Interview with the Original Style Writer Riff 170 





                                                              

Riff 170

                                 conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)



NORIN RAD:"From which part of the Bronx are you originally?"

RIFF 170:"I'm from the South Bronx. That's where I'm originally from then I moved up to Plimpton Avenue....that's near University Avenue. "

NORIN RAD:"Isn't is also close to Jesup Avenue (where Sasa is from) and Sedgwick Avenue?"

RIFF 170:"Yeah..that's close to there." 

NORIN RAD:"You are being credited as one of the most influential innovators when it comes to  Style Writing. What are some of your contributions to this artform? I have read that you were the first Writer to introduce Mechanical Letters as well as the Background Cloud to Style Writing. Furthermore, I have also read that you were the first to incorporate chunks that are falling off from letters into your pieces. Could you please elaborate on that?"

RIFF 170:"Well, I really didn't name anything I just did it..like guys... other Writers would name stuff. Like Phase 2  he would call the bit that was coming off the letter... he called it the "Bottle Cap" and Chain 3 (TMT) started calling them "Rock Clips". And other people they named my style the "Mechanical Style" because it had a mechanical effect to it. As for the incredible Case 2 (TFP)...his style was called the Computer Rock. Mines was called "The Mechanical Letters" 'cause I went from regular form style letters to mechanical styles....just different.....it had a lot of different aspects. I just didn't want to be known for just getting up ( doing a lot of pieces on the trains). I had this thing in my mind that I wanted to have the best pieces that I could possibly make. So I just started doing things that I thought were different from everybody else and that's how I came up with different styles. As far as the Background Cloud...I wasn't the first one to do the Background Cloud...I just used it, you know? I did pieces to give it more of an effect. I really don't know who started the first cloud. I know guys that used it when they were tagging....in the tagging aspect. In the beginning of everything it was just an effect around their lettering. But innovations....you know I started a lot of things that people... I never named them I just was doing them 'cause I just wanted to be unique within myself, you know? And I wanted my peers to know you didn't have to be stuck in one specific element or style.  You could, you know, venture off!  So I just started doing things that I thought maybe people would like or that I would like, you know? But even in piecing...there were a lot of things that I didn't really like but I just tried it out and they caught on to others and that's why I'm credited for a lot of different things because I wasn't scared to venture outside of the norm. I always thought outside the box from the beginning. I was motion tagging before piecing came along. Like I hung out with these two brothers and this one guy named HRJ II. and they taught me, you know, took me Writing which I didn't even know what that was at first until they showed me. It was on the 4 train which was close to where I lived on 170th street...which was on Jerome Avenue and 170th street. And we'd get on the train and we'd ride it up and down. We would ride it to 149th street and get off  and cross over and then come back up on the next train going Uptown to Mosholu and get off there and then come back down again, you know, until we figured we did enough for that day (in terms of tagging up their names) . It was just addictive!!! Just to see your handstyle!!!!! Because before anything handstyles is what gave you the idea of doing styles. And it wasn't nobody over the age of 16 really writing, you know, except for Wayne...Stay High 149 and probably Lava. It was like, you know, the city within itself...the government and everything took away the after school study programs and as being a young boy...even young women that was doing it with us.we had something to do that was an outlet and we didn't do it just to be bad we did it to have fun. Therefore, you know, if you take something away from somebody that helps them to release energy something else takes its place and dealing with that Style Writing took its place. A lot of people would say we were just being bad but it wasn't being bad it was just a kid having fun and that's what we did. It was so many other kids doing it and it was our way of talking to one another...from borough to borough...from Brooklyn to Queens to Manhattan to the Bronx. We would go there after school or on the weekend and hone our craft. A lot of guys were about getting up. If you got up most people knew who you were as a Writer but not as a person. They'd see your writing and they'd say "Oh, that guy right there! Phase 2 or Lee 163d!" It was like a ritual that you did once you got into it and soon you were already addicted to what you was doing. It was exciting..it had different aspects...you know the rush of doing 
something that you shouldn't be doing....but yet it was fun! As for myself..my writing handstyle came from liking how well my mother wrote, you know, cursive. I wanted to have a nice handwriting so she told me whatever I did I had to practice it. "Whatever you want to be in life," she said, "you just take time out and give it your best."

