Editor’s note: Koe Rodriguez is a Hip-Hop historian and graphic artist. He lives and works in New Jersey. Special thanks to one of the coolest and most talented artists in the game, Nicer/TATS for his contribution to this piece.
In ‘hoods across America, “Memorial Walls” are as common as barber shops and bodegas. We’ve seen them time-and-time again. Whether big or small; crude shrines or elaborate murals; on tenement walls or corner stores; and usually accompanied by an array of candles, flowers and personal items. While some memorials reflect a bout loss to a fatal disease or an unfortunate accident; many are crime related and harsh reminders of how fleeting life is in the ghetto.
R.I.P. walls have been around for quite some time and commemorating the dead can be traced back to the pharaohs and prior. Hip-Hop is no different. Paying homage to a fallen comrade, loved one, or an influential figure has always been expressed in one medium or another. For as long as I’ve been documenting graffiti culture, and that’s going back to Reganomics, graff writers have acknowledged the dead perhaps like no other. In 1981, Lady Pink and Iz The Wiz’s eulogy to John Lennon and a host of deceased rocks stars consisted of two beautiful top-to-bottom, end-to-end subway cars and let an entire city know that even so-called outlaws mourned. Ten years later, West & Serge FC dedicated their upside down burners to fellow friends, Sane, Shadi and money maker, Lil Edgar on graff’s holiest grounds: The Graffiti Hall of Fame.
Recently, I rapped with graff heavyweight, Nicer, of the famed TATS Crew, arguably the illest R.I.P. muralist in the game, on the crew’s history of honoring the dead, or what I call a “R.est I.n P.iece.” Nicer explained that his earliest recollection of the crew throwing up an R.I.P. was around 1983 or so, and totally unplanned. “We were doing a piece on a handball court in Bronx River, (laughing) illegally, and a dude came up to Bio and asked if he would throw his deceased brother Pollo up. The first real memorial wall we did was on Cypress Avenue & East 141st Street in the Bronx for a guy named Tony, who was murdered, and then set on fire in his car.”
The crew would soon be approached by fellow Bronx bomber and budding rapper, Crack, aka Fat Joe, to memorialize close friend and resident hustler, Tony Montana. The piece, a striking portrait on a handball court on Trinity Ave would forever be memorialized in the artwork of Joe’s debut LP, “Represent.” Although Nicer confesses that the crew paints fewer memorials (by choice) nowadays, with the continued rise in gang activity, Aids and other socioeconomic conditions affecting urban America, we can sadly expect to see more blank walls transformed into colorful tombstones real soon.
IN MEMORY OF: Wayne “Frosty Freeze” Frost, Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes.
See KOE RODIGUEZ’ Rest In Piece photo gallery here…
