MESR (WKT ZEE AMC)

1:What do you write , how long have you been writing (year started), and why did you get involved in it ?

I’ve been writing since 1997 and I got involved in what is known as “graffiti” because of my interest in hip-hop and skateboarding and because I always loved drawing letters. My homies at the time were also getting into it. Prior to that, because I lived in a highly Hispanic populated area, I messed around with drawing lowriders and cholo lettering and stuff. And even before that, I drew the word “Dad” for my dad a bunch of weird ways and he still has it framed in his house. I think I did that around age 9 or ten, so I’ve basically been doing typography based art for most of my life. Graffiti is in my blood.

2:How did you get your name ?

My dad used to bump a BB King (I think) song when I was a kid and the lyrics of the hook went something like “Don’t mess with the messer cus the messer’s gonna mess with youuuuu.” So I liked the way “Mesr” sounded and it could be broken down into four or five letters. I liked the letter combinations as well and I lived that it sounded a bit aggressive, because I’m kind of under cover aggressive.

3: Who were your biggest influences and why?

I can’t really cite any single influence but I’ve been influenced by a lot of things. Early on, because I lived in the cuts, my only source of graffiti would be through magazines I picked up on my travels to bigger cities as well as the few kids that lived around me who painted, most of which ended up being my crew. I try to look everywhere for inspiration, whether it be signage, graphic design, fine art or whatever. I can even get inspiration for color schemes from the way produce is arranged at the grocery store. So my biggest influence is really just life. But in terms of style, I like simple but funky shit with a little bit of that west coast aggressiveness thrown in the mix. Shit has to be legible though.

4: Whats your Favorite type of graffiti?

Continuing on from my answer above, my favorite shit is legible, but funky and creative. I like traditional shit, but I also have a lot of respect for people who really push the boundaries todo something super original and different. People like Jenks, Chip7, Geso, Knistt and Cuate are a few that come to mind that are always pushing the boundaries and doing shit in a way that is different from everyone else. That being said, I like a lot of traditional stuff too. It really just comes down to having solid letter structure and making sure your letters are the focus, not random extraneous nonsense around the letters.

5: Do you consider graffiti Hip Hop? and if not where did you pick it up from and what group do you think it falls in?

I do consider graffiti hip-hop, but I also think it’s much bigger than hip-hop today. Today I think it’s become one of the most powerful global art movements that will go down in history as changing the art world as we know it. If you look back in art history you have different movements, but NONE of them spread like wildfire like graffiti has and none of them created simply for the sake of creating. Graffiti doesn’t get you paid and writers do it simply for the love. It’s the absolute purest form of art ever. It’s all about the process, not the final product, because the final product is temporary at best. It’s a completely different paradigm that will go down in history as turning the “art” world on it’s head. I love that I’m a part of that.

6: Whats your favorite type of music?

I like a lot of shit from punk to classic rock to hip-hop and all sorts of shit in between but my favorite would be underground hip-hop. I like anything that is intelligently made. I hate most mainstream garbage that you hear on the radio. Shit makes me want to stab my ears with a scribe!

7: Whats the difference to you between Graffiti and Gang graffiti to you?

Not much these days honestly. Regular graff can easily turn into gang warfare as I’ve seen myself. I’ve knocked plenty of fools out over graffiti beef. I guess the main difference would be that we’re not battling over geographic areas as much as we are battling to keep our name and our crews up. I don’t care if your crew paints in my neighborhood, but the second you go over my crew or my name, it’s on. Another difference is the style of lettering. Gang graffiti has a long tradition of handed down styles, kind of like folk art and there’s really not as much freedom or variation in the styles of gang graffiti or “placas.” In traditional graffiti, there’s a lot more freedom and we put a lot more time and energy into perfecting our craft. We’ll spend hours rocking a super colorful piece, when a gang might spend 15-20 minutes and only use two to three colors. The goal in traditional graffiti is to fight the system, not each other, although beef does happen. With gangs, it’s all out war on basically anyone anwhere and the drama and violence is a big part of what they’re about.

8: Fruity pebbles or coco pebbles?

Neither, I stay off the rocks.

9: Are you in your prime as of right now? and if not when do you think your prime was?

I stay in my prime my dude. I get better with age. The more I know, the better I am at playing this game we call life. I may not be painting as much this moment as I have in the past, but that doesn’t mean shit to me. I always stay active in one way or another and I’ll crush shit in waves. So today y’all will be sleepin on me and tomorrow you’ll see my name as soon as you walk out on your doorstep. Like to fuck with people like that, like “where the fuck did this guy go???” and then “boom,” here I am fuckers!

10: Whats your favorite city that you have painted and why is it your favorite?

