Interview with BOM5

Partial Transcript: PC: Welcome to the Bronx Aerosol Arts Documentary Project. My name is Pastor Crespo, Jr., Research Librarian and Archivist here at the Bronx County Historical Society. And I am joined by pioneering graffiti artist Butch II for this oral history. Today is Thursday, April 15, 2023 and we have the distinct honor of documenting this oral history with BOM5. Welcome BOM5, please introduce yourself.
BOM: Thank you. This is BOM5 from the boogie-down Bronx, which we used to call the burnt down Bronx.

Segment Synopsis: Interviewers Butch 2 and Pastor Crespo introduce themselves and give a chance for BOM5, the narrator of this oral history and pioneering graffiti writer to introduce himself.

Keywords: Bom 5 (Graffiti artist); Butch 2 (Graffiti artist); Oral history

Subjects: Bronx; Bronx (New York, N.Y.); Bronx County (N.Y.); Graffiti; Graffiti artists

Partial Transcript: B2: Ok, BOM5, talk to us about your family history, background, where your parents are from?
BOM: I was born in Puerto Rico. My father is African, My mother's Puerto Rican. My grandfather came to Puerto Rico for work. He found work in Puerto Rico and brought his kids over there. His kids met my mother and started having kids in Puerto Rico. Then we moved to New York and my brother and sister were born there. There's 10 of us all from the same mother and father. When we came to this place called New York, they just had to change their paperwork and stuff because New York when you came from Puerto Rico you could get help from the government.

Segment Synopsis: BOM discusses his family background and early life. He was part of a large family, on of 10 siblings. His father moved to Puerto Rico for work and settled there, meeting BOM's mother. The family moved again to New York, where again his father found work until he was murdered in a racially motivated attack. This left only BOM's mother to take care of all 10 kids. He also describes his daily life, including music listened to in his house and meals cooked, as well as loading all the kids up into the family station wagon to go to Orchard Beach.

Keywords: Arts, Puerto Rican; Cooking, Puerto Rican; Murder victims' families; Puerto Rican young men; Puerto Rico

Subjects: Bronx; Children and violence; Hate crimes; Hate crimes--United States; Violence--Sociological aspects

Partial Transcript: PC: Take us through the schools you attended and take us through each of them from public school on up.
BOM: Yeah I went to school at 174, I had got––I went to the school for a while and then got kicked out and had to go to P.S. 105 at Pelham Parkway. I was getting into too much trouble and my mom got me into that school with an address with my cousin... so then my brothers and sisters younger than me started going there too.

Segment Synopsis: BOM gives a history of his schooling, from Public School, one of which he got kicked out of, to eventually dropping out then finally getting his GED, which he passed immediately.

Keywords: GED tests

Subjects: Public education series; Schooling

Partial Transcript: PC: Do you remember when you first saw graffiti? Was it in the staircase, at school, the train? What was it, and how did it influence you at the time?
BOM: First of all I didn't even know it was graffiti. I was in a gang. My cousin SEE 2 S-E-E 2 and uh, he's the one that got me into the gang. I used to look up to my cousin, he was almost five years older than me but my cousin was my cousin he was like my brother. He is my first cousin and he was a badass. I mean I'm telling you when I'm 9 years old and joining this gang, and this guy is already 13 but he was like stocked. I'm like yo! He said "Pushup! Pushup! Pushup! Chinup! Pushup!" I was like yo show me! Show me! I remember him having muscles like we was 10 years apart! This dude was always built like that!
...
I found another family in the street. You know in Tiffany Street, and they gave me the name Spider. I had to go through the whole thing to join the gang. The main thing I remember when I was proud when Hollywood said, we're gonna pass you a name, you're fast, your hands they can see it you're a fighter" there's a lot of things they test you. I had to rack up in the summer some quarts of beer for them. They said, "Go in the store and bring us something!" And like what am I gonna bring? They said to bring something me like to drink. I went in there and racked up two quarts. So what I did was I went in the back, looked around, make sure no one is watching, and I ran out.

Segment Synopsis: The first experiences BOM5 had with graffiti was within his outlaw gang, the Savage Skulls. He would put up his gang moniker, 174SPIDER, as well as SAVAGE SKULLS, and the block name with paint stolen from the superintendent of his building on the rocks outside. Soon, he was introduced to other writers who opened his eyes to the wider writing culture, which BOM quickly took to.

Keywords: Savage Nomads (Street gang); Savage Skulls (Street gang)

Subjects: Gangs--New York (State); Outlaw Gang

Partial Transcript: PC: I wanna take you back to when you first started writing. What did you use? What markers? Did you do homemade markers? What did you do about that?
BOM: That's where the next part comes in. As a gang member I was doing good, but as a human, I was not doing good. So my cousin said, "look, you got too much skill. You dance good, you draw good, you got like opportunities. You're getting too bad, you're gonna end up hurting someone bad and you're gonna wind up going to jail and I don't want that for you. You know that's not in your life." And I was angry with him because it took me almost 4 years and now I'm in the gang, and I'm with the gang. It's going into my fifth year and I'm strong, I'm better, and you know I just love my life in that gang. Never brought the colors to my mother's house, never wore it around my mother, out of respect for my mother. Every time I got home I would fold it up and put it under the staircase or on the roof. So now he forced me, you gotta get out or I'm gonna beat the shit outta you. I didn't have to fight to get out of the gang because my cousin said, "let him go."
...
I see my cousin Chino at a birthday party, at a family birthday party, and he's got a shirt like painted. And that's like with a shirt like painted? I'm like oh, yo, what's that? I could do that!

