Now days, this could not be further from the truth. The average age of a gamer is now 33 years old (as is shown here). It is because of this the game journalism industry must mature as well.

Gamers love games. To an extent I’ve never seen with any other area of interest. They hold them close to the very centre of their being. So much so, that an attack on a beloved game or on games themselves is a personal attack. This could be for many reasons. One could be that when we play a game we are almost always having a different experience to someone else who has played the same game. This is never the case with any other form of entertainment (or art). Although movies, literature and music can be interpreted in many ways the consumer is always having exactly the same experience as the next person. Not so for video games. This personalizes games for the player in a unique way. What do we do with uniquely enjoyable experiences? We cherish them.

I’m writing because video game journalism is crying out for help. It’s a poor little baby left in the supermarket, a lost dog, a grandparent collapsed on the bathroom floor. This is not news. Game journalism’s immaturity has been analyzed by many people in the industry. Chris Buffa’s first attempt to determine what is wrong with game journalism was titled simply “Why Videogame Journalism sucks” . The crux of his problem with game journalism was that it doesn’t attract the best writers. Why would a talented up and coming journalist write for IGN when he/she could write for The Times, Sports Illustrated or Variety? A good point, but would like to determine what it is exactly that makes the current batch of video game news publications and “journalists” so biased and opinionated.

Gaming culture is full of opinion, which is fantastic. Nothing is better for a gamer than arguing their point of view on a particular game or industry development. It is the reason for the popularity of the blog format. However it is for this reason that game journalists are so biased. Their passionate opinions seep through the cracks and into their writing. It is our very love for video games that is damaging the way in which they are reported. Yet the readers love it, they feed off the sarcasm, the wit. It’s entertaining, yet misleading. Do we see The Times forcing their point of view on the reader? No, they respect their readership, allowing them to make up their own mind. I’ve been an avid gamer for most of my life and I have rarely seen this type of reporting in the game media. “Opinion pieces” also known as “feature articles” are passing for news reporting. Game journalism needs to evolve.

As with all new forms of media, or new artistic mediums, controversy surrounds the content that should and shouldn’t be displayed. For society to come to grips with new media a period of scrutiny must ensue. During this period society enforces its accepted moral standards upon the new media to control and restrict its access. This has been occurring for hundreds of years in all cultures, but more recently and in Australia the moving image was once thought of as a crude and distasteful medium. Such classics as King Kong, Frankenstein and Dracula were banned in Australia in 1941 for high impact scary violence and cruelty. Society of the times had heavily scrutinized a new media they did not fully understand. Today we have such movies as Hostel and its sequels, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Cannibal, all of which have incredibly high amounts of blood and gore and are freely available from any video store. Gradually society has accepted film as an art form that should not be easily restricted for it can be used as a form of expression and meaning.

Today interactive media is under the watchful eye of society. Video games are a new media not yet fully fleshed out as an art form much like film was in its infancy. On top of the crude and violent image video games have received they are also unfortunately seen as the domain of children. Hence society has scrutinized and shunned games for a very long time. However this has been shown not to be the case as Dr. Mark Finn discusses in his insightful reading Political Interface: The Banning of GTA 3 in Australia (2006);

The criticizing of a new form of media is an entirely natural process, yet with games it has lingered for further than usual. In Australia, one person; Attorney-General Michael Atkinson is responsible for the banning of many potential games in Australia over the years. As it still stands today, “In Australia, a game that cannot be rated by the Classification Board into the top MA15+ category is essentially unclassified (UC). Anything that is UC cannot be legally sold in the country.” For example, the banning of an American parody game known as GTA 4 was banned in Australia (then modified and released) for containing the ability to perform what would be an indecent act in real life. A potentially positive addition to the education and culture of Australia was restricted by a man that does not accept that games can have an artistic message much the same way film and literature can.

What do you think?

Firstly, we must come to consensus as to the definition of art. Now, as a game design student this is way above my head. However, in 1982 game designer Chris Crawford published a text called ‘The Art of Computer Games’. This fantastic piece of writing was way ahead of its time and is my main source of reference. It can be read in full at http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html#TOC. Crawford proposes his ‘pedestrian’ definition of art; “art is something designed to evoke emotion through fantasy. The artist presents his audience with a set of sensory experiences that stimulates commonly shared fantasies, and so generates emotions. Art is made possible only by the richness of the fantasy world we share.”

