Rich 2 Interview @149st

RICH 2 INTERVIEW

©2000, 2003 @149st Do not republish without permission.

Where and what year did you start writing and what was your inspiration?
I began writing graff on the Lower East Side in August of 1979. I am born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I first thought about graff in 1976. I bought my first Pilot then. At that time there were a few writers out who I wanted to follow, AFX 2, K 55, CANO 707. These were the names that I first saw around the way. In 79' I met a writer by the name of EL3. Myself and EL formed a friendship at that time, and I hit the inside of my first train with him at the D Yard in The Bronx. I began by bombing the Ds and the Fs because those were the home lines. Me and EL TNS, I feel helped take the crew to the next level from a street crew to a crew that some had heard of. We had writers like LUS, HEC, DY, BYE, and some others, but when I had first come around no one had been to bomb a yard besides EL, and he had no partner at that time 79-80. In the early '80s my graff writing took off. TNS CREW became pretty well known, and I was a big part of that. We now had writers coming to the Lower to meet with us to see if they could get down with the crew. Some of the names included JS, PLUS, BOLTISM, SES, and a few others. At this time EL and MIN had hooked up, and that began my allegiance with RTW. Soon after joining RTW, I began to bomb on the daily. You all know the writers from the crew.

What lines have you hit?
I wouldn't say that I was an all city writer, but I was all everything on the IND's BMT's. Primarily myself, NE, and BOE really began to kill shit. I think that from '83-87 that we were close to if not the most known writers in the City. I killed everything, F, D, CC, A, AA, B, E, GG, J, M, Q, RR, and on occasion to spite our enemies, we would go and bomb the IRT's so I did have some things running on the 2's and 5's, etc., but not much, as we concentrated on bringing the flavor to IND writing. Of which I feel we made popular.

What crews have you written for?
The Crews that I have written for are as follows: TNS, RTW, WOW, ROC, TD, TVS, ROC STEADY, and THE ORIGINAL FRESH KIDDS.

Who was your most successful partner(s)?
You all know who my most successful partner was. No disrespect to EL,RIP, who I love dearly, but MIN ONE was my most successful partner by far.

Who were your rivals?
I don't much get into rivals because either you were down with us, (RTW) or you were against us. I don't feel at the time that we were real hot that no one could rival us, thought writers who don't want to tell it will say otherwise.

How did you get your name?
I got my name from my name. My given name is RICHARD2nd.

List all the other names under which you have written?
Some of my other names were: RH, RICHER, PROVIDE 133, KOOL 2, SWISS 2.

Do you have any good raid stories?
I only have one good raid story. I only have one because we were ALWAYS on top of our game. RTW did their homework in order to be a step ahead of any raids. The one I do remember is one that involved a writer called HEK. This particular night we were bombing The lay-up at 155th Street and this kid had come into the layup. We were only one or two cars in when we saw him. He thought we were his homeys I think but he got a very rude awakening from BOE. I was really trippin' hard at the time so I may miss a few things in the raid. Anyway as HEK was getting beat down, the fight spilled out into where you could see from the platform. Who ever he was with had called the Police, a few of them were on their way. When we saw what was going down, we ran back into the lay-up, and out the hatch to safety. We laughed our asses off as I'm positive that HEK and his boy got caught.

Where were the your favorite locations to paint?
My personal favorite place to bomb was City Hall Lay-up. Other places include: 175thst. The Ghost Yard, Dewey Yard, Brooklyn Bridge lay-up, and the "D" Yard.

When did you quit?
I was so high all the time, that I'm not sure when I quit writing. I reckon the last time that I wrote on a train was the winter of 1990, but I'm still unsure.

Any final words or shout outs?
First, I want to thank you for asking for my profile. I just want to say to writers that graff is not only about how much writing you do. It involved practice, luck and HEART . Those who just say that they are KINGS, and those who laid it on the line and ARE truly KINGS are two different sets of people. SHOUTS TO: EL 3 TNS PRES. and all of the RTW CREW new and old. Also to RIN ONE The Founder of the crew TD The Destroyers.

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