Segment Synopsis: BOM's cousin kicks him out of the gang in order to protect him from getting into serious trouble and encourages him to find opportunities with his many talents. Chance encounters lead him to focus seriously on graffiti where he learns from established names the tools of the trade and where to find the Writers' Benches. One mentor BOM was introduced to at this time was BILLY 167, an Irish writer who took BOM under in wing in a number of ways, including having BOM over for dinner. It surprised BOM the degree to which racial animus lessened (but by no means disappeared) among writers, and his friendship with Billy helped heal the wound of his father's death.

Keywords: Education in art

Subjects: Graffiti; Graffiti artists; Mural painting and decoration--Technique

Partial Transcript: B2: What other tags have you written, and do you still write any of them?
BOM: My tag started from my gang name, 174SPIDER, and then my first graffiti name was from a movie I saw at the time, it was called SPARTACUS, with Kirk Douglas. I loved how he was strong in that movie, and I wanted to be that strong guy. Not in a gang way anymore but in a writing world way. So I got SPARTACUS. The name was too long! So I cut it down to SPART 174. After I got that name it felt good. I had the name. But then I started noticing at the time a lot of writers was replacing letters for characters. So I was like, oh! I need a name with an O! So I started looking. And I said oh, BOMB. I told BILLY and he said oh, ok that's good! But when I went to see my cousin CHINO, he said wait, I go to school with BOMB1! My cousin went to art and design and I went to music and art.I'm like what, ah man. He said no no no! I would go there after school and meet him after school over there

Segment Synopsis: After briefly using the name SPARTACUS, BOM wanted a shorter name and something with an O so that he could draw a character in place of the vowel. BOM settled on the graffiti name BOMB, but was discouraged when BOMB1 (Al Diaz) continued writing the name after agreeing to retire. In order to differentiate himself, BOM omitted the final B and added 005 to the name, becoming forever more BOM005.

Keywords: Anonyms and pseudonyms; Anonyms and pseudonyms, American

Subjects: Graffiti

Partial Transcript: B2: Which stations did you get into for layups?
BOM: Oh, boy. Wow, so many. They had underground layups. The 6 layup, you know. St. Lawrence, 223rd-225th. Sometimes they'd lay it up in Bronx Park East on the Pelham Parkway. For the Bronx. Then we had 183rd, we had Kingsbridge, we went to Kingsbridge many times the G boys I got down with them. But I even went to like, layups on the 7 Line, Junction Blvd (Jackson Heights). My story don't stay in the Bronx. Early on I was traveling. I started going to the different writes bench in Queens, in Brooklyn. I befriended one guy, my brother who passed away STIM 1.

Segment Synopsis: BOM lists the layups underground and elevated, and yards he liked to paint in. A favorite was Esplanade where the elevated section of the 5 train heads underground between Morris Park station and just before Gun Hill Rd. Station. He would travel to other boroughs to find new lines to paint on, including Junction Blvd and different layups in Brooklyn. He went as far as Long Island and Staten Island. This travel, enabled often by relatives such as a cousin in Jamaica Queens who introduced him to Grandmaster Flowers and Pete DJ Jones. He also speaks about difficulties in getting in and out. Early on it was just walk-in but later as policing became heavier there was a lot of difficulties and chasing.

Keywords: Sunnyside Yard (New York, N.Y. : Railroad yard)

Subjects: Graffiti; Law enforcement

Partial Transcript: B2: Alright can you talk to us about the Mad Writers, how did that begin and what were they most known for?
BOM: That was a crew I made in 1978. But before that in 1976 I made my other crew. ... I saw a movie called 5 Fingers of Death. So I made a crew called 5 Death Writers. And Death was a big word back in the day. People say "Oh, Def you don't know nothing" Oh? how do you spell it? "D-E-F" No it was D-E-A-T-H back in the day. To be Death you wrote the whole word out. So sometimes I would write SPIDER174 is DEATH. So after I saw that movie it influenced me to make a crew but it was just me. I was like alright I gotta get five friends into graffiti! So I finally got five friends together and we had a crew called 5 Death Writers.

Segment Synopsis: BOM speaks about his experience creating crews, first the 5 Death Writers and then the Mad Writers. He goes into the history of the word Death as a positive adjective (later shifted to Def).

Keywords: 5 Death Writers; Mad Writers

Subjects: Graffiti artists; Graffiti crews

Partial Transcript: B2: Walk us through your process of doing a piece. Do you plan it out in detail? Do it in the blackbook? Do you wind it? do you get help from other people in your crew?
BOM: Goes like this: When you become a writer, most of the time you go with one other person. Unless you go by yourself. Then, the whole thing doesn't matter if you're with a crew or not. It depends on what you're gonna do with that crew, if you're gonna do a production together... Sometimes not all the colors work out to do the exact production you want to do.So you just go racking. The main thing: you get your paint. Because you already know your sketch if you're already writing. You've practiced you past sketches your outline you got stuff. Even Pathmark had spray paint at one time.

