Interview with SEN-1 (IBM), Part 2

Partial Transcript: Pastor Crespo (PC): Today is Wednesday January 18, 2023 and we are at the Bronx County Historical Society Research Center at 3313 Bainbridge Avenue, The Bronx. I am Pastor Crespo, Jr. the research librarian and archivist, and I am joined for Part 2 of an Oral History for the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project with SEN-1 IBM also known as George Morillo a legend within the graffiti community and an original member of the Incredible Bombing Masters IBM. His art has transitioned from NYC subway tunnels and yards to sharing fine art gallery space alongside renowned international artists such as Pablo Picasso.

Segment Synopsis: Interviewer Pastor Crespo, Jr. introduces himself and the narrator, SEN-1.

Subjects: Artists--Anecdotes; Artists--United States; Artists--United States--Biography; Contemporary artists; Graffiti

Partial Transcript: SEN: The Afro-Caribbean thing is because if you know your culture and you know your history of the Caribbean, you know that the slave trade of America was the slave triangle, which the slaves that were brought in from Africa were transferred into the Caribbean prior to coming to the Americas, so you had the slave triangle and then back to Africa so the ship routes. So the Caribbean is highly influences by our original Arawak people, which people like to say Taino and different tribes, Ciboney and all these other tribes, but when it comes down to the bloodline, our bloodline runs through South America, Central America and so on, and Africa of course, and being that melanated people originate from where? Africa. So also in my blood trait I have the sickle cell anemia trait.

Segment Synopsis: Sen discusses his family and ethnic background, how the history of the Caribbean from its indigenous peoples and importance to the Atlantic slave trade has had an enormous impact on his personal consciousness.

Keywords: Arawak

Subjects: Arts, Dominican; Dominican Americans; Dominican Republic; Dominican Republic--Biography; Dominican Republic--History--1961-; Dominican Republic. Policía Nacional (1936- ); Haiti; Haiti--Boundaries--Dominican Republic

Partial Transcript: PC: So what neighborhood did you grow up in?
SEN: I grew up in what's like the borderline of what the beginning of what Harlem is. Even though a lot of people consider 110th Street to be Harlem, but my area like 96th Street and Broadway was the Mecca for Afro-Latin Jazz growing up. So pretty much I was born on 95th/94th Street and Amsterdam, I was living in a tenement there, and I would move up to 93rd Street and Columbus. But that area was always under what they would call "Urban Development." So we went through the burnt-down stuff like the Bronx did obviously that was a way of clearing out areas and taking also---people also don't understand that when New York was burning down in the 70s it was part of a bigger plan of taking away property from people of color.

Segment Synopsis: Sen describes his neighborhood and its changing landscape over his lifetime. He speaks about how the Upper West Side above 90th Street was more connected to Harlem and the Bronx ("Uptown") than is commonly understood. He speaks about how urban renewal changed his life significantly while living in the neighborhood, as well as why he believes it took place. Its location makes it a unique neighborhood, being equally close to the Bronx as to Midtown.

Keywords: New York (N.Y.). Office of Development. Urban Renewal Unit; Urban renewal--United States

Subjects: Cosmopolitanism; Gentrification; Harlem (New York, N.Y.); Upper West Side (New York, N.Y.)

Partial Transcript: PC: Can you talk about your association with La West Side Familia, how did that begin and your various roles and involvement with them?
SEN: Absolutely, that's a major part of my life from youth to now, to this day. So La West Side Familia just to give a quick breakdown is an outlaw gang. It was an era in New York when every community had an outlaw gang. So up here you had everything from the Savage Skulls to the Ching-a-Lings and on and on. The entire city was carved out in sections. The reason this happened is originally, as people of color migrated in a lot of these communities they were not received properly. It was really hostile. Whether it was an Italian community, a Jewish community, whatever it was. They didn't want us there.

Segment Synopsis: Sen discusses his relationship with La West Side Familia, an outlaw gang he is a member of. Founded as an offshoot of the Brooklyn La Familia organization, it was part of an era of New York City where there were outlaw gangs in nearly every community. He credits part of its endurance to the fact it was a "mafia-type" organization where members were vetted over a very long period of time before being "made" as members. Its activities, however, extended far beyond the criminal, and included a radical political milieu including the legacy of the Young Lords.

Keywords: Young Lords Party

Subjects: Crime; Crime and race; Gang members; La West Side Familia (Street gang); Outlaw Gang

Partial Transcript: PC: Now, an individual you know well. How did you meet Cyril Innis, and what was your involvement with the Black Panthers over the years?
SEN: Oh, man Cyril Innis that's Bullwhip man. I got goosebumps. I have many teachers. I've been blessed in my life and cursed in a lot of ways because I've been put into situations, even with La Familia and different things and even with the Graffiti thing, and going further back. I've come across many souls that are amazing, and that's probably why I'm still here. Even when I was a kid and not having a father figure like I said and being on the streets young. I've met people that have been killers. You could consider them from the 70s hit men. You could probably consider them serial killers that are no longer with us. But they were the ones that would see me as a kid in the street and educated me. That taught me things that told me things. That knowledge is something that I carry with me forever and it's probably the reason why I'm alive through everything. Not probably, it's definitely the reason why I'm alive. Also knowledgeable about the stuff that's around me. So getting into that Cyril Innis is an original Black Panther member and Black Liberation Army member from the New York chapters. So he was in the front lines with Afeni Shakur and that whole generation...