Crawford observes that the challenge of art is to get the attention and participation of the audience. With traditional forms of art the audience’s role is to sit passively whilst the artist does all the active work to get the audience to care about his expression. Being active as an audience is impossible. However, without participation attention can dwindle and the impact crumbles away. Here enters the computer. According to Crawford, “the artist has here a tool that is more subtly indirect than traditional art. With other art forms, the artist directly creates the experience that the audience will encounter. Since this experience is carefully planned and executed, the audience must somehow be prevented from disturbing it; hence, non participation.

With a game, the artist creates not the experience itself but the conditions and rules under which the audience will create its own individualized experience.” So as you can see the potential for computer games as an art form is much higher than what you had previously imagined. A game allows for participation, participation enhances immersion and immersion creates a much more effective fantasy that can evoke intense emotion.

Take into consideration that Crawford wrote his text in 1982, the time of arcade and pixel graphics. Now that the technology has matured the capacity for not only believable graphics but also high complex rule programming has arrived. Not only this, but independent game design is slowly but surely coming into fruition through such avenues as the modding communities. Now is the time we can create more than mere superficial Skill and Action games. Now is the time we can captivate our audience with something meaningful. Something to get them thinking. Something to get them feeling.

If you took nothing out of this post, please at least play a game called The Path by Tale of Tales. If your attention span can only last if you’re blowing up an alien in a fountain of goo, don’t bother. But if your open to something more, something different, please give it a go.

AFI

Crash Love, AFI’s eighth studio album, is unlike the band’s last record Decemberunderground. But that is not a surprise. Most fans of AFI, especially the Despair Faction, know that the California band has been experimenting with its sound since 1999′s Black Sails In The Sunset, featuring then newcomer guitarist Jade Puget.

But not until AFI’s major label debut on Dream Works Records did the loyal and mostly underground following turn their backs on their beloved band. What those same people cannot admit, or at least in their hip circles, is that Sing The Sorrow gave AFI money and an expensive production team to tighten its already solid sound.

Crash Love, the awaited follow-up to Decemberunderground, moves the band from catchy and less punk-y ballads to ’90s alternative.

Check out “End Transmission” and “Ok, I Feel Better.”

Ghostface Killah

Ghostdini The Wizard Of Poetry In The Emerald City by Ghostface Killah – One of Wu-Tang Clan’s most notorious emcees. His eighth studio album is full of smooth, bass-knocking modern classics.

Paramore

Brand New Eyes by Paramore – The Tennessee band brings more of its anthemic and emotional rock on its third full-length album. People looking forward to more of vocalist Hayley Williams unbelievable range and sultry cries will certainly get their fix. Fans have no fear, Williams is all natural and no Auto Tune.

At first glance, the picture looks almost serene. A mother, staring straight into the camera, holds what appears to be a sleeping baby.Peacefully the baby lies,but a more discerning eye equipped with some cursory knowledge of the Victorian Era knows this to be an example of death photography.

In the wake of Prince Albert’s death, a grief-stricken Queen Victoria elapsed into an  period of intense mourning. This heavily influenced the mourning process in the Victorian Era, where gloom and darkness were de rigueur after Victoria’s public heartbreak.In a nineteenth and early twentieth century United States, death portraits or photography proved to be popular. Often, families could not afford photographs on a regular basis, and  had to be mindful of impatient children that could not stand still as required. For many parents, such photography of their children was their last memento of them.

Note the rigid pose and blank eyes. There is a stand behind him holding him up.

And while looking at pictures of the deceased might creep some out, it’s important to remember the times in which they were at their height.Knowing someone who had died was common, especially in a world where the odds were stacked against babies living past their first year.Death struck hard,with small communities or family units that heavily depended on one another felt the loss acutely when one of their members had passed.It was a direct acknowledgement of death, but still managed to depict the dead as if they were living or just asleep. This manner of displaying the dead, looking either asleep or posing with family members looking alive, could have been helpful in thinking of death as just another stage of life, or remembering the deceased as if they were about to wake up or in the prime of life.

This style of mourning is certainly a departure from what is  found several generations later, where deaths and funerals moved from the home to hospitals and nursing homes. Thankfully life expectancy extended to with this change, but the process seems so much more impersonal and almost banishes death to those places. With a desensitization of death through mediums such as television (where deaths are often depicted as a fleeting and as an inconsequential event), are we farther removed from the reality of death than our Victorian ancestors? And while some can look at these pictures now with convulsion, who are we to judge the owners who kept them? Mourning and grief are subjective, but it is interesting to note how these concepts have changed and evolved with each generation in our society.

