You started creating graffiti art in the early ’90s with the San Jose–based underground hip hop group Full Time Artists (FTA). What was the scene like back then, and how did you get into writing graffiti? Man, I’m really happy that I had my childhood in the ’80s and my teen years in the ’90s. I feel like that was very lucky. The world before the internet, smartphones and social networks was so much more mentally healthy and so much simpler. We had the internet, but it was far less ubiquitous, less relevant. The underground scene was a real-live social network, worldwide but still very esoteric and special. You really felt like you were a part of something if you earned a place in that environment. You had to get out there and hustle, put in work. Only performance and merit really mattered. In the internet age, I think people are struggling to adapt to the very rapid pace of change. There’s a certain schizophrenic aspect to having access to everything everywhere all the time—especially now, the way that abyss tends to gaze back into you.

I stumbled into the underground scene and graffiti art via the kids in my neighborhood and in school. Back then, we could spot each other a mile away from cues in fashion or language like members of some secret society. If you knew about certain artists or elements of the history, you had an automatic bond. We just coalesced over time, the remnants of the old-school hip hop scene folded into the emerging new-school underground scene as gangster rap and a commercialized version of the culture veered off into another lane. I was always an artist since I was a kid, imitating comic book, video game art and graffiti, but graffiti has this endless variety, and the aspect of danger and camaraderie was an instant and apparently permanent obsession.

The FTA crew was like an all-star team. We were all from different cities and different schools. Each of us recruited some of the best writers around us. We surrounded the crew with our closest homies and family members. We all met through graffiti, but FTA has emcees and DJs, breakers, and music producers. Every guy or girl does more than one thing. We definitely subscribed to the original “four elements” theory of hip hop: DJing, MCing, breakdancing and graffiti art.