Interview with Ban 2 (OTB)

                                                         Interview with Ban 2 (OTB)

                                                        

                                                              

 Ban 2 (OTB)

                                        conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany) 

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which part of the Bronx are you from?"

BAN 2:"Well, I'm originally from Harlem and not the Bronx. My family moved to the Bronx in 1975 due to we had a fire in our apartment dwelling. The fire didn't really start in my apartment, it started like under us but it spreaded to my apartment dwelling. We moved to the Grand Concourse...174th Street. Lewis Morris building in the South Bronx. This was 1975." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which year were you born in?"

BAN 2:"I was born in 1962, August 15th at Harlem hospital at approximately 6:43 p.m.."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How old were you when you started noticing pieces."

BAN 2:"Okay, I'd like to point out I was fascinated with the trains at an early age....probably 8 or 9...when my mother used to take us to my grandmother's house on 164th Street on the Third Avenue El. So I'm talking 1971 to my earliest knowledge. So when I was sitting in there I became fascinated with the graffiti on the trains at an early age....I was at least 8 or 9 years old. I saw graff but it was simple names."   

SIR NORIN RAD:"What exactly was the Third Avenue El? Was it an elevated railway?"

BAN 2:"Yes, it was an elevated line. It started on 149th Street & 3rd Avenue and went all the way up to Gun Hill Road...if I'm not mistaken. It was torn down in the early 1970ies...I'd say about 1972 or 1973.....it was demolished. So they had a subway line that ran parallel to Norwood and I guess once they took that down they ran it with busses. Even back then they had graffiti. I'm talking 1971, 1972."

SIR NORIN RAD:"That was like the first era of Writing....the signature era...before there were any pieces, right? When Writers like Lee 163rd! or Charmin 65 were doing tags on the trains with certain embellishments....."  

BAN 2:"Yeah, you're right, you're right. I used to see Hulk 62 tags, Eva 62, Staff 161. The thing is this... I used to just read the names whatever...."Oh, look at the names!" It really fascinated me and I wondered how the hell people did actually put their names on running trains and so forth. I was way too young to find out due to the fact that I was still very young. I played outside. We couldn't leave the block, we stayed in the street. We played tag, skelly whatever and we virtually didn't leave the block. " 

Deli 167 aka Ban 2 (OTB)

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What caused you to pick up Writing?"

BAN 2:"When I moved to the Bronx I became friends with Melvin which is Noc 167. I had seen his tags up and down the block but I didn't know he wrote. We used to play stick-ball and off the point..basketball....but I never knew he wrote until I went to his house in the next building from where I lived. There I saw the writing on his bedroom walls and stuff and I was like,"Oh, you write?" He was like, "Yeah, I write!"  I guess after that I just blew off." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Is it accurate to say that you started Writing by hitting the insides first?"

BAN 2:"Yeah, I went to buy a Magic Marker from a hardware store which was an El Marko. I probably paid 99 cent back then. It could have even been cheaper......so when I bought the marker I said, "Oh, it's time for me to really start with my name!" But Ban 2 actually was not my original name. A lot of people don't know this. In 1976 that record called "Dazz" by Brick came out."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Disco Jazz....Dazz!!"

BAN 2:"Yes, so when I pulled that record to go play it in my mother's apartment, the record label said Bang. B-A-N-G. So then I said,"Oh, this sounds like a good name!" So I started writing Bang 2 but when I would write the name I would mess up on the G. Yeah, 'cause you know I mean back then I had just started tagging whatever....So I said, "Why do I always mess up on the G?" So I said, "You know, I don't think this is a name for me. Let me think of another angle." So then one day I was actually home watching TV and a commercial came on...like Ban Roll-On. Remember the Ban Roll-On commercial? It was a deoderant called Ban Roll-On. I remember when I was going to school I would look at the tags whatever...look at the trains..... so I figured, "I think nobody writes this name so let me start writing Ban 2!" Then after that I guess the name Ban 2 was born and the rest is history."

 Ban Two Tag

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"So the year of 1976 marks the beginning of your Writing career?"

BAN 2:"Yes, you can truly say that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you invest a lot of time into developing your tag?"