This girl is being held up by a stand like the firefighter above, which was a popular method to ensure the subject looking alive and standing. Note the contrast between her paleness and the rouge painted on her cheeks.

Siblings and other living relatives often posed with the deceased as well.

Here a boy lies in a window, and his eyes look like they were painted over. Painting over the lids to look like eyes and even adding pupils was a common practice.

Here parents sit with their deceased daughter between them.

It takes only a brief moment into Brand New’s most recent album Daisy, 1 minute and 25 seconds to be exact, to realize that the first track’s somber operatic entrance is a misdirection. Daisy is not the much-needed, poetic declaration of musical change like Deja Entendu, or its more highly touted work of 2006’s The Devil and God Are Inside Me. Brand New elevates its music on its fourth studio album, brandishing shouts and screams just when main vocalist Jesse Lacey seemed content to lull fans with a graceful and subdued sound.

“Vices,” an excellent first track, presents a very unsettled Lacey, his voice never wanting to fall below a scream. The lone guitar shrieks and bounces along its own destructive path as if lead guitarist Vincent Accardi is possessed. It refuses to release listeners its raucous grasp.

The second track “Bed” brings back a familiar Brand New sound while taking a page from Nirvana. It is repetitive and slow, too re strained and different from “Vices” that the unexpected change in rhythm wants you to see what’s going on in the rest of the album. With lyrics like, “The champ goes down like a clown in the second round,” it is best that listeners do.

It’s obvious that Lacey has experienced grief in the three years since Devil. Fans won’t have to search long for self-deprecating, mostly dark tones embracing images of suicide and death. The band follows gloomily, often sounding like disharmonious pieces emphasizing torment’s wake, especially in “Gasoline” and “At The Bottom.”

Daisy’s sparkle disappears in “Be Gone,” which opens so well in its soulful acoustic guitar. And then, it plummets. It shows itself to be less artful and close to a recording gone awry, the words so equivocated one wonders how this even made into the final version of the album.

But thankfully, the record regains its momentum with the sing-scream patterns of “Sink,” especially when Lacey quips, “How darkly the dark hand met his end / He was withered and boney and exposed for a phony /But we need the words that he penned.” But Brand New finally comes together in “Bought A Bride,” the album’s best track. It shrieks and trudges along heavily, but never loses control or sight of its direction.

Daisy proves to be a good break from all the dance-y and overproduced rock coming out these days. For this alone, it’s successful.

There is something irresistible about the Arctic Monkeys and its catchy guitar riffs and sugary, often prosaic lyrics. The band’s last album, “Favourite Worst Nightmare” was part of a wave of English bands in the 2000s, like The Kooks or the Klaxons, who crossed the pond and into sold out venues and hipster playlists across America. Although ‘Nightmare’ was released when most of the band members were 21 years old, it shines as a display of well-crafted pop rock. It’s one of those records that you can listen to two weeks straight, clap and bob your head to the beat of your favorite dance-y segments, and then never want to listen to it ever again.

The Arctic Monkeys released its newest record “Humbug” on August 25, and the band doesn’t lose its catchy writing. But its new effort is nothing like ‘Nighmare.’ The songs are slower, dim, and slightly haunting.

“My Propeller” sets the theme of the dreary third album. Vocalist/guitarist  Alex Turner sounds morosely jaded, and the band follows him through his dark journey, “My propeller won’t spin and I can’t get it started on my own / When are you arriving?”

“Dance Little Liar” and “Cornerstone” show that a more subdued Arctic Monkeys are just as good as the hurried speeds of its past. ‘Liar,’ trudges along, the drumming of Matthew Helders and Jaime Cook and Turner guitars fade and burst but the singer refuses to sacrifice his new found stoicism. Turner seems to be showing a lot of his troubled past here, making the listener wonder if this young man has actually experienced all of this misfortune. “Cornerstone” is pop at its best. Turner remains at a higher, and soft vocal range and is one of the best songs on the album.

It seems that the Arctic Monkeys want to move away from the hackneyed dance rock sounds that many fans expect. It’s not a bad idea.

