The
Hip Hop pioneer speaks with upstart Theophilus London about what life was like
in the early stages of the Hip-Hop culture and how Hip Hop grew into such a
magnanimous culture. During the conversation, Freddy, who recently launched
a new gallery displaying his works, recalled the sentiment in the downtown scene
at the time.
"It was just like a desire to get my message out at that time on the downtown
scene in New York in the early ‘80s. It was basically not many of us,
but when you met somebody that was on a similar track like Jean-Michel Basquiat
or Keith Haring, like Futura [2000], we immediately bonded because we were trying
to do certain things," he stated. "We were trying to get our visual
art out, which is what I’m back doing now, I’m in a gallery with
a show of my new paintings. I was trying to help people understand what hip
hop culture was about, so we were campaigning, if you will. And a lot of the
people we campaigned to were downtown, new wave, punk-rock people, like people
from the group Blondie, who became patrons of my work. Like Talking Heads, like
so many cool people at that period just embraced what we were doing."
Praising Theophilus for his work, Freddy also noted that he "s thrilled to see
rappers embracing the past with their art. "I love seeing a new wave of
artists figure it out by doing their history and making their contribution,"
Fab 5said.
Watch the full interview below.
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