What do you write?

Daz/Dasone

What crews are you in?

RareKind. The Fam.
I push: RT - 1T – TDO – YBS – STD and many more..  But to me mainly THE GRAFFITI CREW. Its beliefs and way of life. Everyone involved in our world is in….

What writers would you say were a big influence to you when you began writing?

I was mesmerized by the early 90’s writers of London.
King Elk, King Diet,  were my biggest earlyest influences,  Sub, Shu2, Shek, Saker, King Zomby, Fume ,Teach, Bozo, Whore, Chop, Drae, Dune, Pabs, Fuel, Faum, Bosh, Idea, Steam TU, Zero,  SOA, Caine and Many more.. If you were writing from 88-95 your name ment a lot to me.

When and how did Rare Kind start?

Hotone from Maida Vale and I became partners through cotching at the writers bench in West Hampsted in 95-96 and Raving. He thought of RK on his one man xmas 96 mission. I was in another manor hitting up SHK and RLS.. he bopped from Hamsted to Finchley Road with a bottle of Southern Comfort, ended up on Finchley Road Jubilee Station were Elk was doing one of his classic pieces on the high wall on the left hand side.. Hot rolls up, asks for his roller and paint and smacked the platform with massive RK’s.. Ending up getting a ‘Hot RK Elk ‘ next to Elks piece. He was in the crew before me. There was no meaning for it until Jan-Feb 97 when I was working in Ikea in Neasden with Idea DDS. spending my working days in the warehouse perfecting hand styles on flatpacked shelving and thinking of full names for Hot’s RK.  RareKind came about..  We had a thought that the pieces we were doing and the styles we pulled out were a RareKind of style. Hot and his ribbons, me and my 3D’s and the rest of the West Hampsted Raving Krew.. Wosp, Net, Hack (My first partner from school 94-96) and a few more.
Roser and Never hooked up that Spring.

Can you tell us a bit about your Rare Kind shop in Brighton? 

The RareKind Shop was a bit of a whirlwind. Hot, Roser and I moved to Brighton in 2000. In Dec of that year I hooked up with Saint Steas and started selling paint in Brighton from our flat.. This moved onto canvas and T’s along side some other things to help the cash flow.. The jobcentre in 2002 were not happy with me for not having a job… I told them what I was doing and they put me on a business course.. Few months after that I approached the Princess Trust.. Feb 03 they lent me £4500 to do more stuff from my house. I didn’t know what I was doing. I went to see a shop owner who I was selling paint to and he said open a shop in the basement of his. The RareKind Gallery was born. Opened on the 21st Feb 03.
From there I realized there was a market for my goods and I brought as many people as possible to sell there stuff. Louie Slippers and Undali gave me my first music to sell and Zomby and Tunnel Vision gave me his fresh printed clothing… Canvases were produced and clothing painted…
We now stock… Paint/Mags/Books/Clothes/Canvas/Prints by a verity of graf artists and the RK Fam has got bigger

I hear you are bringing out an RK movie, what can we expect to see?

The RareKind Film was being made in memory of the old shop on North Road… We had an amazing time there and it’s where we got our experience on how to run a business in our culture… We started making it and we started talking about London and the beginning of the crew… Considering it’s gonna be finished this year we thought we would make it about RK from 97-07. It’s got all types of heads in it… Writers, Rappers, Producers, RKids and many more... Should be good.

How did you feel when Channel 4's hit reality show ‘Faking It’ approached you to be the mentor of History of Art undergraduate ‘James Sawyer’?

At the time I was on the verge of closing the shop.. it is bloody hard running a graf shop and it seemed like I was digging a massive ditch of debt… They turned up.. I haggled for some good money and kept the shop open till it aired… It gave the shop the publicity it needed to stay open and move from strength to strength..
James was a joker… We brought him to a different world..Changed him.. and me.

How different is Brighton now from when you first moved there 7/8 years ago?

Brighton in the ninties was a differenf feel.. I remember turning up and seeing street dubs everywhere.. Petro pieces and DBS were taking the rooftops.. When we got there and became a part of the scene, it was a massive influence.. Mad free painting.. car parks in the daytime and a small place full of writers.. It was more town like when I got here, a lot more nicer illegal painting and good tags… well that’s the memory.. which was nice.. now it’s a city.. I wasn’t to happy when that was declared it changed the place.. bigger sainsburys, bigger posh flats, bigger carparks full of cameras.. but now the town legal productions all over the place, the council have seen a positive and started to give us space.. painting the hordings of the new developements, car park walls leagally and the people of the city are starting to hand over whole sides of houses.

Moving from North London to Brighton, was there a real difference in the two places graffiti wise?

London to me holds Real Graffiti.. To get up properly you need space, lots of space.. bourgh after bourgh, different aeras, train lines, tubes, buses. Im not saying that real graffiti is not done in other cities in the country but to  get all city in Brigton it takes a night. It wont be easy but it can be done. That’s like painting a bourgh in a night… that aint much to talk about unless your doing different boughs also.. so to me Brighton aint about that.. But the difference I do like is the advanvcement in painting skills. I think because there is a lot of HOF’s in  such small place and the pieces on the street makes you want to do better. In London I want to get up, in Brighton I want to do burners.

Tell us about one of your worst experiences while writing or maybe one of your most memorable missions?

One night in North London I was with Juse, we were on tracks and were on route to some a wicked plot.. As we got there, we noticed trackies on the other side of the tracks but on the other side of a bridge which went over a road. We didn’t think much and started. A few minutes in and we look over and they are piling in a van, then the bloody van drives across the bridge, there was a gap for them and they were on the other side of the tracks. We didn’t know what was going on and froze until they were opposite us shining a torch on us screaming ‘Your Fucked!’ we dussed off , it was about quarter mile to the get out and we kept it up. They were driving on the other side of the four tracks still with there torches shouting madness, then as we were approaching the get out a train came towards us, it saved us, gave us the opportunity to jump up and out, they couldn’t cross. We got up to the road and ran to the closest estate, moved through got to the other side and on a main road heading for another estate to cut through, all of a sudden a Gold BTP van sped past us, done a fat U-turn and came straight for us, We ran to the next estate and managed to loose them.. Got back to the manor and caught our breaths.  Smoked a zoot and planned how to finish it…… 

You are very much into hip-hop/rap and you often hold open mic sessions at the shop. For you how much of a part does hip-hop play in the Graffiti world?

For me it not all about hip hop as such. UK Heads rapping is a representation of our communities, the same way graffiti represents communities and cultures in our country. The mad thing is though, reppin our country is not something Id do with the government. Representing our country in a hopeful way of changing the government, that’s what RK’s about. That was what the open mics were about, come do what you want, let the police and council come down, try and shut it and realize that its all good, they become more lenient and we get to grow.

What are your plans for the future?

To keep the shop open for a further 4 years, paying bills, eating and not have to get a job so that I have my son with me whenever I wish.
 

Anything else you’d like to say while you’re here!?

If you ever thought you could do ‘it’, no matter what that ‘it’ is, do ‘it’. Its good…

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