D C 3 from interview August 1993, Long Island and Chinatown

A member of The Destiny Children (TDC crew), DC3 was a Queens boy before moving to Long Island. He’s been writing for over ten years and his subway burners and mad style are internationally known.
‘My writing mentors were Bio, Sim, Sak, BG 183, Seen, Jon 1, Kyle, Web. I started writing on the trains with some friends from the Bronx. The first time I did a piece I got chased by police but I still went back to finish it. I was only 15 then. It was on the 5 train. I did a lot of pieces on that line, also on the 6 and 3 train and the letters B and C trains. I could have more than five pieces running on trains through Brooklyn, the Bronx and all over the city. Our crew – ‘The Destiny Children’- were the first crew after the original old school (Tat Crew, Rocksteady crew) to do whole cars.

‘The Destiny Children (TDC) included Dome (Zoo) who was Spanish, Sho who was white and myself, black. We called ourselves The Destiny Children because when we met we were just kids – friends because of what we were, not what colour or class. We knew what we were about and what we wanted to do so we just did it – hence TDC. We had the same mentality and understood each other.  We did whole cars – windowdown cars like The Old School. We had some beef with PJ. He crossed out a lot of our pieces. I never tagged really – just went straight into piecing. I hate tagging. It’s what puts the general public off graffiti because there are these stupid pointless tags or throw-ups all over. Graffiti is street – to make you and those who see it feel good and proud and strong. It’s secret and different and special – tagging is just cheap. Disrespect to yourself and your surroundings. It just brings everything down. Anyone can tag – there’s no skill involved.

‘Apart from trains, I did pieces on trucks and went to the Hall of Fame three times up in Harlem. I did a storm train and a train with Sho – real wildstyle. In my pieces I try to leave messages. I want people to understand the art better. But I can’t change to simplex style. I do wildstyle – the wilder, the better. It’s like a secret language, a code; the more complicated, the more fascinating. I want it to be unreadable even for other writers! Vulcan’s style is the wildest I’ve ever seen. Other writers I’d rate for wildstyle are Duster, Kase 2, Doze. For myself, writers who inspired me and who I still admire are Jean 13 from the old school, Phase 2 – he really has a unique style and Vulcan. Dome’s style was good and all of the TAT crew.

‘I moved to Seattle for a while. I started writing on freight trains and buses as there was no subway system. I think the new development of writing on freight trains is logical – moving on from subways. Now it’s All Country (LA to NY) instead of All City! There are good new artists coming up from all over the world: Amsterdam, New York, UK, Holland, Australia, California, Denmark. These guys are good. They get their props.

‘For me, subway writing and underground art is about expression, youth expression, the society of tomorrow. It’s very important. It’s the start of reality and growth. It’s a secret society. But it’s art too. You also want regular people on the street to like it. You want it to be part of society. You want recognition from regular people, not just other writers. The tagging messes up true graffiti. It gives the public a prejudice against the art. The taggers are toys who are more into the ‘scene’ than real expression, but they are the ones destroying what others have risked so much to create.

‘Graffiti can’t be stopped because, with every new generation, there are writers. Fourteen year olds learn it from older guys: brothers, friends, cousins. Like with rapping, dancing, breaking – it’s all part of the same family.

‘One Christmas, Vulcan and a group of us went down to a train lay-up. Vulcan found some Styrofoam blocks and he did a made wildstyle piece on the car using these Styrofoam blocks on the train. They looked like rocks! It ran. He used some real hard glue and certainly all the conductors remembered that for a long time. They had to! That night we got chased. The cops came up because they smelled the spray paint coming up the vents. The cops were running after me in this real skinny tunnel. That was not nice!

‘I hate the elevated trains, the ones that run across the city into the Bronx and Queens cos I’m scared of heights. One time, I went up with Wane and another writer, Joke, and had to walk n these boards with a hundred foot drop below me. My piece came out horrible because I was so scared. If you fall, you’re dead, period.

‘Another night, I was with this writer, Joey, a fat boy. We were doing some two-by-four trains on the bridge. As he was running along, the boards were bending and I was right behind him. I gave up the elevated trains soon after that.

‘In the winter, the trains were hidden under the tunnels. The graffiti writers know about it – it’s like Christmas to us! We had Goldie, a writer from Brimingham, Vulcan, Sho, Dome, Reas and myself. We did a whole car together.

‘I’m really glad I got out and wrote, did something creative now.  I met some amazing people and had some wild adventures, overcame obstacles. I’d say to young kids be yourself, be original, whatever form it takes. Stick at it.’