Interview with SEN-1 (IBM), Part 1

Partial Transcript: Steven Payne (SP): Welcome to the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project. My name is Steven Payne librarian and archivist at the Bronx County Historical Society. Today is May 23, 2022. Kurt do you wanna go ahead and introduce yourself?
Kurt Boone (KB): Yeah I'm Kurt I've been writing about urban culture for 40 years.
SP: Great thank you Kurt. And we're really happy to be here today with SEN-1, who is a legendary graffiti writer from a part of New York that unfortunately rarely gets the love as far as graffiti goes or other elements of hip hop culture. And SEN-1 is a member of the Incredible Bombing Masters, the IBM crew, among other groups leading up to that and we're just happy to be here with SEN-1.

Segment Synopsis: Interviewers Steven Payne and Kurt Boone introduce themselves and the narrator SEN-1, graffiti writer and artist.

Keywords: Harlem (New York, N.Y.)

Subjects: Graffiti; Sen-1 (Graffiti artist)

Partial Transcript: SP: Why don't you start off by telling us a little about your family's history and background, and how they ended up in New York City whatever you know about that history.
SEN: Well I'm raised with a single mother named Mercedes Morillo and we come out of the Island that's Haiti now known as Dominican Republic but at that time when she migrated here it had just went through the changes. If you look up the Morillo family line we actually are the original military under--it was a militia actually that ran, Morillo-Lopez, a militia that ran from Haiti to the other end of the Island, it was two militias. When the CIA the United States whatever put in Trujillo he recruited my grandfather's militia, which is where we get our military family.

Segment Synopsis: Sen's family background from the Haiti-Dominican Republic border, from a military family that began to flee the Trujillo-era violence on the Island. He details some of his home life, including some of the violence his mother would commit.

Subjects: Dominican Republic; Haiti; Harlem (New York, N.Y.)

Partial Transcript: SEN: I was one of those kids, my brother he was more of a genius... I was the opposite. I was getting thrown out of every school. I went to P.S. 75, I got thrown out of there, I went to P.S. 84 I got thrown out of there ... I was eventually sent to Holy Names which is a Catholic school on 96th St and I was thrown out of there. I basically made it through those schools maybe no more than a year or two before I would be thrown out. I was dyslexic, I had a lot of energy, I was always spaced out and in my own little world. I was really like a fun-going kid. Even with the teachers people were really angry back then, really aggressive. So if you were an innocent kid just want to have fun, you'd be beat up for that. Other kids would bully you or even the teachers. And back then the teachers could beat you and they would beat you.

Segment Synopsis: SEN's experiences in Elementary School. He cycled through a lot a different schools, being kicked out of several for behavioral issues. He speaks about the physical abuse he received from other students and from teachers, as well as how his temper became a defense mechanism that he did not learn to control until much later.

Partial Transcript: KB: What were those days like in New York as an elementary school [student]? Eventually you come into art and we'll get into that but you didn't go into little league baseball, you didn't play basketball, did you play handball? What was your outlet? No Boxing?
SEN: Nah, when I was a kid, so my spine was like bent in, I had narrow shoulders, I was like totally not athletic like the kids were. But you had to keep up so little by little I developed. My brother was outta here. He was doing flips was doing skateboard like the zoo york stuff, building ramps, he was just out of here. Me, my mother had me like a momma's boy in a way, like kept me close, because again, I had issues, I was always in trouble...

Segment Synopsis: An overview of Sen's early life. We learn he was an unathletic child but taken around by his brother who was an early street skateboarder. He also goes into significant detail about the function of the gangs in his social circle. He also laments over the loss of community which he witnessed during his lifetime in his community in the Upper West Side.

Keywords: Zoo York

Subjects: Gang members; Skateboard industry; Skateboarding; Skateboarding parks

Partial Transcript: SEN: Going into Joan of Arc, it was right next door to me, big building. But it was a school where---I'm in a prime neighborhood with a gang and everything---with thousands of kids and people now living. So I come up from Amsterdam up the block, now we talk about all these tall buildings, every single building is like a fucking neighborhood. It's huge, and we got multiple, and they're all new! They're all just going up in the mid-70s. So it's new, or most of these families are new, or they been in the neighborhood but they moved from tenements to these big buildings because they applied first. And then you got all these people from different areas. So now it's like this mixture already.

Segment Synopsis: Continued synopsis of Sen's early life, including the beginning of his tagging career, the incident where his photo was put up on a "wanted" poster as "George Graffiti". When he goes to Joan of Arc junior high school his crew really picks up. He also speaks on the impact of the 1977 blackout. We also hear about his brother's promising art career in oil paint, a founding member of zoo york, and roller skating which SEN remains incredibly proud of.

