What Is Hip Hop Graffiti?

Hip Hop graffiti or the practice of painting on walls started in the mid to end of the 60's. The initiative was made by writers like Cornbread and Cool Earl in Philadelphia. However, it was made famous in the early 70's, by Taki183. Tagging or the earliest form of graffiti has been traced back to a man called Vic, who was a mail courier delivery assistant. He made up his mind to go to each subway and board every bus in New York and started to write his name and his courier ID number on every subway and bus he rode. Around the same time, various other graffiti styles from writers like Case2 and Lee163d became a common sight. During the mid to late 70's, bubble letter throw-ups literally appeared all over the New York transit system.

"Wild Style" is a film by Fab 5 Freddy and directed by Charlie A hearn. It features the first full-length description of all the four distinguishing elements of hip hop culture; graffiti, DJ-ing, MCing, and B-boying. Another all time favourite which is followed by a documentary of subway graffiti in New York is the popular "Style Wars", directed by Tony Silver. It is aired on PBS and features many question answer sessions with famous graffiti writers like Crash, Daze, Zephyr, Revolt, Kase2, Haze and Seen.