Riff 170's Hand Style

NORIN RAD:"Now you have used a specific term to describe what you did namely Style Writing instead of Graffiti. Is that the correct term for the artform? How did you call yourselves back then?"


RIFF 170:"We called ourselves Writers! In school...when you were in school you would write  your heading when you went to class...that's how we got the term Writing because you would write in class the date, the class you was in...science, math, history, art and you would write it down and you would write your name and you would write homework so this was called your writing. So when you're tagging the areas it's still writing because  you are something that either you gave yourself or somebody else as a nickname. So that's why we called it Writing..we never called it Graffiti...society called it Graffiti cause it was to try to ridicule the young youth and deter them from doing what they was doing but it had no effect on us because we didn't call it that and it was a derogatory term to make you not want to do it. It fell on deaf ears because we didn't really listen to it. We thought it was funny that they was trying to discourage us from something that we had grown so fond of. So we kept doing it and we never used that term Graffiti until people wanted to get money from the art culture. The thing that changed it for people to call it that was when it went above ground....you know, into the galleries. It became some sort of a commodity and certain people wanted to be known. We just wanted to do the art...a lot of other people later wanted to be known as the movie stars of the culture which really didn't bring a lot of aspects to it."

NORIN RAD:"How did the concept of adding your own style to lettering enter Writing and who were like the most trailblazers in this regard? I mean it obviously changed quite fast from regular handwriting styles like Taki 183 did it to more elaborate styles like Lee 163d's tag with his interlocking letters and then it went on to piecing.."

Lee 163d! - Handstyle

 
RIFF 170: "I would have to say Style Writing it didn't just start with masterpiecing. Style Writimg started with handstyles!!!! And you really can't say who was the most influential because each person had a unique handstyle...like Taki 183 just had the straight letter tag style but guys like you said like Lee 163d!, Phase 2 with the PH connecting with the A-S-E that stretched out with the Roman number two under the regular number two. Lee had the interlocking L-E-E with the 163 and the d! after the 163.

And it was guys like Stay High 149 that had the long straight up and down letters style that connected. Handstyle was the first style. As for piecing which was more colorful and much bigger... the first cat that I can say that did a piece was Super Kool 223 and me and Phase 2..I guess with many others...seen that.... a light went on in our head and we figured we had more creativity than Super Kool 223 and we made ours a little bit more exotic than his. As months went by we got tired of doing just regular straight letters and we started doing more exotic letters...introducing multi colours and that's when Style Writing was created. Known as the best two Writers were me...Riff 170 and Phase 2 and then it was other guys such as Pel, Billy 167, Staff 161, Tracy 168...really the Bronx writers were the most elaborate writers that brought the style technique to life and then others were looking and appreciating what we was doing so certain guys would try to pick up on it to the best of their abilities and that's when Style Writing took off! Just because we didn't want to do  just straight letters.. we wanted to do something unique just what any real talent wants to do. It doesn't want to stay boxed up. That's why I came up with so many aliases cause I was trying to find something that suited my nickname..."

 NORIN RAD:"When did Super Kool 223 do the first piece? Was it in 1972 or 1973?"

RIFF 170:"1972."

Piece by Super Kool 223

NORIN RAD:"So when Writers back then saw the first piece was it like an instant change of the way one would approach Style Writing?"

RIFF 170: "Well me and Phase both figured that! I said, "Damn! It's much bigger and you can do more things with it! " I guess the same idea went off in Phase's head and we saw he was the first to do it....it wasn't great....it wasn't smooth and it wasn't as unique as when me and Phase started piecing but it was the idea of making letters bigger and being able to add more concepts to it. So that's what I did and Phase 2 did the same thing. We just knew we could do so much more and it definetely changed the game of Style Writing!" 

NORIN RAD: "So the advent of piecing also provided you with the opportunity to come up with new letter patterns? "

RIFF 170:"That's correct. I just wanted to bring a real distinctive aspect to what we was doing. We were calling it masterpiecing first before we called it Style Writing. A masterpiece is something that you put together  in a unique way but it had to appeal to the majority of the other Writers and I saw what I did appealed to a lot of writers. You know,  a lot of writers started crediting me with things cause I was doing unique things. I was always trying to change and that's what made me find all the other aliases that I was doing...trying new things...doing interlocking letters and letters that went through another...in front of one another...behind...back and front...and have the unqiue distinction of being like hard....Phase 2 is credited for soft style type letters that interlocked but he also had a nice unique hard style, too but people always just credit him with bubble styles but that wasn't true...he had multiple styles and ideas himself."

