Jessica Nydia Pabón-Colón - Graffiti Grrlz: Performing Feminism in the Hip Hop Diaspora

GRAFFITI GRRLZ

Graffiti Grrlz

Performing Feminism in the Hip Hop Diaspora

Jessica Nydia Pabn-Coln

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

www.nyupress.org

2018 by New York University

All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

ISBN : 978-1-4798-0615-7 (hardback)

ISBN : 978-1-4798-9593-9 (paperback)

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For all the grrlz who never wanted to be princesses, and all the princesses who are KINGS!

CONTENTS

TIMELINE OF CREWS, EVENTS, AND MEDIA

1980: Ladies of the Arts (USA)

1989: PMS (USA)

1997: Altona Female Crew (Germany)

1999: Bandit Queenz (Australia)

2000: Crazis Crew (Chile)

2000: Girls on Top (England)

2003: Bitches in Control (Netherlands)

2003: Stick Up Girlz Crew (Aotearoa/New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Japan, and Australia)

2004: Transgresso Para Mulheres (Brazil)

2005: Catfight magazine (Netherlands)

2005: GraffGirlz.com

2005: GraffiterasBR Yahoo Group

2006: Puff Crew (Germany and Czech Republic)

2006: Turronas Crew (Chile)

2006: Ladysgraff.blogspot.com

2008: Ladie Killerz Paint Jam, Australia (first annual; still running)

2008: Helen Keller Crew (Australia)

2008: Chicks on Powertrips magazine (Australia)

2009: Maripussy Crew (Peru and USA)

2010: Ladies Destroying Crew (Nicaragua and Peru)

2010: Rede Nami (Brazil)

2011: Few and Far (USA)

2011: Female International Graffiti Facebook page

2011: Gurls Love Vandal Tumblr page

2012: Female Soul (Mexico)

2012: FEMALE CAPS Tumblr page

2014: Tits n Tampons (UK)

2014: Femme Fierce Paint Jam (UK)

2016: Girl Power documentary (Czech Republic)

2016: @GraffitiHerstory Instagram

FOREWORD

MISS17

Ah, to travel back in time to 2001, when I was young and enamored by my newfound love: graffiti. With only a few years under my belt, I was still all the things that a writer should be: obsessed, keen, wary, guarded, insatiable. I saw a post on ArtCrimes . org written by a girl, Jess, who wanted to hear the voices of the women who were writing. Though I was totally unsure about her, I, too, wondered where all the women were. I had not really given it much thought up until that point. What a good question! Why are there not more women writing graffiti? I sent what I am sure was a very vague email to a supremely excited young feminist. At that time, I thought feminism was a dirty word; for me, the word carried the negative connotation of man hater. This is right around the time that I started hanging out with Claw. Little did I know that these two women would open my eyes to what it means to be a strong woman. There are no argumentsyou cannot be a strong woman and not be a feminist! Just by the nature of the way I live, I am a feminist and these two women taught me how to embrace that; they taught me that feminism was not a dirty word. Whilst I was busy getting an education in feminism, Jess was getting schooled in graffiti. It is always a challenge to educate and inform someone who is outside of a subculturethere are certain things an outsider can never truly knowbut Jess stepped up to the plate and became a zealous student, devouring all the information given to her. Fast-forward fifteen years and Dr. Pabn-Coln is one of the leading scholars on the subject of women writers; her reach and network tentacle the globe. She has traveled through several continents and met up with countless women to hear their stories.

To me, the graffiti is the story. The tag name tells the tale and it is either up (seen in the streets) or it is a nonentity. Though I know she disagrees with this point, for me one of the beautiful things about graffiti is its purity. Graffiti writing itself is not sexist, racist, or classist. Graffiti is a game that anyone can play. Take a name, see what you can do with itthose are the rules. There are no likes. No one counts the views or the balance of your bank account. Your bedfellows, skin tone, gendernone of these are important. Graffiti writers are lucky in that they can choose to be as enigmatic as they wantif they can stay incognito and active, all anyone will know about or talk about will be the work they have put in. Writers can choose how little or how much to let the world know about them. They can be completely private, mysterious, and secretive (PMS), or they can pose for magazines and do interviews. If a writer stays anonymous, they will be judged on the body of work they create, not on the body they inhabit; the evidence they leave behind is their trail and not just on their tail.

However, graffiti subculture exists within the larger culture in which these isms continue to be pervasive. Sadly, the purity of graffiti does not necessarily extend to those who participate in it. Once a woman is vocal about who she is, it is possible and even likely that she will be looked at differently. The machismo undercurrents that plague modern culture are ubiquitous within the graffiti community as well, and many females participating in this male-dominated subculture will find themselves the subject of vicious rumors and speculations that are more concerned with their activities in the sheets than their nights in the streets. The isms certainly inform the scholarship and study of graffiti. Lucky for the ladies putting in the work that Dr. Pabn-Coln has spent a decade and a half dedicated to carving a place for these women claiming space.

New York City

May 2017

Introduction

The Art of Getting Ovaries

Im slowly realizing I should claim my history more than I have in the past.

AbbyTC5 (USA)

On October 18, 2012, I interviewed AbbyTC5 (aka Abby106) and AbiRoc about Hip Hop graffiti subculture in front of a small and engaged audience of faculty, staff, and students at Davidson College in North Carolina.

Though there is controversy about the timeline and birthplace of graffiti beyond the tag, the culture became what it is alongside Hip Hops other forms in New York City. Along with b-boying (breakdancing), deejaying, beatboxing, and emceeing/rapping, writers (another name for graffiti artists, short for graffiti writers) contributed their own form of creative expression as part of a collective effort to resist social convention, economic marginalization, and political invisibility. The tag establishes the writers identity, and writers perform this identityideally distinct from their government-issued identification cardrepetitively in order to proclaim their presence: I am here.