Graffiti has an interesting relationship to the broader world of hip-hop: It's part of the culture, but also in a weird way a stepchild of the culture.

Graffiti writers were the most interesting people in hip hop. They were the mad scientists, the mad geniuses, the weird ones.

For me, graffiti writers were always the fascinating eccentrics of hip-hop culture. What they do is secretive by definition, and not remunerative in any way.

Fundamentally, I'm profoundly influenced by hip-hop, so whatever I do is going to bear that seal.

I was a rapper and a DJ, and if you wanted to be involved in hip-hop, you had to be involved in the sonic, the kinetic and the visual aspects. The visual was graffiti.

I came up in hip-hop, where people value the ability to tell it straight.