San Francisco and NewYork City. Just something about crushing shit in the east and west coast graffiti meccas. It’s fucking magical and makes me feel like a kid again. It’s easy to forget graffiti is illegal in those cities and just wil’ out and go nuts. Not to mention, people from all over the world travel to these two cities so it’s a good way to get your name out there. The bay will always have a place in my heart. If I could only paint one more place before I died, it would be SF. Europe is super dope too though, and super lax on graff. If I had to pick a European city, I’d say Prague is the business. Painted a piece right on the metro line in broad daylight there like it was legal. Pretty fun.

11: What do you think of people getting jail time for graffiti ?

Think it’s pretty funny. Unless it’s me of course. Don’t even get me started on our injustice system. The prison industrial complex makes it impossible for any real “justice” to be carried out in our country. Far too man private parties and corporate interests are at play. Rich fucks get their bread up if they keep the grey bar hotels packed to the brim. So if they can lock fools up for basically coloring outside the lines, they will. The tax payers pay for each prisoner and in turn the “corrections” companies get paid big time. So it’s not just the prisoners that get fucked, it’s tax payers at large. Once rehabilitation and education becomes more profitable than filling prisons, only then will we start to see some real justice. That being said, if you write graffiti, and do it the way it’s meant to be done, ILLEGALLY, then getting locked up is just par for the course. Just stay on your p’s and q’s and know when to chill out if shit is getting too hot. And don’t snitch on yourself(or anyone else) on Instagram or whatever other bullshit profile you might have.

12: Do you still drink 40’s and if so whats your favorite brand to drink?

I don’t drink any alcohol or fuck with any drugs at all. I prefer to have a clear head so that I can execute everything I do as intelligently as possible. I did used to drink and fuck around with drugs years ago, but eventually realized it’s not for me. Paint sober if you can.

13: How do you feel about the graffiti trend and as well as being used for everything now a days (clothing,lunch boxes , hats , etc…..)

It’s kind of funny to me, but doesn’t surprise me. Every aspect of hip-hop and other subcultures has eventually been exploited so it was bound to happen. If there’s a way to make money off of something, the culture vultures will figure it the fuck out. The shit that I find most humorous is these graffiti abatement companies or “graffiti buster’s” phone lines and shit that will straight up use graffiti style fonts or lettering for their ads or the side of their trucks. It’s like, if you hate this shit so much, why the fuck you jocking our culture? I think most of these Jim Connolly types really have a secret love affair with graffiti, wishing they had the balls to be writers themselves. Fake ass marks never will though, and will only keep jocking while driving around in their graffiti covered vans.

14: Do you have a chase story that people would like to hear one that you almost shit your self during?

I have a plethora of chase stories, but I have pretty good control of my bowels so I never almost “shit myself” during any of these. Many years ago, probably around 2002 or so, I was bombing in downtown L.A. with two of my boys before a show at this place called Grand Avenue. We got there early for the show, but still late enough to catch some tags. We were walking around the fashion district and each had a can just for catching some tags. I reached up and caught a tag on one of those green canopies that cover store fronts. So it was kind of obvious because I had to reach up. I turn around behind me and see a white truck with orange lights kind of far away, but close enough to have seen me reach up. The truck pulls up alongside but a little bit behind us and literally drives as slow as we walk. We turn the corner to the right and I walk quickly down this alley and throw my paint up onto a fire escape before the guy in the truck could see me do it. I turned around and walked out of the alley acting like I just took a piss. We walk a little further with the idiot in the truck following us, make another right turn and break for it and run, we run through a few lots and a few blocks etc. and I’m not the quickest dude because I’m well over 250 and 6 and a half feet tall and I run across this intersection. Right in the middle of the intersection another idiot in a white truck with orange lights blocks me as the first one catches up. They were communicating on radios. My two boys got away and back to our car. They put me in a bus stop near by, grilling me about graffiti and why was I catching tags on shit. It turns out the white trucks were the “LA Fashion District Patrol” and had the same legal authority as real cops in that area as far as I know. I had a water bottle in my hoodie front pocket and I wouldn’t admit to shit. I kept saying I didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about and that we just went for a walk and took a piss. The idiot that was following us in his truck kept asking me “where’s the pray spaint,” Yes, he said “where’s the pray spaint,” like he was dyslexic or some shit. So being the smart ass I am, I said “I don’t know what the fuck pray spaint is and I don’t have shit.” He didn’t seem amused and asked me to empty my pockets and I showed him the water bottle, which he of course thought was going to be a can of paint. He continued to grill me and ask what I did in the alley and of course I told him that I took a piss and that he could check there for paint, because I knew it was up on the fire escape (luckily it stayed up there and didn’t fall back down) and not on the alley floor. They ended up just getting all pissed off and telling me to never come back there, which of course I didn’t listen to.

15: Any last Shout outs?

Shout outs to my wife OH!, my crews WKT ZEE/Zombies AMC, my people at TBIS, WRBT and Load Limit and all my clean steppers out there.