The Graff Life - Art From The Heart

Graffiti is the one element of Hip-Hop that doesn’t result in personal notoriety. Unlike emcees, DJs and breakers, graffers, thanks to their actions being illegal, have to be known solely by their art. There can be no face recognition for these creative people and their fame has to solely lie in the work they create, work that may only be up for a short period of time. Randy DeVol’s documentary The Graff Life chronicled the struggles these artists go through for their art as he followed the lives of a crew of graffiti artists in southern California. This week I caught up with DeVol, whose mainstream production work includes numerous reality shows for the Discovery Channel, to find out what inspired him to create The Graff Life, how it changed his views on graffiti, and the role he feels the government played in fostering the growth of the illegal art form. Here are some of the highlights:

On the graffiti community:
“Everyone’s so different, but somehow their common ground is writing graffiti, rebelling through art somehow and making a social statement that society can see.”

On the artistic integrity of graffers:
“A lot of artists talk about not wanting to compromise much of their art and staying true to their art, but I have not seen the kind of commitment and dedication and integrity for staying true to the art as I have in graffiti.”

On how a lack of arts funding in America impacted graff:
“That’s the way it started, because in this country we have the freedom to express artistically and when not given that opportunity through your normal avenues we’re still compelled to express artistically.”

Read the full interview at RapReviews.com.