BAN 2:"Yes, I did 'cause whenever my mother would tell me, "Sign this!" Like say a report card for instance...where you had to sign your report card.... or she would bring me a document to sign and so I would write it like I was writing graffiti. So then she would smack me on the side of my  head,"Boy, sign your name right! Stop writing it like you're writing graffiti!" So then I just started drawing on it, letting it go....whatever.  Then word got around the building that I was writing my name all over the building and so forth. So I said,"Oh my gosh, she gonna put me on punishment!" So I said, "I gotta come up with another name! I gotta choose a name that nobody don't know me by 'cause everybody knows me as Ban 2 now." So I just came up with the name Deli 167. But Deli is another story also...Deli came from......when I was in 7th grade I used to work as a messenger after school. So one day the supervisor told me to go to the store but he didn't mention the word "store"..he'd just say, "Go to the Deli and buy me a hamburger!" So he gave me the money and I went to the store, I waited for the hamburger to be made and so forth but back then it wasn't really called the Deli...it was called Delicatessen. So then I figured, "Since I'm hanging out with Noc 167 a lot, I'm just gonna write Deli 167." That's where the name derived from. So I just started writing that name...kept putting it up and I guess it took off from there. And then I came up with a few other aliases that people probably didn't know I wrote. I wrote Bravo 2. Remember Bravos potato chips? Then I started writing Deen. D-E-E-N. Then I was also writing S 127 which meant Snoop 127. But that was just an alias that I didn't really put in 100 percent, you know? It was my cross out tag. Whoever went over me, I used that. So altogether I was dancing around five names."

Deen aka Ban 2 (OTB)

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also use Deli 167 for doing insides or did you exclusively use Ban 2 for that purpose?"

BAN 2:"Well, I was sorta like mixing it up. But you know it's like this....if you go to do a tag and then you do another tag evidently people gonna think that it's the same person.  So they're not gonna think, "Oh, this is two different people who are walking around with the same marker!" No, it's the same guy. So evidently sometimes I would tag both names in the same spot. That was also to confuse the cops who were looking for you or the vandal squad and so forth. I mean it was just a mystique. I guess it's a mindset thing. I did accomplish a great feat with both names. I can truly say that. "

                                                       

Deli 167 Tag

SIR NORIN RAD:"I find that whole aspect of tagging up your name with a marker to be extremely fascinating. What was the most popular ink back then? Was it Flo-Master?" 

BAN 2:"Yes, Flo-Master was I guess by far the best ink and I still don't know to this day why they stopped selling it. Maybe the manufacturers found out that, "Oh, this is a graffiti product!" but it wasn't really a graffiti product. It was mainly made for the store stamps. You know, when you go to a store and they're using a stamp machine to put the price on a can and so forth?  Flo-Master was really used for that. So then it derived into the graffiti which was....first of all it's hard to buff off, it's hard to take off. You gonna have to go through all these detergents just to scrubb it off your hands, your clothes and sneakers and so forth. (chuckles) Yeah, I mean if you got ink on your clothes you might as well throw them away. Like when you came home with ink spots on your shirt your mother would be like,"I just bought that shirt!" You know, you come home and your mom was shopping for you....you have brand new school clothes on and stuff. (She'd be like),"Oh, you got ink all over your clothes! That gotta come off!"

 

Flo-master ink

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and what was your favourite marker back then?"

BAN 2:"My go-to-marker was the Pilot Super Wide.......other nice ones were the Magnum 44, the Niji, Uni-Wide, Mini-Wide. I didn't really like Uni-Wide and Mini-wide because once you filled them up with ink and if you had them in your pocket sometimes the cap wouldn't be on one hundred percent so what you got is... you have leakage. So you look down in your pocket, next thing you know you got ink all in your pocket, you got ink coming through your pants and you're walking around with 40 $ jeans on with ink stains. So that wasn't a good look especially when you went to see a girl. That was really an error that I went through a lot. Keeping markers in my pocket and stuff. Even if you're keeping a marker in your inside pocket. You know sometimes jackets have an inside pocket? You keep a marker over there...next thing you know you got a ink stain showing through your brand-new jacket or whatever. So after a while I stopped walking around with a marker and if I did I made sure I kept it in a plastic bag but I wouldn't just keep it loose."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did Writers back then manipulate the tip of their markers in order to alter the way in which their tags would come out?"

BAN 2:"Yeah and also we would take like a needle and then we would pick the marker. You probably picked it for five minutes, ten minutes and so forth. What that do it softens up the tip of the marker because if you buy a brand-new marker and you take the cap off you'll see the tip is hard. So when you tag the tag is not gonna come out juicy. So you soften it up, in and out and then you flood it with the ink. So when you tag you can take your time, you don't have to be so agressive. The tag will come out nice and clean and thick.  So that was a technique that I learnt from Fuzz One. Fuzz One taught me that. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Is it true that Writers back then also used to build their own markers?" 