NORIN RAD:"May I ask where you drew your inspiration from to do all these different letters styles? Was it something that came out exclusively out of your inner soul or would you also be inspired by lettering displayed in comic books and stuff like that? I mean your friend Sasa told me that he was inspired by James Brown in his dancing but he flipped his moves and created something of his own."

RIFF 170: "Like I said it started out with letters from the cereal box...letters from the alphabet when they was shown when you went to school...when the thickness came in you would see them write different letters, you know...in a different form and format..so that was the beginning of it but then from my inner-self I started doing things that wasn't even part of the regular alphabet or the regular imagination..it just came from my imagination and that's why my style was called by my peers The Mechanical Style. I thought it was unique because I was doing things that other Writers didn't think of like the Tiger Stripe Letters...Multi Color Letters...stuff I called Burners because they was different from everyone else's style and Burners meant..the piece was so unique that if you had your piece next to mine I would outshine you because my style was so different from everything."

Tiger Stripe Letter Piece by Riff 170

NORIN RAD:"I see. From your perspective as one of the most Style Witers of all times what does a piece have to have in order to be considered a true Burner? Is it the arrangement, the flow of the letters? Their proportion? What is your definition?"

RIFF 170:"How I would define a Burner is...it is unique within style...it is definetely well proportioned..it has a lot of creativity to it..the letters have to match up to really make a piece  stand out.. it is definetely well proportioned and well put together and definetely well thought out you just don't just throw it up..you think of it. A lot of the stuff that we did was not because we had it drawn.... it came off the top of the head! When we was coming up you didn't have time to plan it, you just had to do it. It was just something that was in you. To hold a spray can and be close up on this metal canvas (the train)...execution was unbelievable...a during a moment thing that made it really special. It would just come off the top of the head and you would do this letter for letter. The letters...they weren't perfect in the beginning..but they were as close to the same proportion as you could get it with eye coordination. Your eye would give you the measurements standing close to this metal canvas and you had to put it in motion with this spray can that was a new way of writing..or a new technique of putting something up and it is staying there for the people to see."

NORIN RAD:"Thank you. This actually leads me to my next question. Were there also battles between Writers back then and how were they judged?"

RIFF 170:"That's a great question. Style Writing didn't start Writers battling each other, egos started Writers battling each other. You know, one guy figured his stuff was better than the next guy...which was guys thinking that they could outdo me at times and that's where one of the first battles came from..me and Staff 161 (The Ebony Dukes)....when he said I was biting something that he did..biting means copying...he said I had copied a concept that he did which was a stick figure lighting a canon blowing out his name.....but I did a full character with an Afro with bell-bottoms and plattform shoes with a canon blowing out my name...with a spark coming out of his finger making the canon go off. So when people saw my thing they loved it and they were like, "Riff did it better!" Staff got upset and said I bit. So that's when the battle started. I really regretted the battle because it made people feel...I was just friendly, you know? I wasn't upset with him and he wasn't upset with me. To really battle is that our peers say whose concept is the best. I didn't say my concept was the best it was other Writers that was from every borough. They figured they liked what I did much more. It was may the best man win. There was no animosity towards it."

NORIN RAD:"By which criteria was determined who won these battles?" 


RIFF 170:"It was judged on how neat and how unique your piece style was....the colours...and how it stood out on the side of the metal canvasses ( the trains)  and how it jumped off the train..it had to have a lot of unique aspects to it. It was mainly based on how special your style was and how unique..I guess that's how they judged it because I never asked them how they judged it..I just did the  work. When they saw my pieces they'd be like, "Look at that! Whatever that is..that's a fork coming out of it! Yo, that's so unique! His piece is sliced over there. It has chips coming off of it. The middle of  the letter is closed up. "That's what I'm credited for, too. Letters not having openings like in A or a P or a D....you know the letter was filled..different concepts..you might put a star in the area where the hole would be...or a heart or a chip. So I was doing different concepts that won me the battles because I was doing things that nobody else was doing."

