Style Wars analysis

During the 1980’s a new style began to emerge. This style was Hip-hop and it consisted of a mix of music, breakdancing and graffiti. Culturally, in its early days graffiti was limited to downstate New York and conformed to a certain set of ideals. However, as time went on, it spread to other cities and different types of graffiti began to emerge. Socially, along with the different types of graffiti came different types of graffiti writers from different places, some of whom were not afraid to go against graffiti’s original ideals. Over the years, Hip-hop has evolved and spread as something that had once been localized and unique to something that has become widespread and more common, which has resulted to many changes to the culture. When graffiti first began to be done, it was very localized and homogenous. Graffiti was confined only to downstate New York. For example, in the documentary Style Wars one graffiti artist had been kept ignorant of graffiti while in upstate New York. When he came back to his home in downstate he was shocked to see this new form of art covering the trains “So when I got home I see writing on the train. I said ‘what’s this stuff here?’”. It was after seeing graffiti on trains that he decided to try it out himself. Graffiti was homogenous not in the sense that only a certain age group or ethnicity was doing it, but rather that all graffiti artists adhered to the same set of ideals when it came to graffiti. They all believed that graffiti was an art form meant for the artist, and that the more talent and creativity demonstrated in a piece the better. The wild, artistic type of graffiti that emerged from this ideal was later referred to by graffiti artists as ‘burners’. One young graffiti artist, Skeme, summarizes these beliefs in an interview with his mother “It’s a matter of bombing, knowing that I can do it... It’s for me. It’s not for nobody else to see. I don’t care- I don’t care about nobody else seeing it, or the fact if they