BAN 2:"Yeah, that trick derived from people who couldn't afford to buy markers or who couldn't rack markers or whatever. There are some household things that you can make a home-made marker. For instance, you can get a little deoderant roll-on bottle and if you go to school you can take the eraser of the blackboard and you can use that. That's the way I used to do it but I never really did it 'cause I kept markers. I kept boxes of Uni-Wide markers, I had boxes of Pilots, Magnum 44s, Nijis...you name it, I had it."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"So how big was your arsenal of markers and ink bottles back then? I guess your room must have been full of those things."

BAN 2:"Well, that was never a problem that I had at home. I really couldn't keep that stuff at home, especially the ink and the markers I couldn't keep that at home. But I did have little stashes at places in my bedroom. I kept them in shoeboxes, I kept them under my mattress, I kept them inside my boots. You know, I kept some paint and stuff at Noc's house 'cause Noc lived in the next building from me and plus he was always home. So one time I went to go bombing by myself. I had left up stuff in his house so I went to his house, his mother answered the door....I said, "I left something in his room." She said, "He's not here. I can't let you in." So I said, "Damn! I can't leave stuff at this guy's house no more!" I had left about 100 cans at his house. I got most of it back and I just started keeping my own stuff. I didn't want to rely on nobody. I just wanted to rely on myself. I used to stash paint...I used to come back from racking, hide some paint, come back and it's gone! You stash twenty cans in a garbage bin then you go to hit another rack, then you come back and you're ready to go home and all the cans are gone! You don't wanna know that feeling!  (laugh) Yeah, cause somebody somebody seen you stash it. I went through that a couple of times. That's no laughing matter. That hurts you!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did you start doing pieces?"

BAN 2:"I'd say about 1977,  1978. I started doing the Delis and stuff like that. I would go to the Moshulu lay-up in broad daylight and do Top-to-Bottoms. I would go to the 1 Tunnel with Fuzz. First I had a phobia.....I used to have a phobia of even entering the tracks. So then I said to myself, "If you want to be a full-fledged Writer you gotta get used to going to the yards, going to the lay-ups." And then there was a technique of, "Oh, what if you get chased?" I got chased a few times. Back then I was a tall, lanky kid so what I would do is I would slide down the pole. Fuzz told me how to walk up the pole and to slide down the pole. The piecing aspect is totally different from the tagging aspect. The tagging aspect was easy. It's the piecing aspect that you got to be aware of. There is more pitfalls, there is more hazards. You gotta watch your footing 'cause you could be piecing.. you're walking on a catwalk then next thing you know you're falling to the street! I don't know if it ever happened but one time I did lose my footing. Thank God I didn't fall down to the street below! You also gotta watch out for the third rail....Remember I used to go piecing by myself so I didn't have a third eye, fourth eye. I mean I rolled with some dudes but the majority of the pieces I done I was by myself. I really had to be on alert. I had to listen out for anybody coming. I mean it's a lot to it. Trust me!  Even when you go to the yard by yourself, you really gotta be cautious. You really have to be on your guard because, you know, when you leave home to go piecing or whatever you wanna make it back home. Your mom don't wanna get that phone call from the cops, "We apprehended your son! He was caught doing graffiti! You gotta come down to the precinct! His bail is such and such."

   Deli 167 aka Ban 2 (OTB)

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What I have noticed about your particular piecing style is that you kept your letters simple and perfectly legible. What was the reason for this? I mean your crew mate Noc 167 obviously tended to use the opposite approach for his lettering style."

BAN 2:"Well, you see I just wanted to stick to my childhood. I wanted to bring that same concept from the graffiti that I saw when I was growing up. I used to see something that was plain, simple, legible....I can't spend five, six, seven hours on a piece and you can't read it....nobody knows what it says. So I was keeping it seventies. That's me! That's me! Look at Seen (UA), look Lee (TF5)..look at Comet and Blade. These guys kept it simple. Their pieces were colorful, they had meaning, they had energy! You know, it's more of the energy that you put into those pieces. That's what I call simple and plain graffiti. I mean if you really do your research and you see all these guys who did the whole cars and stuff like that, they kept  it clean, they kept it neat, they had energy and it never really left that 70ies era. The 70ies era to me to this day...2021.....I just really contest that those were the best days of my life and I'm 58 years old, pushing into 59. I'd do anything to bring back the seventies. Even the way people dressed in the seventies! (laughs)." 

Deli 167 aka Ban 2 (OTB)

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who put you down with the OTB Crew?"