Listen to “Humbug” here:  http://www.imeem.com/artists/arctic_monkeys/album/PUw62HFC/humbug-album/

Thrice’s newest work, “Beggars,” had to be speedily released after an un-mastered version was leaked onto the internet. The record will make its physical release on September 15 through Vagrant records, but last week Thrice released its sixth full-length record on iTunes. Like ‘Artist,’ the band pushes its already widely recognizable style.

The album drags the listener in with “All the World is Mad” as guitars churn along a thumping bass line. Kensrue’s voice is weary, his vocals matching the song’s lush and steady pieces as he yowls, “We are brimming with cumbersome, murderous greed / And malevolence deep and profound / We do unspeakable deeds, does our wickedness know any bounds?” Kensrue’s relatively new reservation to scream allows his eloquent words to shine through.

The second track is as equally as meticulous and precise. Its hypnotizing guitar strum is no doubt at the hands of the talented Teppei Teranishi. Each instrument is distinct in track, Riley Breckenridge drums steadily and they work not to shock but drive the song forward, guitars battle for space. There is even time for cascading piano, which adds to the enigmatic quality of the song.

The record almost hits its peak with “Doublespeak,” a funky, piano-driven track. It’s straight rock and roll.

“Taking Through Glass” shoots classic Thrice, but there’s something irresistible about Kensrue screaming in rage. Guitars shriek and bend, keeping up with Riley’s controlled rhythms. The song comes to an acoustic halt, with television drowning in the background.

Instead of shouting from its rooftops, the band’s new found stoicism helps build beautiful music. “The Great Experience” builds and flows smoothly, like a lullaby, and like “Circles” may be a song that didn’t make it into “Vheissu.”

Thrice has already shown that they can move from the tumult of its “Identiy Crisis” and ‘Illusion.” The band has carved its musical identity, but it’s obvious that Thice isn’t finished yet.

What you see below is “crack art” drawn or painted not on expensive canvases, but on the feces, blood, and urine stained walls of dozens of crack dens. Rest assured, most of these artists are in fact dead or dying; they’ve paid your admission fee to this art gallery with their lives.

What I am showcasing here is a compilation I am calling a Crack Art Gallery – photos that I have personally taken over the years as a detective from multiple drug busts on various crack dens all around Montreal, Seattle, Vancouver, and beyond.

The subject matter of the art from coast to coast is eerily similar; one common vision of art amongst these “artists” is a common theme I refer to as the “Skull Death Head.”

You should know that many of these pieces of art were not painted with expensive paints or charcoal; many were done with bodily fluids, cigarette ash, and/or markers.

“Welcome to my world” as you see the very, very sad yet interesting images of dozens of photos I have collected over the years that I have witnessed as part of my daily profession.

BFMin poses in front of a tunnel in Apgujeong, Seoul, Korea. He was among the first well-known graffiti artists to emerge in Korea in the late 1990s.

A.K.A. “Case Study in Korean Hip Hop Culture” – Interview with BFMin, a professional graffiti artist from Seoul, Korea

July 2007

As hip hop music and culture spreads around the globe at an increasingly rapid pace, it has caught the attention of various academics and researchers. Why hip hop? Why now? Where and how did it begin?

It is largely agreed that modern hip hop culture has most of its roots in the United States, born out of various contributing elements such as black-American identity, minority outcries, poverty, inner-city society, and youth movements. But when we look at hip hop culture in other nations, there is not necessarily a parallel history in its makeup.

In Korea, the largely homogenous population finds itself in a completely different situation. While old maxims like “art is not peace, but war” have often been used to explain hip hop culture in America, the researcher observes a completely different attitude taking shape in Korea within the last decade as hip hop culture has developed into an American-influenced but uniquely-Korean way of life.

It has been said that our evermore globalizing world is taking more and more humans out of the picture of interaction between communities and societies. This emerging “information society” is said to disregard inequality, social hierarchies, and cultural structures as the internet becomes the ultimate, unconditional, global distributor of said information.

When we consider this in light of hip hop culture, such as music, break-dancing, or graffiti, it can both explain why hip hop has spread so rapidly around the world and also why it instigates so much social hesitation. In Korea, a nation considered among the most Confucian in the world, hip hop has seen many different reactions from the public. It has only been strongly integrated into popular Korean culture for the last 5-10 years at most (as opposed to at least 20-30 years in the United States) as the so-called “Korean Wave” began to catch on.

BFMin, a graffiti artist now well-known within the Korean hip hop community, was among the first big names to emerge as part of this late-start movement. I sat down to interview him in July of 2007 to find out what his inspirations and perceptions might entail in regard to hip hop culture, and to shed some light on the fascinating changes that are taking place within East Asian popular culture.

