im from ny so i have a special love for the graff here but.... the fact is the scene sucks right now and it doesnt look like its gonna get any better, shit is on its last legs right now.. it doesnt matter where graffiti started what the fuck is ny doin today. the citys graff war is to blame for alot of the declining quality.. shit vallone got that law passed outlawing solid rolldown gates.. starting 2011 those are gonna start to fade out leaving even less spots to hit.. ny as a whole has changed dramatically it aint the same place it was when it birthed hiphop and graff. many other places got ny beat right now including LA you cant honestly go into the LA thread and tell me im wrong.. like i said im born and raised in ny so it hurts me to say that shit but its true.
this interview with how&nosm sums it up pretty nice..
BS: How does graffiti in your current place differs from where you are?
How&Nosm: The New York Graffiti scene is sadly dying out faster than you might think...if it's not dead already. It all started here, and rightfully so, they call those years the golden years of(subway) graffiti. Obviously it will never be the same, but even when the train writers were forced to leave the trains alone and instead dedicated themselves to painting murals, there was still a similar energy floating around in the NY scene. When we first got a taste of the scene writers were extremely competitive and always trying to innovate their styles, that was probably until the early 2000s. We guess the tougher and tougher laws and punishments against graffiti, and so called vandals, ended many writer's careers and that's what started the drastic decrease of graffiti in NYC . Unfortunately, you don't see many new upcoming writers who have the desire to become a great writer. Most just want to bomb and get the fame as fast as possible with little effort. They usually don't stick around longer than the 2-3 years it takes for the justice system to swallow them up. And if one has actually somewhat of a talent, he often wants to skip all the essential parts that make a well rounded writer--like painting trains, bombing hard, and at the same time doing big elaborate productions. They want to go straight to the gallery world, call it street art, and change their graff name to their government name. That stands true for the European graff scene too, but the difference is that Europe, and several other places, have enough new emerging artists to keep their scenes alive. Don't get us wrong, we love NY, but that's the ugly truth and reality...and we hope it will change soon because it’s hard to fight that image by ourselves. So stop doing walls with 50 dudes on a black background that have no style and instead try to change other writer's perceptions of what the NY graff is today--because most outsiders are looking at the NY graff scene with laughter these days. Nobody cares about someone's graff history or origin anymore, and people are tired of hearing what this and that guy used to do. Moving on and evolving is the best way to prove people are wrong about NYC graff scene.