Keywords: 1977 New York City Blackout

Subjects: Graffiti; Hip-hop; Hip-hop dance; Junior high school facilities

Partial Transcript: SEN: Nicknames were already taken as tags from generations earlier. You were just inheriting nicknames. Sender comes from, we went through dictionaries and looked up words, you just looked up and went through comic books, you just went through everything looking for a word that would stand out. Because again it's not just that you're looking for a tag name, you're looking for---it's your alias! It has to fit you. It has to be cool, and there's a lot of of elements to it. So I go through a comic book, and you know how the comic books be bolding certain words, and I saw it said SENDER! Something something SENDER and I was like, and remember I'm only 12 years old something like that, 11 12 years old. And I go Sender... the sender! Like I felt like superman!

Segment Synopsis: The creation of IBM crew and the expansion of SEN's bombing career. We learn SEN comes from SENDER, coming from a bolded word in a comic book, which was shortened to SEN on the advice of DOZE. We also see the explosion of hip-hop culture with graffiti movies and breakdancing as a major phenomenon.

Keywords: IBM crew; Seen TC5 (Graffiti artist)

Subjects: Break dancing; Graffiti; Hip-hop

Partial Transcript: SEN: As I'm developing in there, that's happening. It's a movement now. So I watched it as it developed a lot earlier but the momentum wasn't there yet. Not my first year of junior high school I'm catching that wave with a crew of cats that have been groomed already by the people causing the wave. So I get blessed on that end. So boom I get down with POKE and them, he's down with that entire movement

Segment Synopsis: An explosion of hip-hop culture in the early 1980s including the park jams, break dancing crews, and Wild Style movie. We also learn how involved the gangs were in the early hip-hop scene, fiercely defending their territory, with only students, b-boys, and writers likely to get a "pass" into any given neighborhood.

Keywords: Doze (Graffiti artist); IBM (Graffiti crew); Poke (Graffiti artist)

Subjects: Hip-hop; Hip-hop dance; Hip-hop in art; Hip-hop in motion pictures; Hip-hop jewelry

Partial Transcript: SEN: My first year of junior high school, I just got the SEN name, I'm piecing and you gotta think about it, now we feel like we're grown men now! We like IBM, we're gonna make our name, take this serious we
re gonna go bomb. We didn't have a lot of cans, so again to your question: there was stores in West Side Bombay, on 98 St and Broadway, all writers went there they have ink, they had everything. There was a store called Goldens, try to rack up. ...
Our era, mops which was markers was part of your status. So we used to make our own markers. So the markers wasn't an issue, the spray paint was the issue.

Segment Synopsis: SEN describes the techniques in play during his graffiti career. This includes the creation of mops and the subcultural importance of having a good mop (homemade ink or paint markers). We also learn about where writers would source their materials from, between stealing and salvaging.

Subjects: Shoplifting; Spray nozzles; Spray painting

Partial Transcript: SEN: Everybody that lived in New York knew that the last car of the train was off the hinges! If you go into the last car of the train you was asking for trouble. The last car of the train was designated for all the thugs, all the criminals, all the smokers, all the stick-up people. And that's where you went. Because you was down with that. If I was a stick-up kid I wanna be in the last car, I don't want to be with the others. But if you go in the last car they know what you about, you know what it's about, it's like prison. So if you go in the last car, you want that environment, because you're ready for that environment and they know it. But if you're a tourist or somebody or you're a civilian going for work, and you happen to get in the last car? Aw man, it's like a school of piranhas man, you asking for it! You're gonna get it! That's what happened with what-his-name Bernhard Goetz and them with the shooting. So that's the way the trains were that's the way the city was.

Segment Synopsis: Sen recalls the "silent rules" of New York City at the time, and how locals knew how to avoid crime, as well as the effect this had on the wider culture of the city, especially in the way young people made themselves into the tough characters they painted on the walls. He then moves to describe some of the concurrent developments in hip-hop subculture at the time, the proliferation of Nike Cortez and other shoes, rocking, etc. He argues that skateboarding and double-dutch should have also been included as hip hop "elements" due to their integration into the culture at the time.

Keywords: Double dutch (Rope skipping); Goetz, Bernhard Hugo, 1947-; Skateboarding

Subjects: Art & crime; Crime; Hip-hop; New York, N.Y.

Partial Transcript: SEN: I wasn't like my brother, he had opportunities. By the time I was coming up, those same scholarships wasn't available anymore. The city was broke--completely broke. He was coming off the hippy movement, there was like, social workers, there was all kinds of stuff. Now, my era, nah that shit doesn't exists. So now you got these who have to figure things out by themselves. With all this knowledge though! See we're not like the kids today. Our knowledge is the Malcolm Xs, all those movements, Tupac's moms and them. We got this first hand neighbors to neighbors. The breakfast programs created by the Panthers, we were going to that every day!