Segment Synopsis: Sen speaks about his introduction to Cyril Innis, an original Black Panther, as well as their joint role in founding the Black Panther Collective, which SEN was a member of for nearly a decade. SEN also speaks broadly about the relevance of the 1960s and 1970s revolutionary movements to his own politics and the culture at large.

Keywords: Innis, Cyril; Shakur, Afeni; Shakur, Mutulu; Young Lords Party

Subjects: Black Panther Party; Zulu Nation

Partial Transcript: SEN: The universe is funny this way. I had hit a low in my life in which everything was falling apart. My mother had passed away, I was losing the job I was at, my marriage was falling apart. Basically everything was coming back to me, the dirt, the karma you could say, was coming back at once. I was at a really low spot. And what happens is my brother gets married for the third time and his wife is a top designer for Diane von Furstenburg whatever her name is and who built that whole campaign for her. And because her name was so hot as a designer, her name is Heather Harlan, she ended up getting this deal with Rachel Roy who was a big designer of color. I hate using black and all this stuff. Back then considered to be the biggest black designer, woman designer, at the time. I like to say melanated. But she was Damon Dash's ex-wife. She was also the one who was also like Michele Obama, Oprah, all them was wearing her dresses, outfits, they were really expensive high end. She got a deal it was bloomingdal---or Macy's deal she ended up getting a deal to make a low, what they would consider a lower end type of fashion which was more for the population that could be in their reach. And she got a complete deal from shoes all the way to bags, everything. It was a complete deal with everything in it. So Heather got hired and the brand was called Rachel Rachel Roy line. She got hired as the top designer because as you guys know these people's names are brands and not necessarily the designers they have people that actually design the stuff for them and they just get credit for. So Heather has this idea, this is back in about 2009, has this idea about graff. Graffiti wasn't hot the way it is right now. Especially not in fashion at all

Segment Synopsis: Sen talks about his reentry into the art world through a commission by his brother's wife to paint graffiti for a fashion line sold at Macy's which began anew his art career.

Keywords: Fashion and art; Macy's (Firm); Macy's, Inc.

Subjects: Graffiti; Graffiti artists; Harlan, Heather; Roy, Rachel

Partial Transcript: SEN: They were like, the subways of that era to give people an idea. Because I don't think people understand what we was dealing with. Like people nowadays look to a street, let's say graffiti piece, whether it's on a freight train or whatever. Even the ones that come from out of town and they do the New York City trains, these are all clean trains. These are all like, clean canvases. We didn't have that. I'm from the last generation with trains. We had a couple decades of trains being bombed out by the time we got it. Not only were they bombed out they were old they were falling apart, they were rusty. And they were being acid washed by Koch. Every week they were being acid washed so the trains were actually being eaten away by acid and then you had pieces under pieces underneath for decades and tags and all kinds of stuff. You had to actually, like, if it could be visible you couldn't go over it really. That would cause a conflict that was the rules of the street. And there was also a priority. Tags were at the bottom, throw-ups were basically, people didn't really do throw-ups. That was to us, especially out of IBM we skipped that part. That was considered a waste of paint and a waste of space, doing those bubble letters on trains. We went straight to burners and that's why IBM was so famous: characters and burners.

Segment Synopsis: Sen describes his development as an artist, and how developing his art into a number of series, including graffiti abstracts and his flag series allowed him to become a career artist. He also describes at length how his experience as a graffiti writer, especially the unspoken rules and conditions of painting trains affected his artistic style.

Keywords: Abstraction

Subjects: Art and style; Graffiti; Sen-1 (Graffiti artist)

Partial Transcript: SEN: I was out there on a trip, I was with the girl I was dating at the time. She was on a business trip. We was out to dinner with a coworker... I saw them strategizing. These two women strategizing some meetings the next day that had to do with million dollar deals. I'm sitting here at the table and I'm like damn, I'm feeling the pressure! And the hustling comes out of me like damn I'm sitting at this table with these women and they're talking about how they got three meetings lined up tomorrow... I'm sitting here like I gotta up my game! I gotta up my game!

Segment Synopsis: The story of how SEN cold-visited Galerie D'Orsay in Boston while visiting the city and was able to develop a relationship with them to the point that they are now the sole distributors of SEN-1 work.

Keywords: Boston (Mass.)

