Q: First off lets start with who you are and what crews you rep.
A: my name is CMOAN reppin that big TBK and ARTS crew straight from northern califas SAN JO'S REED DISTRICT to be exact.
Q: How did you get started in graff?
A: I got into graff when I was a young knuckle head in middle school. I use to go to one of my older cousin's house and he was in this tag banging crew from back in day. Dudes had funk with everyone....(dont want to mention any names cause I'd be startin shit) anyways, I would go to his house and he would be chillin with one of his homies and dude would always be sketchin in a black book then I would go check out the book and was like damn thats tight....after that day on the way home I started noticing all the graff and it was standing out to me and I started to get my attention. I was like damn! I want to do that....the next day I went to school and I was talking to one of my friends and I found out he was into graff too. So that day we were talking about picking names for ourselfs. Finally we picked our names. That same day, I had a sharpee with me so I went to the bathroom and caught my very first tag in one of the stalls. I got all shook and I tried to wipe it off. When I did that it came off but left the outline ha ha.... After that the more I tagged the more I liked seeing my shit up.....didn't start really painting shit till a couple years after..........
Q: Who are some of your influences?
A: As far as my influences go, I've always looked up to kiro, smog, veks and eatfuk. Growing up, I use to see them all over SJ. And one day I met kiro and he pretty much took me under his wing and put me up on game.
Q: What do you think about freights? Do you paint many?
A: I never really got into fr8's till I was a older. When I started to notice them more I thought they were tight.....I would always catch the big homie diar rollin. I use to see alot of king 157, pier tbk and kose htf and they pretty much inspired me to go hit them fr8's......Now that I think about it, moving out of SJ was really when I really started hitting freights hard. Where I moved to, there was bigger, chiller yards. I mean I use to paint them in SJ but not as much cause most of the yards out were blown up pretty bad.
Q: Any advice for younger writers just starting out?
A: As far as giving advice to the young cats coming up....they probably wont listen and just do what they want.....but for the other cats listenin go get it.....dont let no one bring you down, keep it pushin.
Q: What are your thoughts on graff mags and DVD's?
A: There isn't that many good mags out there besides CLOUT nowadays.....they have gone along way.good shit to the homies! Four G's is pretty good and on the come up.....and as far as graff videos theres been good ones and bad ones and a few on the come up.
Q: Any shout outs?
A: give a shout out to my Families TBK and ARTS, and to the homies KOMY TBK AND CHRIS DTC for giving me a home when I needed one. My brothers in DTC KYT fam. KIRO, SAER, EMER,SOLE.....and to the young homies on the come up go get it....and any one I left out shaaaoooo!