NORIN RAD:"You are also known for having used many different names besides Riff 170 such as Dove 2, Worm 161, Mr. 6, Cash 2, Conan, Boy 170 and many more. What caused you to come up with so many different aliases?"


RIFF 170:"I really wanted to do the whole alphabet as much as I could and as I said I wanted to be real unique and these were names that I used before I came up with the concept of writing Riff which is "Reading Is Fundamentally Fantastic" but that derived from a commercial that used to come on TV. I was reading a lot of books and stuff when I was going tagging and Bonanza and them told me, "Yo, you gotta  get something that describes you!" And that's how I came up with that name but I was writing all the other names before I got to writing Riff and I just wanted to do every letter I could  and be as unique as I possibly could at all aspects. That's why I used names like Worm 161, Dove 2, Boy 170, Mr. 6.....and I thought Mr. 6 was unique because it started out letters with a number and the number was your name!  Six!!! (chuckles) So that was one of the more unique things I did. Even though I spelled it out at times you know S-I-X. You know it was more about doing unique pieces. Like Dove..because a dove bird is considered so special...people gravitate towards it as so special...that is like a thing of peace and understanding.  I was peaceful..I mean we all were peaceful but it gave me a sense of not being rough around the edges...being smooth and understanding...so that's why I chose Dove. And Boy......because I was a boy...as a young Writer....and Worm is because I was an athlete and I played sports and I was moving around uniquely just like Sasa would dance uniquely. But you know each name was a tribute to something I liked and had a letter form that I thought I could manipulate very well.  It wasn't too many letters that I didn't think I could manipulate. So that's why I had so many aliases because I knew I could manipulate them and make them in my format...in the way I liked them to be and how unique I could put them together."  

Dove 2 piece by Riff 170

 

NORIN RAD:"Who exactly was down with that crew of yours called The Independents and who was its leader`"


RIFF 170:"Well, it was really nobody a leader but the person that came up with the Independents which Phase 2....he made up that crew and it was called "The Independent Fabulous Five"...that was the original crew but everybody else wanted to be down and that's when he made up a crew for everyone called The Independents. That meant having your own uniqueness and having your own special persona with what you did.   He had the best guys that were out and we did what we did."

NORIN RAD:"So you were in a crew that was called The Fabulous Five?"

RIFF 170:"Yeah, it was called The Independent Fabulous Five."

NORIN RAD:"And it consisted only of the top Style Writers at that time?"

RIFF 170: "Yeah, the top of the chain."

NORIN RAD:"And they were all from the Bronx?"

RIFF 170:"Yeah, all of us. The original crew were all from the Bronx."

NORIN RAD:"What kind of music were you listening to back then in the 1970s  when you were decorating trains with burner pieces?"

RIFF 170:"Well, I was into all sorts of music but my main genre of music was Soul. James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and so on and so on. Soul music was like a music that touched your soul that's why it was called Soul Music.It made you wanna dance, clap your hands, bop your head...you know your body just got taken over."


NORIN RAD:"Where do you know your man Sasa from?"


RIFF 170:"We grew up together....playing sports and everything and we all went to parties. He was more of a performer of dancing and he played sports, too. We grew up in the same neighbourhood on 170th. He lived like a few blocks over from where I lived. When I was growing up four or five blocks across on either side going to the east and to the west evrybody knew you. It wasn't like nobody knew you...it was like a big family. You had your blood family and you had your other family which was your neighbours. As for Kool Herc we came up playing ball (basketball) plus he was known for playing music. And playing sports....he was a very fit young guy like a body builder. That's how he got the name Herc as for Hercules and he cut it short to Kool Herc because he was a kool mannered guy. That's why it went together Kool Herc.  I did a few flyers for his parties along with being his friend."

NORIN RAD:"So would you also go to his parties at the Twilight Zone and The Hevalo?"


RIFF 170:"Yeah, I would go but I wasn't much of a partyer. But I would go because I was being invited because I drew flyers for him and he would want for me to appear. Not only was it Kool Herc. It was also Coke La Rock."

The legendary B-Boy Sasa & the legendary DJ/MC Coke La Rock