painted with my buddy for the first time before I had a name, he goes all "Done with Ease." I figured, I could be Eaze.
I think 80% of writers just stole a name they liked, before they were in a crew.. There were litterally 100,000 or more graffiti artist/writers in Los Angeles in the early 1990's when I came up. My first name was Skytzo, stolen from my cousin's Punk Band. I didn't even understand what graffiti was, just a nick name and friends I grew up with. I didn't even join/start a tagging crew, Because my mom didn't want me in a gang. so most of it was me not having any friends and moving to a new school. I think NWA's album straight outtta compton just dropped (must have been) because gangs were gaining in popularity in LA. Must have been around 1990. Then My mom got married and I changed schools. And it was the popular thing to do among my peers at the time. it was a popularity thing, and remeniscent of comic books, become your own hero, and gain fame among your peers. The best part about it. was just like being a Metal Head or Stoner, everyone could do it. Let me back up a moment, in 1985 Los Angeles Break Dancing was popular, and there was a whole 80's generation that did the first wave of LA graffiti, it seemed to die out a little bit, until a newer vision of rap and hip hop culture came into view. My friend Mike, picked up graffiti from his older brother's friends, and stole the name SEER, from one of his brother's friends. I wrote that name for a little, but I used to try to steal everything from him, cause I looked up to him. Even tried to steal his girlfriend when i was 7 years old. got to love star 69.. that's how I got her number. Anyhow .. 1991 and new school to attend, everyone was doing graffiti. I didn't fit in as a heavy metal listening kid, cause everyone was into rap. So I started dressing like a Skateboarder, and picked up tagging. At first it was just me with no friends and I would write Skytzo on signs with a fat sharpie my mom bought me. I didn't make any friends that whole year. And at some point, I got sent to a Psych ward for kids experiencing depression. Where I met a peer Tommy who had been tagging in LA / Alhambra, I changed my name to Massacare, but it was too long, 2 months later I got out and adopted his name, and another name from a kid I went to school with. The next school year, my mom sent me with my aunt so I could go to school in Anahiem, I just did alot of skateboarding, but as the summer ended, I got stuck living with my mom again, at that point I really started working on the styles I learned in the psych ward from Tommy. Still no crew. Then the LA Riots happend in 1992. Well, I finally got to move in with a cousin who was 21 years old and had her own apartment in South Los Angeles. and I met this kid named Jason, He was already in a crew, So I joined his crew, and stuck with it for the next 5 or 6 years until I stopped tagging. and had to get a job and start paying bills. So here I am 23 years later, I've been practicing some outlines, and reminicing on old school memories. Hoped you liked the share.
Currently i have the name of Eighty-Six and TradeMark. i came up with it bc i grew up in the 860 of connecticut and when you type it in a keypad, theres no 0 so i was stuck with 86 and 8,6 in the pad is T,M and TM means trademark so i put Eighty-Six and TradeMark
These days you can't have a name because people will tell you you're a biter for having a past writer's name. So I made mine up, but you gotta make it creative cause fuckers will try to tell you need to earn your name, and personally I feel that you really do earn it when you put in that work for the graff.
I like to flirt around with a lot of girls. Rarely gets me anywhere with them besides a few laughs but i dont stop i keep it at. Then one day i got school detention and had to copy out of a dictionary. teacher said copy the W's i only did funny and cool words. Came across "WOLF" read the definition and there we go i'm WOLF. since then people call me WOLF wolfman wolfy so on. I also write GAMS and SIM. I don't claim these as my tag or anything its just words i like writing. got sim from The Sims game and GAMS because those are my favorite letters to write.
Got a slap on the wrist at the end of the 90's and had to change my tag, so I took the letters I got caught with and added to them. Also write a few other things including my birth name, part of my last name, girls names i <3, people I admire, parts of my tag, my tag backwards, etc, etc, etc.
Started with the name BLISS, found out somebody all ready had it, so i changed it to SKLt for skelectric. Decided that was wack - Played with sklt and put in some new letters and ended up with SKERO, which i really like and then made a new user on the forum. The only one i have come across with that name, is some weird german rapper also named SKERO who has done one or 2 pieces!
I write a couple different tags, throwies, and pieces...I got the name I write now from when I was way younger in them 8th grade/early highschool days from studying philosophy and stuff I came across this dude Rumi and loved the way the letters connect and what he stood for so Ive bombed that ever since...I also write higher concept, using an arrow for the word higher instead of the actual word I came up with this just because im infatuated with concepts of any sort and I love the idea of them being greater than others. but the word was still mad long so from time to time if im in a hurry or hittin a sketchy spot Ill write cept with an arrow infront...the first tag I ever used was curka or surka or cirka or sirka til I found out that majority of them were in use but I still from time to time bomb these followed by the date...takes me forever to settle on a name cuz I don't like mine to be anywhere close to anyone elses whether ther notorious or not I 'am who I 'am and isn't that the point of bombing too make damn sure that the world knows that shit and never forgets it.
I got busted using a name i threw together, so i had to change it, i'm always away from school due to bone-related medical problems, and people that wag are called truants, my deputy principal took the piss out of me and said "Why are you always Truant!!" Then dang, I chose that name.
i wrote TASK2 for about a year because my K's have always been terrible and wanted to get in some practice for that particular letter as well as getting my A's and S's to flow a little better together. but it was just a side-style and never wrote very hard under that name
I got mine because my friends who would graff call me Kam instead of my full name so when I started writing and they were showing me how to tag and throw they gave me the name Kamo and I just stuck with it.