Segment Synopsis: BOM lays out his process for completing a piece. For BOM, the piece starts when racking––what colors can you get? He details a lot of his routine for racking. For a big crew production they'd need an army duffel bag to hold all the paint. Then transporting the paint which is difficult itself. Then comes the outline which you already have from experience. Having a fat cap was also a necessity.

Subjects: Mural painting and decoration, American; Mural painting and decoration--Technique

Partial Transcript: PC: We're gonna switch gears on you. How did you become involved in Zulu Nation? Tell us that backstory.
BOM: It was all the influence of being around Sisko King and all them guys. The first time I ever met Bam was I was in the Savage Skulls and they tell me about Bronx [inaudible] and I'm from 174th they have a Bridge that goes over to Bronx River Projects. So I knew about Bam through graffiti first he used to write BAM117. So I met him on the Bridge. I didn't have colors, he didn't have color and we met. He's taking a tag, I take a tag, we meet on the bridge and we become friends. The funny thing about that. Two days or three days later I'm riding my bike through Bronx River and I see him with a group of dudes. They got the Black Spades colors and I'm walking around with my vest on my bike Savage Skulls. And I'm like, that's that same guy that motherfucker! So I start throwing bottles at them, and they start throwing shit at me and they started coming at me. So I had to get back on my bike and ride my bike away. They were throwing like rocks at us and stuff, so I had to get away. But I threw bottles at them first because I was like, I thought you was my friend, but you know he was someone I just met. I just wrote my gang name on the bridge but I didn't put no SS.

Segment Synopsis: BOM speaks about meeting Afrika Bambaataa and how he was present for some of the early conversations involved in the founding of Zulu Nation, despite some initial friction due to Bam's Black Spades affiliation. BOM was involved in Zulu Kings, the B-Boy group of Disco King Mario, the Black Spade DJ, which also became affiliated with Zulu Nation when that spun up.

Keywords: Afrika Bambaataa, 1960-; Zulu Nation

Subjects: B-boy; Hip-hop

Partial Transcript: PC: Now DJing: What drew you to become a DJ and do you still spin?
BOM: Yeah yeah. Still spinning still doing my thing. I slowed down for a little bit because I got the tinnin–tinnining?
PC: Right Tendonitis? [note: Tinnitus meant]
BOM: Yeah that's from years of having the headphone on and being in clubs. You know we'd have these jams rocking with loudspeakers in these small community center rooms blasting the music. Going deaf but you're not feeling it! When you get older all of a sudden you got a ringing in your ear.

Segment Synopsis: BOM speaks about how he got into DJing. He met some mentors and was able to prove himself. Some of his biggest mentors mentioned were Disco King Mario, Junebug, and DJ Hollywood. Later on, BOM would have something of a falling out with Hollywood due to Hollywood not wanting to be associated with the juvenile Bronx hip-hop culture, insisting on a mature harlem disco audience. BOM gives a lot of credit to the disco DJs and makes sure to give them their due credit in contributing to hip-hop, but he insists that what Kool Herc and other early hip-hop DJs were playing the music differently, even though the line between disco and hip-hop was very blurry early on, with many hip-hop crews (including BOM's own) incorporating "disco" into their names.

Keywords: D. J. Hollywood; DJ Kool Herc

Subjects: Disco dancing; Disco music; Hip-hop; Hip-hop--Influence

Partial Transcript: PC: Now tell us about the hip hop culture courses that you give at area charter schools. Are you allowed to talk about that?
BOM: I could talk about just what I've been doing my whole life! Ever since the 80's I've been going to centers teaching about graff, about the culture of writing. My culture when I talk is first about the Bronx, and then about how I spread it in New York. And my spread went from New York to all around America, and then when I got tired of America then I went overseas.

Segment Synopsis: BOM speaks briefly about the classes he gives to student-aged community members in schools and community centers about hip-hop culture and graffiti. He emphasizes how the culture mirrors himself in ever more expanding opportunities. It is rooted in the Bronx but took him all over the city, then the country, then the world.

Subjects: Culturally relevant pedagogy; Education in art

Partial Transcript: PC: We like to end the interviews with this one question: What does the Bronx mean to you?
BOM: My family. My family, my community, the place that made me who I am to this day. And that's a good person. 'Cause I had been a bad person in another way. So it made me a good person and gave me knowledge. All the education and things I learned from the Bronx I can spread through the world.

Segment Synopsis: The Bronx holds a personal meaning for BOM as the community which made him a good person, which educated him and put him in a place to educate others. He attaches this fact to his Afro-Puerto Rican identity, but says that his experience with members of all ethnic communities in the Bronx also convinced him of the unity of the human race.

Subjects: Bronx

Segment Synopsis: BOM5 does a couple of passes at writing his tag for the Bronx County Archives