MTN WORLD

A few months have already passed since BLADE paid us a visit in Madrid to open our official shop in the capital of Spain, but we didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to rescue some remnants of photos and offer you all this mini-interview.

Produced by Frame TV.

What can you tell us about KING OF KINGS?

My name is Blade from the original ¨Crazy 5¨crew. Born back in 1957… started doing graf in New York in 1972, and now here I am chillin´ in Madrid, Spain!! Just Being me at 53! They put out the Blade King of Kings book, uhhh it´s put out by Henk Pijnenburg and he puts it out June 28^th 2009, so people can actually see the history of when I came along doing graf from 1972 to all the paintings I do in 2009, and June 3^rd 2010 I go to Beijing (China) to do the first solo show with Zhang Dali.

How do you see the art scene in Spain?

The art scene in Spain is actually really cool because I get to go to all different places in the world and get to see people being very hospitable here, very nice to my wife, Portia, and I, and it´s really nice to see the artwork from The Twins (Os Gemeos), from Mind and all the different people of Spain. They have taken an artform that began in 1970 in New York on the subways, and to see it 40 years later, for me thats absolutely phenomenal, to see the incredible evolution of the art-form. I´m hoping to meet the people from Barcelona next year so that I can spread the message of the way the art-form was in New York because it´s an art-form created by young people, for young people when it originated.

Have you tried Montana Colors sprays?

Well nah, I tried them once before from the Montana in Amsterdam… this is the first time I was lucky enough to come to Madrid, and it was nice when I got to the Montana shop, I got to see the actual Montana paint, MTN 94, and I actually get to use it today for the first time, and the fuckin´ stuff comes out like butter… real creamy, thick paint, thick coating paint and its really great. ¨its a take!¨

Can you tell us a little story about the Old School?

Every story I have of the Old School is Bad! Ha ha… Well, one story I can tell about the Old School is when me and Common were painting the Esplanade tunnel in 1976-´77 and there was these two cops: Freddie and Arnie that were assigned just to get us because we were doing like 4000 – 5000 trains each by the end of the seventies from when we started in the beginning… and they came into the Esplanade tunnel, the only underground painting place in the north east Bronx, and Common is on top of the train and the cops actually shoot off their gun, and in the seventies you never heard a cop shoot off his gun, they said “STOP! FREEZE!”, and it was like “yeah, yeah, right…” and then you run. They shot off the gun, Common is running along the top of the train and at the end of the train, where there were no more train cars left, you could see his shadow just going like this… leaping through the air, all the way down to the ground.

We actually get away from the police and they come to a place where we shoot hoops and play basketball on a playground back in the day, and they come over to us… and this big muscle cop grabs us and they take us down to the precinct and they start beating me up and they start beating Common up so that we tell them who we are… There are no rules in graff, but you never rat, ya know, cuz when the cops are beating me into the ground , the whole time I´m acting like “I´m not Blade, I don´t know what you´re talking about” and that´s it “I don´t know the guy, I wen´t into the park to play, and he just started playing with us”… while they keep saying “that´s fuckin´ Common, that´s the guy!”

I don´t know him, it´s just some guy, shootin´ hoops, guna go and have a beer… In1977 me and Common were 20 years old, so that´s what you did.

It´s an important thing for anyone out there using the Montana paint, that it is a great paint, but you should always wear gloves, and a mask, and NEVER do drugs, never, drugs are for suckers. That´s the most important thing for me… is it off???? ya know so the kids…

I want to thank everyone is Spain, and the most important thing is I want to send a special thank you to the twins from Brazil, for arranging the show so I can actually go to the Montana shop in Madrid. Big Ups to the Twins... Blade – Crazy 5.