BAN 2:"Noc 167 put me in OTB right off the start...OUT TO BOMB!!! That's what OTB stands for. Like I said we been boys way before I even started writing graffiti."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Could you please describe the process through which you became King of the 4 Line? What made you choose this particular line and who were your main competitors? "

BAN 2:"Well, that line was one of the lines that I rode to school. I used to transfer at 125th Street and take the 6. So I said, "You know what? Since I can look out my back window and see the 4 Train.... " 'cause you know I lived on the Grand Concourse...and my bedroom had the back window and I could see Jerome Avenue. So I was just looking at the 4 Line like that. So I said, "Since this is my home line just let me start on this line! Let me focus on this line!" That line was very competitive! Not only that Mitch 77 was on it. You had Tracy 168, you had Stay High 149, you had Mark 198, you had Schick, you had Wasp One, you had Boo 2 and mind you that Mitch 77 had two other different names! He also wrote Tue and 7 Up! He was just killing it with all three names!!! So I said, "How can I compete with this guy?" The guy was really putting in work at the time I met him.  So I mean to today I can still contest that  he was the biggest competitor that I had to contend with. I still to this day don't think that I ever surpassed him.  Once he died out I moved up in rank. I moved up in rank after he left. I had a solid three year reign on that line."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How long were you King of the 4 Line?"

BAN  2:"From '82 to '85."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of a feeling was it for you when you realized that you had become the King of the 4 Line?"

BAN 2:"Well, I'd like to say that it was like, "Mission accomplished!" Because there was nothing else to prove.....first of all. I mean, come on! When you ride the train.....especially that line....like every day and you actually get on the train.....once you get on the train and start from the front and walk all the way to the back.....your name is in every car!! So need I say more? The majority of pictures that people took on the 4 Line you gonna see a Ban 2 tag! Remember the picture I sent you with Mayor Koch?? You see Mayor Koch, Senator D'Amato....the other guy...and what do you see over their heads?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"A Ban 2 OTB tag."

BAN 2:"That's an iconic picture! You cannot beat that!"

A Ban 2 OTB tag over Mayor Koch and Senator D'Amatos

 
SIR NORIN RAD:"What was it like when you met Mitch 77 for the first time?"

BAN 2:" I didn't meet Mitch 77 until I went to the 4 lay-up at 183rd Street & Jerome Avenue one night by myself. He was with five other dudes..I knew they was writers. He told me,"Yo, what you write?" and I responded,"Ban 2!" Then he said, "Oh, so you're Ban 2???" That's when I knew that I was really starting to get recognition! When a made dude like that gives you props..you know you are opening eyes! He was with Tex183, Max183, Rex 183 and another dude. I didn't meet Disco / Med 167 (Mitch 77s legendary partner from the Latin Artists Crew) until later."          

SIR NORIN RAD:"Out here in Europe many people hold Dondi (RIP) in very high esteem because of his exceptional style writing prowess. What many fail to understand is the fact that his style was heavily influenced by several Bronx Style Masters, Noc 167 being one of them. This fact becomes obvious when one compares the style of Dondi's early Naco pieces which were done on the BMTs to that of his later work. Dondi himself stated in that book "Dondi - Style Master General" that he looked up to Noc 167. Since you were very close to Noc 167 back then, what can you say about his Style Writing abilities and his general approach to the artform?"

BAN 2:"Well, you can really say that he was before his time... as far as drawing, doing outlines, doing cartoon characters and stuff like that. He was really my most influential Writer of all time. He was really gifted! He was more gifted than people realize but here's what's really strange: He never kinged a line. Even though he was gifted with all that talent he never took King of a line and I don't understand that. I do not understand that to this day.  And Naco...Dondi.....was one the first Writers that I met when I first started. I met Dondi, I met Fuzz One, I met Nic 707, I met all these guys at Noc's house."

  Noc 167 (OTB)

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were they doing at his house? Were they drawing together and talking about style?"

BAN 2:"Oh, oh these guys....we were all cramped up into Noc's room. He had a small room, not so big. He had a lamp with no shade. He had a light bulb, you know? He had a little brown dog running around barking at us and stuff. The room was all packed up and I thought that was cool. These guys in there were smoking weed. They'd be drawing, sketching, doing outlines..listening to the radio. He had no TV in his room, all he had was a radio. It was nothing that I could be around much because I didn't smoke.  To this day I never smoke weed or whatever. It really gave me headaches so I would excuse myself, go home and so forth. I met all these guys in his apartment and to this day I cherish meeting all these guys when I first came up because these guys had names! They already had status! So I couldn't really put myself in the same category. These guys were already made men. So that's another reason why I had the drive to put in the work that I put in through years. I wanted to get the same status as these guys! These guys were really icons back then. So you really gotta see whee I'm coming from....It' like the new kid in class. If you're the new kid you gotta get used to the people that run the class, you gotta get good with them and so you really gotta test yourself and prove yourself and push yourself. That's why I was accepted into OTB because evidently Noc seen something in me...the passion, the drive to really make something out of my name.  If you wanna be a good writer, you gotta motivate yourself."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What exactly comes to your mind when you think of the Writer's Bench at 149 Street & Grand Concourse?"

