who is your favourite South African writer that you have never met before?

I’ve met everyone who’s work I think is mooi, gevaarlik, duideluk, rad, lank kief, tits. My fav SA writer has always been Ekon, even in the AMP37 days. The destruction I saw back in 1996 were in subways, just throwies and tags. He had a mean throw up and sick handsteez. It’s not just because we been mates from years, Ekon oozes style, with ease. He can just sit down and draw burner after burner and still owns killer handstyles. He’s the kinda naai that burns you with your style! Anyway that’s enough sucking Ekons cock, we save that for
our walls.

Describe the craziest situation that you have been in as a result of graffiti?

In 2006 we planned a trip to Durban for the annual Poison City Jam, in the begining 10 dudes were going with us. By the end it was just myself, Ee Wee Zee and Moteezy. Keep in mind Ekon and myself didn’t know Motel at all, she was really sweet young lady when we met her and super gullible. BY the end of that trip we had corrupted her widdle mind.
Also this was the year that I started drinking. Ekonomizzle and myself drank Autum Harvest on the way to the airport, beers at spur before boarding and double brandy and coke on the plane. We were fucked by the time we got to Dirtbin. We drank for 12 days, barely ate, besides beer sandwiches. On the first night we went to the skate park to paint. I was kak drunk, I didn’t bother to paint, Ekizzle and Mizzle did fuckin terrible pieces in their drunken state. I got a black eye that night, I was walking up to writers and civilians beggin them to punch me in the face! Eventually I got a kid in the skate park to man up, after calling him a pussy 15 times. He turned it into some WWF rukke, punched me and kneed me in the same eye. That’s what I get for sporting a mohawk to Durban.
I got stories for days on that trip. Was probably the most fun I had since I started painting. “We all friends here, how about a squeeze of your pune pune?!”

Pick your three favourite international writers and explain why you chose them.

Three, hard to cut it down to just three dudes. I’d have to wys Cheo, Hombre and Pixel Juice. Cheo has taken that Bode style to the next level, whatever he draws or paints always looks like he has shitloads of fun. Hombre was the first dude I saw rock that vector style, which has become the new black with character writers. His style may look simple, but he paints it flawlessly. Pixel Juice isn’t as well know as the previous two, but he’s ricky ricardo ridiculous! I can’t wrap my mind around how he’s able to paint such intricate characters, plus his concepts are insane!

What do you think the weaknesses of the Cape Town graffiti scene are?

People are gonna hate me for this, some of my mates do this kinda thing aswell. I hate writers that put “YO”(insert your friends name here) next to every piece, dub, throw up and tag they do. YOU are not fuckin American. How often do you say, YO what up dawg, when you see that dude? Why, do it with graff spray shout outs? Can’t you say Aweh, Hosh, Jy jou naai, Gwala, Howsit, Kyk Hier My Bru and then your bra’s name, instead of YO! That’s my pet hate!
As for a major problem with the scene is the older generation doesn’t lend a helping hand, lead and kak out the younger generation. There’s a huge lack of respect, there are people being arrogant when they have fokal to be arrogant about, you’re a ripple in a huge ocean!
Other than that, I think we have a strong scene, bombing is sterk, steel is just as sterk, legals have been slackin over the last few years. Most writers do can only write their names(usually poes big), do minimal background and no characters. But the scene keeps growing, so maybe in future things will pic up on the legals side.

What would be your advice to someone who wanted to start graffiti?

Play chess rather, join the gym, go to tiger tiger. Graffiti is one big gays and their wives wankathon. Smile in each others faces then talk behind your back. Politics and internet bullshit.

You have recently become a father, has that changed your attitude towards graffiti?

Dude… It was the heaviest, most exiting, happiest and kak nervous day of my life when he was born. Watchin my boy grow everyday is the most rewarding thing in my life at the moment. My attitude towards graff will never change. Time has become a factor though for me and my wife, if I have the chance to paint or to spend time with the laatie and her, I’m gonna choose them. It means I’m gonna paint less, but also when I do paint… I’m going all out, to up my game. Instead of tryna paint once a week, I’m probably gonna paint once a month. But I will keep focusing on sketching, canvases and digital painting. Just before he was born I started painting cutesy kinda monsters incy and super herowy characters. But now I’m back to evil organic kinda style, probably due to the lack of sleep… HAHA.

Are you going to encourage your son to paint?

Good question… It doesn’t really matter to me. If he wants to be a professional chess player, that’s what he must do! My folks supported me in drawing and graffiti. They never forced me to do thing normal kids did: play sports, climb trees you know general kiddie fun. I sat on the floor with my sketchbook and drew as a kid, no matter where we were! When I hit 13 I started painting. My parents stood by both those decisions, all the way. And now I paint every other weekend and my 9 to 5er is mostly illustration work and a lil comic strip.

What motivates or drives you to paint?

Lately it’s Tanja and Kayden, Flickr, Eric Cartman, Creature Box, Invader Zim, Seinfeld, Black Labels, Jesus, People’s Facebook Profile Pics Updates, Happy Tree Friends, Pixar Movies, Masala Steak Gatsby’s from Cosy Corner, Summer Heights High, We Can Be Heroes, Isidingo, The Naartjie character in that Oros advert, Stand Up Comedy, Montage Music, Jiggy Hip Hop, Grayskull, Jedi Mind Tricks and Isaak Mutant.