Subjects: Commercial art; Galerie d'Orsay

Partial Transcript: SEN: I actually ride the ride of, at this age I go with the universe. If it's something bigger than me that I'm supposed to be doing, then at this stage of my life I just do it I show up for it. And it's also my mother's legacy this is what she did. So in a way I think she's also guiding a lot of this madness. In a good way! But I'm proud of it actually! I'm really proud. I've been told we've done more in this short amount of time there than almost anything in the past. And I credit that to my experience in the Panthers stuff. The organizational skills and everything came into play.

Segment Synopsis: How Sen-1 became the president of his Mitchell-Lama program rental building. He saw a number of misdeeds being committed by the management and by advocating for his fellow tenants found himself being nominated and ultimately elected. He has been proud of the quick change they have already been able to complete.

Subjects: Mitchell-Lama; New York (N.Y.). Community Planning Board No. 7

Partial Transcript: PC: Could you just touch on your community work with charitable organizations?
SEN: Absolutely that's been part of my beginnings, because that's been something, like My neighbor had Goddard Riverside which is a community center but I had a summer camp when we was kids. It also has legal housing, legal departments that deal with the community, so they have a lot of community outreach program stuff so I work with them and the beacon program. We created a program called arts on kick where we do the chucks [taylor]. Because of that curriculum I was able to open the center up for individual grants which now they use for individual artists. So they've backed me up a lot too even with the issues, and they're powerful!

Segment Synopsis: Sen outlines some of his recent work with charitable organizations in his community and beyond, volunteering his skills and time with the Goddard Riverside center to Tanzania. This has especially taken the form of art education to variously disadvantaged youths. SEN has been especially invigorated by his work in Africa, where he felt a "welcome home."

Keywords: Children's Village (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.); Children's Village (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.). Work Appreciation for Youth Program; Goddard-Riverside Community Center; Sierra Leone

Subjects: Art in education; Art therapy for youth; Arts and youth; Charitable giving; Charities; Charity; Poverty--Tanzania

Partial Transcript: SEN: I think when we talk about the graff I always see it as one big union with hip-hop. 'Cuz they all elements, well, what people know today, because it wasn't originally part of hip-hop. Hip hop obviously comes after these elements already pre-existing including b-boying b-girling. Like all these elements came together, right? But for what the world knows as the graff styles and even the breakdancing styles and dress styles that's all hip hop. Because the graff before hip-hop wasn't the same graff everyone fell in love with. The colors even the mentality.

Segment Synopsis: Sen gives his perspective on the significance of the globalization of graffiti, which he sees as a part of hip-hop as a global movement. Controversially among some of his peers, he's positive about the commercialization of hip-hop because of the opportunities and lessons it has given to youths often with so little.

Keywords: Break dancers; Break dancing

Subjects: Graffiti; Hip-hop; Hip-hop in art; Hip-hop--Influence; Street art

Partial Transcript: SEN: My Brother, man, Ricky Mujica, we have different fathers, but we didn't know our fathers we was raised by our mother. So you will never ever hear us say half brother, ever. That doesn't even exist. He's seven years older than me. I'm happy he's still in my life always. My brother is my everything, man. He's been my father figure, he's been my big brother figure. He's been the one even when I went off the road a lot in my life, because I'm the black sheep, he's been the light of what I could me. And it was hard as a young kid because I was the one that couldn't learn things.

Segment Synopsis: Sen speaks about his brother, Ricky Mujica, whom he is very close with. Ricky's success was a guiding light for Sen even when Sen was struggling. Though, as kids, Sen found the comparison very hard because he could not keep up with his brother in school, athletics, or "coolness." Their mother would force Ricky to take Sen along to wherever Ricky was hanging out, which included the early days of New York Skateboarding with Zoo York. Sen also speaks about how their experiences differed, with Sen's generation being much more violent and pressured, whereas Ricky's generation were more mischievous at worst.

Keywords: Kessler, Andrew; Kessler, Andy; Zoo York

Subjects: Mujica, Ricardo Jose; Sibling attachment; Sibling rivalry

Partial Transcript: PC: What does the Bronx mean to you?
SEN: Ah man, the Bronx is everything because, like I said, for my neighborhood we only have a little bridge that separates us. I spent a lot of time in the Bronx as well. But the Bronx influenced our neighborhood tremendously especially when it came to culture. And because we had so much similarity from the burnt-down stuff. And again, like I said, Harlem, even when you listen to the Black Spades documentary they talk about their chapters with the South Bronx but also in Harlem. So it was never, we never had, when it comes to the other boroughs because Brooklyn and Queens and them were so far away, the Bronx and Manhattan was never, especially uptown, was never really divided like that. We would say "uptown." Uptown made---It was all in one. When you said uptown it meant north of 96th street up. Like, or the 90s up into the Bronx.

Segment Synopsis: Sen underscores the connectedness of his neighborhood on the upper west side to the Bronx, and how the creativity coming out of the Bronx influenced his life.

Keywords: Harlem River (N.Y.); Zulu Nation

Subjects: Boroughs; Bronx; Bronx River (N.Y.); Harlem (New York, N.Y.)