UNTAPPED TALENT: COUP

MAYBE YOU SEE GRAFFITI AS NOTHING MORE THAN DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. MAYBE YOU DON'T CONSIDER IT AN ART FORM. MAYBE YOU JUST DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT IT. TASTES LIKE CHICKEN'S CÉSAR AND VINNIE BAGGADONUTS INTERVIEWED ONE OF GRAFFITI'S MORE ANOMALOUS ANONYMOUS, COUP, TO DIG BEYOND THE SPRAY-CAN STEREOTYPES.
césar: I was reading some stuff in the Columbus Dispatch, and this guy was talking about how the city is upping their efforts to combat graffiti, three times as much as last year.
Coup: Columbus has something like $300,000 to buff graffiti. Meanwhile, Cincinnati, a city that has more consistently active graffiti writers, only has $200,000. And their buff is rough. I've gone down there, and I've seen stuff get buffed quick. It's just amazing how in one or two years, Columbus has totally shifted and is like "Oh man, we gotta' get on this buffing graffiti."
vinnie: It seems stupid to me, considering there are homeless people in the city. Why would you spend all this money to cover up paint when you could feed a family for decades with that kind of funding?
C: Yeah. This guy I write with, his girlfriend reads the newspapers all the time. She said the Council on Women's Issues lost something like $250,000 worth of funding right around the same time they allocated the $300,000 for buffing. They cut funding from a program that helps make women better mothers! There's one that helps make men better fathers, too, but they cut the mother one. And when I'm going through the poor parts of town, I don't see one single guy with three kids. They kinda pulled the funding from who needed it most. If that isn't sexist, I don't know what is.
c: It shows you the mentality of the city.
C: Oh yeah. Definitely.
c: What do you think about free walls?
C: Free walls? I'll fuckin’ paint ‘em.
c: Do you think true graf writers--
C: --No. See, I hear people say, "A legal wall? Aw man, that ain't graffiti." Or, you know, "Doing a legal wall? That's just weak." But who gives a fuck? To be honest, I don't like to get caught up in that. I used to, when I was younger and a lot stupider. About two years ago, I kinda realized that I'm an anomaly. I paint a lot. It helps me get through my problems. Whether it be legal or illegal, to me it doesn't matter. Most of my friends only do legals. They won't do illegals because they put in their time in the past and they don't want to run from the cops anymore. Like the SOA crew. They don't paint illegally anymore. I love those guys. They were the ones who showed me the most respect when I first got here, and to this day those are the ones I hang out with. To be honest, I'm one of the few in my circle of friends who still paints illegally. Since more legal spots have opened up lately, most of them don't want to fuck with the dumb shit.
v: Well, do you think that if there was some really nice shit up on the free walls, people who are opposed to graffiti might appreciate it more?
C: In my opinion, very few cities in the Midwest have been smashed. You know, L.A., San Fran, New York, Philly, DC-- all of them have been killed. But the only Midwestern cities with a history of really being killed that I know of are Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Chicago. I could be wrong though. When writers come into Midwestern cities, where people are really opposed to it, they wreck it. It really hurts a lot of the more established writers who are into legals. They've been able to be funded by the city or make some money doing it. At the same time, I'm all for illegals. It's not for everybody, but I still love seeing throw-ups. I still love seeing somebody just go tag and blast shit. My bombing style and my illegal style have moved a great deal. When I first got here, I was more into an East Coast bombing style, which is throw-ups, two-color and quick bubble shit. Now I've moved into a really different thing because I'm really influenced by a crew out of L.A. called LTS. Their bombing style is like, why do a throw-up or bubble letter quickie on some rooftop when you could just do a full-blown, seven-color burner? A piece that's just like, "Holy shit!" So that's what's motivating me. That's the direction I want to go right now. This other guy, Revok, is one of the influences that just woke me up. I went to Nashville, where I was just trying to do throw-ups, and this guy was doing pieces that are as long as your house. They were eight colors, and so fucking long. He's impressive and inspiring.
v: So how did you get started?