Do you consider yourself a graffiti artist? For how long have you been involved with graffiti? Do you always sign your work in the same way?

Yes, I consider myself a graffiti artist. I’ve been into it for about 8 years now, on and off. I had to take breaks at times due to mandatory military service and other things. I always sign my work in English as BFMin, unless I work on a piece with other artists, than we usually sign our work using our different signatures.

How would you define graffiti? Do you believe your work is part of a so-called “global hip-hop culture” or not?

I largely see graffiti as a set of painting techniques that represent an individual’s artistic expression. There are 3 main types of graffiti designs: character pieces, realistic pieces, and text pieces. I most often do text pieces, of which there are 4 styles: 2D, 3D, Wild Style, and Old School. I love Wild Style the most, which involves very colorful designs. I have a personal theme that I like to involve in my work – the butterfly. That is where I derive my name from: BF stands for butterfly. I try to convey the character of a butterfly when I do my work – things like freedom and bold expression. I want to be able to freely express my ideas and feelings through graffiti. Many people see graffiti as one of four main pillars of hip hop culture. I agree with this to an extent, but for me personally, graffiti is mostly a personal pursuit of artistic expression. My perception is that in places like the USA and Korea, maybe graffiti is more readily seen as hip hop culture, but maybe in some other places like Europe, it is less defined and might be seen as more of an artistic expression.

What attracts you to graffiti? Who is your audience? What is your purpose and what inspires your designs and/or messages?

When I was younger I observed some of my friends start to get involved with graffiti. It was not a very well-known culture in Korea at that time [late 1990s], and it especially lacked a recognized connection with hip hop in general. So I guess it became for me just something that I could use for self-expression. It’s not that I was especially passionate about hip hop or graffiti in themselves, but rather that I suppose I wanted something to invest my energy into, and graffiti was there. I guess my audience is anyone that happens to see my work, even though it’s largely for myself in a certain way. I’m inspired by music and other art that I see. I also hope to inspire new art and new music through my own work. Again, my inspirations are not limited to a so-called “hip hop culture” or “hip hop music” and I hope to inspire more than those involved in such a culture.

How did you learn the methods/ideology of graffiti? Were you influenced by any mentors, movies, music, or documentaries in particular?

I am influenced by everything around me in this world. My work is surely influenced by many factors even if I don’t realize it. I am completely self-taught, though I’ve spent a lot of time practicing with various friends. Graffiti methods in Korea are very limited in certain ways, compared to other countries. For example, there are only about 40 spray paint nozzle types available in Korea. In the United States, there are hundreds of can nozzles available. So really, a lot of what we accomplish is spurred on by our own determination and passion. I’m not sure if I consider him a huge personal influence, but I greatly respect a German graffiti artist called Daim and really admire his work. Sure, I’m influenced to an extent by various things I see in movies and what not, but nothing stands out in particular. My favorite American hip hop music artist is Warren G.

Much of the hip hop/graffiti movement started in America and was inspired by poor minorities seeking individuality and recognition. Different crews and gangs often compete for the attention of the public and/or each other. How would you compare this with graffiti/hip hop culture in Korea? Is it more professional or an entertainment/popular culture in Korea?

When you talk about gangs in Korea, it refers to organized crime. We don’t have the type of territorial gang culture that America has, and we don’t have many different racial backgrounds either. Even when you look around the world, most of the famous graffiti artists are in fact white guys. Yes, I do think that hip hop and graffiti are more of an artistic form in Korea, and a form of entertainment as well. In Korea, there isn’t a huge sense of competition between us graffiti artists. I think we have been attracted to these cultures for some different reasons than some Americans. For example, I was largely influenced by typography (which I studied at Kook-min University as part of my art major) and Asian alphabets in many of my pieces. So I think graffiti has definitely taken on a different nature in Korea. Walls that have been tagged do get painted over sometimes by certain artists in Seoul, but it’s not because of territory wars or anything like that. It’s mostly because we run out of space, or want to create a new piece. I don’t think that certain Korean citizens feel “left behind” and pursue graffiti as some sort of outlet, like in America perhaps. Korean hip hop cannot be the same as American hip hop because the character of the Korean people is to unite, and not to compete against each other like in the United States.

