Spit the graffiti villain was supposedly based off some real tagger named Cap. So my question is why the hell was he defacing other tagger's murals? And who was Cap and why did he do it?
shareyeah. i was wondering that too, since spit doesn't really have and depth in the movie
shareIf you watch Style Wars, CAP explains that his motivation is basically to ruin other people's work and get his name out there. He was an older white guy from the Morris Park area of the Bronx. By older, I mean like late teens / early 20s (considering most of the graf writers were in middle and high school). He just didn't have the talent of the other artists and so compensated by tagging over their burners.
shareHe also explains that he's trying to get as many pieces on as many trains as possible, more of a mass-production type of thing, and that, if anybody EVER goes over one of his pieces, even just once, he will go over theirs FOREVER.
shareCap sounds like an a-hole. But I guess there's always a hater in the mix. Don't blame the world because you're a hack.
shareactually i don't think cap was an a$$hole. while others have touched on some of the reasons for his tagging actions based on style wars i think what's missing is the backdrop during his 'reign of terror'. graff'ing started as tagging (quantity over quality)...so you are ellison's invisible man in the modern world so you want those in your community to 'see' you, so you create a tag and try to 'get up'. with each instance you are increasing your chances of getting caught and with increased police attention you will get noticed by folks within your community. out of tagging comes full on burners (top to bottom car pieces - wall pieces - etc) and a host of 'instant' stars like Dondi (RIP) who are not only getting up but now their names are 'ringing out' (those outside of the given community are recognizing their talent) as folks try to go 'all city' (your masterworks encompassing trains in all five boroughs of the city). so cap who is old school who thinks it was never about getting 'commissioned' pieces or getting downtown art gallery representation, it was always about the immediate community and their recognition so he decides that he's bringing it back to the hood (cause if there's a multi stamp of CAP over a piece before you can take a picture then it's kinda hard to shop yourself to the downtown art scene). i've seen some of caps full pieces and he definitely has talent (unsung talent but talent none the less)...which you can't get from a tag alone (cause again it's about quantity not quality). overall, i think the reasoning behind cap's tagging efforts are valid and is part of the world of adolescent flexing...to this day he is love's the art form, respects the art form and should be respected for being apart of it's history (of course the irony is that while he railed against the success of others ringing out -- his action would cause him to be immortalized through beat street as the character spit).
shareWORD.
sharewell you might act the same if your name was spit!
but then again, i'm not so sure, lol - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msmDSxv5eO0
**SPOILER ALERT**
I've read the posts on this thread, no one seems to realise that what was going on here was Spit just didn't have enough business sense to create his own work and so he trashed other artists.
But I think the real problem is that none of the artists owned the "canvases" they worked on and so a destructive person like Spit couldn't be prevented from doing what he was doing. This nonsense goes on with street vendors all the time. Check out the sad scene that is going on in Venice Beach for how bad it's gotten. Legitimate ownership solves all these problems.
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That was basically how grafitti artists battled back then. You went over someone else's work to get your name out there, then they went back over yours.
share
Very destructive and then the police have a legit reason to crack down on everybody and everybody loses, public included.
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That was basically how grafitti artists battled back then. You went over someone else's work to get your name out there, then they went back over yours.