BAN 2:" I would love to go there before going to school and after school. I really didn't have much on the 2s and 5s (these two lines along with the 4 line serve the 149th Street - Grand Concourse train station) but after a while they started switching the cars around on the IRTs. You could go to the 6 line and do something and the next week it would be running on the 3, 4 or 5 Line..or you could do something in the 3 yard and then it would be running on the 1 Line or 2 Line. Or you can catch something at the Ghost Yard. So I started branching out..going to Gun Hill layup, 225th Street, Baychester, Esplanade, to the 1 tunnel, to the 3-yard, D-yard. I would also go to Queens and hit the E'S and F'S. I had a set of original keys and I aquired them one day when I was on the train and I went scouting. So I rode to the last stop.Woodlawn Avenue..then when they told everybody off, I sat down on the bench and then a conductor sat next to me with his carry-on bag between me and him. Then to my awe I saw his keys dangeling on a little hook. So I  unhooked them from his bag and got on the next train. I had all 4-keys...even the keys for the lights..and the IND-BMT key..It was really on then."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you listen to a certain type of music when you were sketching in your room at home? Did music have an influence on your art?"

BAN 2:"Yeah, I was into Parliament and Bootsy's Rubber Band...stuff like this. I used to read the album covers..... I used to have a lot of albums at my mother's house, too. Albums that she bought or albums that I racked, you know? I used to go to Alexander's on Fordham Road and rack up albums and stuff like this. I used to go to Fordham Road...Crazy Eddie...I used to go downtown to Downstairs Records. I really hung out in the Village in the early 1980s. As far as inspiration is concerned I used to just get ideas off of watching TV,  reading comic books and so forth. I read a lot of comic books back in the days, too. I'd get the magazine Heavy Metal. Remember the magazine Heavy Metal? I would go to a smoke shop and act like I wanted to read the magazine, as soon as the guy turned around the magazine was gone! (laughs) Also Vaughn Bode...I had all the Bodes....Remember the Cheech Wizard Magazine? That was very influential back then. I used to rack that a lot. Basically, I would just go into my my mode.....I could be walking somewhere or be on a train or a bus and I would just get ideas into my head. What I would do is as soon as I got an idea in my head I would write it down immediately because later on when I wanted to remember it I might not remember it. So I always had a little pad and a pen with me whenever I went around and stuff. So if I had an idea I would just  tear out a piece of paper and write the idea down. So later on when I wanna go back to it I know what I was thinking about." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you're saying that you could be walking somewhere and all of a sudden certain images of certain letter patterns or color combinations would pop up in your head?"

BAN 2:"Yeah!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Damn!!!"

BAN 2:"Yeah !!! (laughs). You gotta remember the wheel is turning all the time!!"  

Cheech Wizard by Vaughn Bode

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"You told me that before you got into Writing you were a B-Boy for a brief time. Please elaborate on that! When exactly was that and where did you dance at?"

BAN 2: "I'm going back as far as 75. Back in 1975 I used to go to the jams that my cousin used to throw. My cousin was a DJ. We was on 140th Street between Willis & Brook Avenue. We used to go to the church because the church used to give parties down in the basement. I remember going to Flash's parties at St. Mary's Park. Kool Herc could be on 169th Street & Washington Avenue. Bambaataa would be in Bronx River. I went to school with J-DL from the Cold Crush Brothers. He was in my home room class at Taft High School along with T La Rock. T La Rock is Special K's brother. He 'd come in with Cazals, Kangol, he'd have on British Walkers, double knit pants, a mockneck and stuff like that. He was a little cool brother. But back in the Lewis Morris....back in 1975 and 1976 I was actually a B-Boy! I used to breakdance with a guy named Chesley, a guy named Lucius.....Steven, Mark. My brothers and stuff.... Frank, Wordell.......We used to practice down in the laundry room in W4 in the Lewis Morris. We were Breaking due to fact that we wanted to get girls and notoriety. We had a little clique back then. But my claim to fame was graffiti."     

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you like to give some shoutouts at the end of this interview?"

BAN 2:" I would like to thank all the pioneers who paved the way! God bless!"