You do work in both public and private spaces – sometimes paid and sometimes not. Do you find this conflicting for graffiti culture? Does graffiti need an element of illegality or non-commercialism to be true to itself? How do you think graffiti differs from other art forms?

For a while, nobody in Korea really cared about graffiti in public. But recently, the government has officially made it illegal to paint on public spaces, and more citizens have begun to complain about it. I am personally attracted in certain ways to the illegality of public graffiti, though I try to paint on places that are easy to reverse if they decide to get rid of it. But ultimately, I try hard to make my pieces very attractive so that no one wants to get rid of them! I think you can compare it to a child drawing something on a wall – he loves to express himself, and so nothing can stop him. I do think that the true idea of graffiti is when it is created in public places and perhaps in an illegal way. But it’s quite hard in Korea to limit yourself as a graffiti artist in this way. It costs a lot of money for one thing, and also there are not very many good public spaces to work with. So why not earn money from hired pieces instead of wasting money all the time on public pieces? That is my mentality. In fact, I think by trying too hard to restrict graffiti to public spaces it limits me as an artist. If I only painted in public spaces, than I would lose out on many opportunities. For example, I recently painted one of the only hotrod big rigs in Korea that belongs to a famous Korean rock band, and I’ve also done pieces in Korean music videos. So why not use my artistic skill as a source of income? Is it any different than Tupac hiring someone to do a piece for one of his own music videos? Sure, it sometimes forces me to give up certain elements of self-expression when I have to cater to a customer, but I’d rather give up certain artistic elements and still earn money doing what I love than choose another source of income and give up all my artistic opportunities. I think all art shares a similar nature regardless of its form. Music, dance, fine arts – all of these share a fundamental purpose of expressing something in their own style. Only the materials that make up these art forms are what make them different.

In Korea, a lot of hip hop culture seems more professional and less rebellious than other countries (BBoy break-dancing shows, the government-sponsored Haja Center for Alternative Culture, less controversial hip hop music, etc.). How does this affect you as a graffiti artist in Korea? Do you feel connected to these other realms of Korean hip hop culture?

I feel connected to these things in certain ways. It’s true that BBoy dance culture is very popular in Korea right now. At many performances, they have graffiti artists doing pieces on the side, so there is definitely some sort of connection. Overall, I do think that hip hop culture is less rebellious in Korea than other places, especially in America. I am personally glad that Korean society has been accepting of hip hop culture. I don’t think that hip hop culture must be rebellious in order to be real. Perhaps global hip hop culture is evolving to be less rebellious as it becomes more popular; I don’t have a problem with this at all. I think one of the reasons that it has become so rapidly popular in Korea is because Koreans have observed so much talent in these various realms. We don’t have tons of kids going around tagging up everything in Seoul just to annoy people, like in some American cities. However, I do think a certain element of rebellion is part of hip hop culture and always will be. I still carry around markers to throw up quick tags here and there, which annoy some people. But I think the difference in Korea is that so much attention has been given to the talent involved, instead of lumping it all together as a crazy, ugly, illegal culture that needs to be dealt with.

How has the internet affected your work? Is it a large source of influences for you? Does it provide you with a larger audience? What do you use your website for?

Much of what I study in regard to graffiti comes from the internet, so I think I can say that without the internet, graffiti in Korea probably could not have developed into what it is today. After all, the internet is responsible for introducing me to certain painting techniques, and to many of the artists that I admire, such as Daim in Germany, who I otherwise would never have heard about. I suppose it brings me a larger audience to an extent, though it’s not really my main purpose for being involved on the internet. I have been featured on various well-known graffiti communities, such as Graffiti.org. I have also begun experimenting with web graphics and things like Flash animation. I guess my website is really just an easy way to maintain a gallery of my work, and I do hope that many people can be inspired by it around the world.

What is your impression of current mainstream hip hop culture in America? Has it become too commercial? Do you see graffiti as a part of this mainstream or as some sort of underground savior?

Well, again, I don’t have a problem with hip hop culture or graffiti becoming mainstream or sold in various consumer products. I’m fine with how hip hop culture is evolving to become more of a pop culture. American hip hop does seem much more controversial in regard to sex, drugs, violence, etc. – I think it’s okay to an extent, as a form of entertainment. Ultimately I think people who want to pursue those types of things will do it anyway, so I think to have some of that in products or entertainment is okay. But if some of those things in American hip hop are a reflection of real life in America, I don’t think I would like it!