C: I got started in the most fucked up way. I used to be a hardcore fundamentalist Christian. I wasn't as fucked up as some of them are. I still believed people should have the right to listen to whatever kind of music they'd like to and stuff like that. I was helping out at a church with the church group. One of the kids' mom really didn't like me. But the thing was, I was making a lot of headway with this kid. He stopped doing drugs and started reading the Bible, and all that bullshit. Because his mom didn't like the direction I was taking him in or that God was taking him, I kinda got pushed out of that church. And a year after that, he killed himself. His death had a big affect on me, and I realized that religion isn't going to save anyone. It might help a lot of people, and it might keep a lot of people from killing others, but it isn’t gonna save anyone. So I left religion, and got into politics. Social politics, radical politics. And I met this one kid who wrote graffiti, but got busted. He introduced me to it, and that was basically the beginning. I started out writing political messages on stickers and putting them up. Then I'd place my tag on it. I would work with aerosol very rarely. Then I moved to Louisville, and I really got into it. I started killing it-- quick bombing, going for the illegal. I really started working on my style to get better because there really wasn't anybody else there doing that. Then I started to get better, and I came here. I've gotten a lot better. In the last two years, I've started traveling a lot. I want more people in the Midwest to know about me. It's intense, running into people and they’re like, "You're Coup?" It kinda phases me in some way, because I don't feel I deserve it.
v: How do you protect your identity?
C: Well, that's the thing. I don't hang out with a lot of graffiti writers. I'm not impressed with most of the graffiti writers I've met. I barely ever meet them. And the people I work with, I have to have a very good relationship with them. I have to know them for a real long time. I don't hang out on hip-hop night, and I don't go to a lot of graf expos. I think those things are good, because they empower younger writers and older writers, but for me, it's just not my bag. I've done it in the past, and kinda just prefer to be alone and do my thing. I have a small circle of friends. I don't let anybody know where I live, and I call people from pagers and cell phones. I've learned my lessons from the past.
c: Does it worry you when other writers come up to you while you're working? Doesn't it worry you that it might be a cop or someone else?
C: Yeah, it's the price you pay. It could be a cop. You hear from people about other writers. You hear things you can recognize.
c: I read some stuff where cops were pretending that they were reporters.
C: Yeah, a lot of writers have been taken down that way. A lot of them are such fame whores that they just go for it. I mean, I'm in an interview right now. But with you guys, I knew people who knew you guys, and I was able to get the low-down. Naturally, I did the whole “call from a pay phone the first time, then from a cell phone the second” thing. Plus, the font you guys used in the ad to get a hold of me was so whack. I was like, "What the fuck?!? Come on." I use a lot of font books, and the "P" in the ad was the ugliest "P" in the world.
v: That’s funny you said you use fonts, because I really like typography. And growing up in a small town, I didn't know what it was until I went to college. What I appreciated about letter forms up until then, I got from graffiti.
C: There are a few writers who use a lot of fonts in their style. I use fonts, but most of the time it seems like writers develop their fonts through their personality or their identity. Or they're taught from other people. I wish I could’ve come up that way; having someone teach me. I try and use fonts a lot, especially in one certain field of graf.
c: Do you ever think graffiti should be in museums?
C: Fuck yeah. I’ve done art shows. I did one here with my whole crew. Again, the illegal or legal thing to me doesn't really matter. If you can and are good enough to get in there, go for it. One of the best art shows I’ve ever seen was a Barry McGee, (who goes by “Twist”) exhibit. That guy is just amazing.
c: Well, the reason I asked was that I heard Haze saying he didn't want to see it go in that direction. He talks about the whole money aspect of people paying for art, therefore your art is just geared towards your patrons.
C: I never got into art to sell my art. I’m not getting paid for anything I do. Whenever I’ve done a legal wall, the most I’ve gotten out of it is some free pizza and a pop. A lot of times, even if I’ve been in a position where I could’ve made some money off of what I was doing, I’d just take it to a political level. And that’s not gonna sell. I’ve had those “keepin’ it real” thoughts before, but I learned to let that mentality go out the window.
c: You put yourself in a box by doing that.
C: Yeah, you put yourself in a box and you buy all the bullshit people are saying. And I can’t lie, I still get caught up in the bullshit. There are rules I kinda follow. But the rules that I’m more interested in are rules like: don’t do houses; don’t do churches; don’t do personal property; don’t do cars. If somebody has a good spot, and they’ve got a fuckin’ burner there right on the street, don’t go next to it. Just leave it alone. Hopefully it will ride as long as it can. I’ve seen people do something shitty next to something cool as fuck and then it all gets buffed. It’s like, “Dude, they weren’t gonna fuck with that.” That’s called sidebusting. It’s more of a West Coast tradition. I admire when writers keep to those rules. And there are a lot of kids who haven’t been taught these rules, because they come from a different background.
v: Do you have anything you want to say to wrap this up?
C: I guess, if anything, I just wish people here would stick to the rules. I have to say, I’ve traveled a lot and made a lot of good friends-- Cold Fusion-- they always welcome me to their home. And there are people here who have been really cool to me, like WFR, and my other crews ASP and RA. I guess this isn’t advice as much as it is shout-outs (laughing). So, thanks to my friends in TSR, FST, and tastes like chicken.