You never seem to repeat the same outline, how do you keep coming up with new stuff?

I can’t wrap my head around people doing the same outline over and fucking over, they just add kak arrows, cracks and bubbles and then call it their style? You might aswell do one piece and photoshop it onto a million walls. Plus it’s kak boring, what do you know about yourself if you don’t take time to do new outlines everyday. The thing about Cape Town is that if you don’t dalla the flavour of the months style or steal techniques… you get dissed heavily. MAKE sure all your pieces have cracks, bubbles, bricks, broken walls and flames!!!!!
I don’t praise my “style”, I just enjoy painting it. In the beginning it was all about making the character/letters funny, just pissing myself at the wall or sketching sessions with MoterBike and Ballbag, watching Spongebob and South Park drinking Cobra Black, and the sentences would start with, “Dude, it would kak funny if i added… an aids ribbon or nailed a penis, little bits of maskin tape, and booties to my outline”. I try take a new sketch to every single wall, especially when I do character-letters, when I paint individual characters I use reference pic or a doodle. I’ve been collecting reference for about 10 years, I have files and files and load of books… To accompany that I sieker have about 200gigs worth of reference on my PC. I borrow shading ideas, colours and even style(vector, 2d, 3d, photoshopy) and then just a bietjie play flavour to end result. Very rarely do I paint someone else’s characters, but when I do I always give them credit. If I didn’t do this I would just be another watchoootooo biter!
My biggest influence on my style on the moment is the ouens at Creature Box, they are next level. They have a heavy influence on my drawing and style. When I’m unmotivated and hating my everything I draw, I visit their site to get a fix.

What have been your defining experiences with creating and running the Roadkill magazine?

When we started it was very small, 50 issues at R100 per mag, it was just as an experiment. Seeing as there was no other SA graffiti mag available, unless you count the old juice mags and Mak’s mag, we thought it was about time there was something new. The feed back from the first mag was insane. The first issue took about a month to put together and was supposed to be an online mag. But I’m glad we decided to print hard copy.
The demand for Issue 2 was heavy and we got loads of feedback good and bad, I almost lost dear friends over the mag. Issue 2 took 8 months to finish, 30 - 40 meetings to try get a publisher and advertisers on board. We could easily have got us a goverment sponsor if we took out all the illegal shit. But we wanted a mag we would want to buy. We never sold out, no matter what, during the 6 months of late nights of designing and redesigning, sorting pics, retouching,re-colouring, arguments, sleepness nights, rejection and low self-esteem. The only money we made off issue 1 got stolen out my flat so we decided to bite the bullet and pay for it ourselves, which was risky for me with baby coming. But this was something we couldn’t let die. With Issue 2 we were able to print 1000 copies and sell them for R50 a copy!
Also it’s only two of us that put roadkill together. It gets fucking insane. Issue 3 will be bigger and badder, but these things take time and money, so be patient graf okes. At this point we have over 12 000 pics from all over SA in our archive. We have an awesome following of people who are hungry for Issue 3. You dudes keep the mag alive! Things will become more regular in the future, we won’t let RoadKill die!

What made you decide to print Roadkill rather than going with the much cheaper option of publishing it online?

We get that question from loads of corporate mense, the truth is, the internet has become a comment machine. You have to paint this weekend so you can upload and people can give you props. Flickr is like facebook for writers, changing you profile pic is like uploading your latest piece, look what I did and praise me. Also toys get fame for painting in their back garden. But then, it’s a mal way to make contacts and I need to know what my UK homies are up to, seeing as it will be a kak expensive round of beer to fly over and suip with them. I’m straying off the topic! It’s simple really, we wanted something you can hold in your hand, something I can sit on the toilet and read. To put my desktop pc on my lap eveytime I need to take a kak would be a mission!

What are your plans for the future of Roadkill?

We have loads of ideas, the main one being a proper graffiti battle, healthy competition is the answer for graffiti in SA, a comp that can offer ridiculous prizes! There are a few other plans for next year, which we can’t hype up quite yet. The brand will grow mense!

How do you explain graffiti to the general public?

Creative garbage, I love spaghetti but I have shit ontop of it, township art, gravity. These are the words I use to explain it, at this point in graffiti in Cape Town, people either love it or they hate it. When you go ask for walls you can expect either side of the coin. With the idea of the bylaw(which hasn’t happend) freaks people out. Plus I reckon everything’s getting buffed before 2010!

What are the biggest differences you have seen between South Africa’s major graffiti cities?

Roadkill gives us the chance advantage of seeing all major cities in SA because of the pics we’re sent on a daily basis. Based on what we have in Issue 3, Joburg is far head of Cape Town in legals, and they have more destruction, dirty throw ups and tags. We however have big chrome pieces, which seem to get neater and neater and the spots are so blantant I have no idea how they are pulled off and our train scene is booming compared to the other cities. Pretoria scene is growing slowly. Eastern Cape has a scene now to thanks to Bief. Durbans scene is a mix match, there’s a hand full of amazing writers up there. Even East London has a tiny scene.

Any Shout-outs?

Spotagous, Cade-0-masicust, Ekonomy, Balrizzak, Big Toe, Moteezy, Smeteraga Laaitie, Wizzerds, Pasta Rasta, Curio, Kay Pee, Machine Man, Mesi, TRD, QK, FUK, OTC, PCP and everyone who supported RoadKill from the get go!