Segment Synopsis: Sen speaks about the divestment in social programs and the increase in policing/criminalization of graffiti which occurred during the Koch mayoralty. This dramatically changed the writing scene by intensifying violence and moving train painting from yards, which were locked down by the mid-80s, to mid-tunnel layups. He also speaks about what legacy hip-hop owes to the revolutionary movements of the 1970s, as kids being recipients of programs by the Black Panthers, for instance. He sees hip-hop as a cultural revolution in that legacy.

Keywords: Black Panther Party; Shakur, Afeni; Shakur, Mutulu

Subjects: DIY; Hip-hop; Koch, Ed, 1924-2013; New Left

Partial Transcript: SEN: To be next to a train, that's why they called it the Iron Elephant, it was that. It was an elephant and you feel the power! And it would make noises. It was like, alive. It wasn't like you was piecing on a wall. The train was alive, because of the fact that it could move, it would breathe, it would make these sounds, steam would come out of it, you could see sparks still from the third rail sometimes, it would rev itself up. [Sen imitates revving sound] So it was like a living thing. So you're going down there and we looked up, and we did our first pieces me and POKE. We had to climb up, and they taught us that. You'd use the beams, and the doorway of the train has the little ledge, and they also had like a brim around the train. So we being so little our feets are only like this big. You're able to step on that and be comfortable. So you're leaning over you're doing it. And we did our first trains and that was it.

Segment Synopsis: Continuing from the last section, this tells the story of SEN's first time hitting a winter layup in a subway tunnel and painting a train.

Keywords: IBM (Graffiti group); Poke IBM (Graffiti artist)

Subjects: Graffiti

Partial Transcript: SEN: Basically everybody was a member of the Ball Busters. So every freakin' house, every kid who was in there was a member of the Ball Busters. So when they came for you, and I had beef with them, this was Familia's beef, when they came for you they came hundreds. Not twenty, thirty, they came hundreds. Hundreds would come for you. They'll come to your school and for blocks, you'll look down the street and it'll be three blocks of gang members surrounding the entire school like a riot just to get you. That's how they were. And then they ran all the drugs. At that time is when the drugs were just beginning, they began to run it all. They had the highway, the bridge, Fort Washington, they brought in this whole culture of racing cars, gambling, I mean they exploded the streets. They took whatever was in the streets to a whole different level, and they were violent as hell.

Segment Synopsis: Sen speaks on the changing gang landscape in New York at the time, and how his own affiliations briefly caused trouble in the tunnels as a large Dominican gang called the Ball Busters attempted to assert territorial control underground, though this was quashed after a large confrontation with other gangs including Zulu Nation/Black Spades.

Keywords: Afrika Bambaataa, 1960-; Ball Busters

Subjects: Gangs; Gangs--New York (State); Illicit and misused drugs; Violence; Violence in adolescence; Violence in art; Violence, cooperation, peace

Partial Transcript: SEN: We was doing crazy shit. Just for fun we would, because we could jump into the tracks, certain stops, the train's flying, we would pull the emergency brakes and watch everybody in the train fall. We were riding the outside of the train, we were between the cars sitting up on it. It was crazy but that was just like, fun. Like I would do stuff like that without the crew even knowing. Like I'd be watching them then I would go and just do it. [mimes yanking emergency brake] "Oh what the fuck why you always doing that shit!" And then we'd have to run. And the train wasn't going nowhere so you just went between cars and jumped in the track and you ran to the next stop. And basically everybody'd be pissed. The conductor would be cursing at you, he would be like "fuck you!" And you'd be running to the next stop laughing, laughing, just laughing your guts out. It was funny. But people would fall that's when they started putting that stuff on it
KB: Oh so you couldn't do it no more
SEN: Yeah but that was a regular thing

Segment Synopsis: As the IBM crew begins to fade with SEN stepping back from graffiti and POKE becoming addicted and going to jail, they train the next generation, FC (First Class) crew which becomes a major graffiti crew. He also speaks about the function of graffiti crew names, noting the letters were more important than what they stood for, which was changeable. He also speaks about what it's like to be a kid beginning to write and "motion bomb" tagging through the system.

Keywords: FC (Graffiti crew); IBM (Graffiti crew)

Subjects: Graffiti; Graffiti artists; Graffiti crews

Partial Transcript: SEN: Even in the crew, some of the older ones didn't like that. Because it was too much power, too much egos, and too much beef coming from these two tiers. And then they would all have to get involved because Familia wasn't a big big gang. It was just a loyal gang, you were chosen. You had to grow into it, it was like a mob, a family thing. It wasn't like somebody could just get down it was impossible.

Segment Synopsis: SEN wraps up this part of his oral history by speaking about how he got involved with the La Familia street gang and moved away from graffiti as he lost interest growing up. Falling out with POKE and getting into more serious street crime and violence leads him away from graffiti. He ended up on a list of gang members in school before he was a gang member officially. He also details how the different generations of members had different functions within the gang.

Keywords: La Familia (Street gang)

Subjects: Gangs; Urban violence; Violence--Etiology; Violence--Social aspects