Solo graffiti versus crew graffiti: which is better? who's to say? i feel like when most
people start out in graffiti they aren't super connected to the community. and
that's totally okay. that's exactly how i was too and probably to a certain degree that's
how i still am. and i also feel like a lot of people just assume that graffiti is better with
more people when in reality there's actually a lot of pros and cons to doing graffiti solo
and doing graffiti with a crew. and today i am here to tell you the pros and cons of both
ways of doing graffiti because there are many pros and cons of both ways. i'll start off by
telling you the pros and cons of doing solo graffiti specifically first because a lot of
people just plain think like i said doing graffiti in crews is better and that simply ain't the case,
at least not all the time. and after that i want to tell you the golden rule
of solo graffiti! this is the one golden rule that has kept me on my feet and safe doing solo
graffiti in the past for 10 years plus. so these pros and cons of solo graffiti are for all of
you guys out there who got into graffiti the same sort of way I did, either purely by chance or by
seeing it in your area and just not really having an 'in' into the graffiti community at the start.
we'll start off with the positive. I'll start off with a couple pros here. one of the biggest pros
of solo graffiti is that you are simply less visible when you're moving through the street,
in a freight yard. one single person should be, as long as you're not being a complete idiot,
a lot less visible than a group of four or five guys trying to move through the freight yard. i
mean seriously, like even just myself walking down the freight line hearing my footsteps
on those stones - "because there are plenty of like artistic concepts that you do have to pay
which are close enough to being rules that they might as well be ruined is" - just me alone i get
irritated enough at that noise. multiply that by times five times six when you're with your buddies
out there and it's a heck of a lot of noise! there is no way around it! and that sort of leads into
my second pro of solo graffiti, which goes two ways. A) it's that you yourself are quieter and B)
because you're quieter you can hear more of the environment around you, which is always a good
thing. no matter how organized and cohesive a graffiti unit is, doing any kind of mission
you're always quietest when you're alone. you don't have to communicate anything to anyone
and you can constantly gather information just by listening. you may think a lot of
graffiti crews are pretty quiet until you get out there and you've got again
your five or six guys all painting with their spray cans. you hear six different spray cans
from six different spots around you, on the freight in front of you, beside you and behind
you. it's just - you can't hear anything outside of your little bubble and that can get pretty uh
irksome if you're just not used to that environment I guess. so to sum that up really
just don't underestimate the value of having a smaller footprint as a solo graffiti artist.
but i'm certainly not trying to say there aren't cons of doing graffiti solo. and i'm going to
mention the one main con before i reveal to you my golden rule of doing graffiti solo.
and that main con which is probably the first one that comes to everyone's mind is simply
just you have no lookout at all! it's just you you have to be the eyes of the piece and the
operation i guess as well. there is no better substitute than just having your own little
Capital Q there to keep an eye out for you when you're trying to paint a quick panel
in the yard or something like that! and because of that if you are doing solo stuff you do have
to stick to those more chill spots most of the time. it's just simply not smart to be painting
those high traffic areas if you don't have a couple guys to keep a look out for the crew.
but that con is no match for my personal golden rule of solo graffiti! and again this is the
golden rule that i tell anyone who is asking me, "Sciz, i'm new to graffiti or new to graffiti
in my area. how do i find people to paint with?" and i what i always tell them is the golden rule.
and that is simply, it's better to be painting with no one at all than be painting with people
that you can't trust. and not to toot my own horn or anything too much but i think that's a
very underrated mindset of graffiti in general. i mean honestly think about it. the more uncertainty
there is in any graffiti situation the less control you have over how that is going to turn
out. and not having control is generally not great when you're doing something like graffiti. so the
reality is, if you just go bombing with Joe blow, whoever wants to go bombing, then you're not going
to be operating as a cohesive unit. you don't know how the other people operate and you're probably
going to get into some bad situations. and it's not even necessarily that you will get into some
bad situations, it's what happens when you do. the difference between an actual cohesive graffiti
crew and just a few people bombing together is not IF bad situations happen it's the result
of the bad situation. is everyone able to get their stuff together and scram really fast or is
it just absolute chaos. and that's not to knock crew graffiti. i'm we're gonna get to the pros of
the crew stuff in a second, I promise, but just think of it this way: how likely is it that if
you're bombing with a few people you don't really know, how likely is it that they are going to have
your back or not leave you out to dry when a bad situation hits? that's all I'm saying. but if you
are a big proponent of solo graffiti and you think i've missed a few super key points, hey, feel free
to leave a comment! i can't fit everything in one video. i approach things differently then
you might as well. i'm sure everyone would love to see your comment. so hey leave it down there.
but there are plenty of great things about being a part of a crew and crew graffiti scenes as well.
and although i've been most comfortable in the past with solo graffiti myself these are the
things that i've noticed i've been missing out on the most and really speak to why it's important
and nice to sometimes have graffiti crew missions to go on. you'll notice that throughout these
pros i'm going to be using 1up as an example a lot because they are arguably one of the most,
if not the most, successful graffiti crew in the world! the first pro of crews is more eyes
means you got more visibility, and you can do some higher risk spots if the crew is up for that kind
of thing. this is A) because more eyes means more potential to notice things a little bit sooner,
so that if there is something that needs to be noticed you have that extra minute to get everyone
out. and another big main pro of graffiti crews is that you can take on those big graffiti missions
that are simply not possible with just one or two guys. for example, we're looking at 1up here again
and there is no way that a crew that is any less organized would be able to pull off a train hit
anywhere near five minutes or less, like you're seeing there. it is the sheer size of the crew
and their organization within the crew that made that train possible for 1up. and a bit of a less
obvious pro that i always feel i'm missing out on as a solo graffiti artist that crews get the
benefit of is, there's just more hands to carry all the stuff that you need! i mean one guy can
bring the milk crate, one guy can bring the bolt cutters, one guy can bring whatever this
thing is to open the thingamabob to go down into the subway... i don't know what that's
called. i'm not up on bullet trains believe it or not. but for those of you who got into graffiti
through maybe a family member or a friend or just have always had an 'in' into the graffiti
community and into a graffiti crew, definitely also leave a comment letting everyone know
more of the benefits that i didn't touch on, or the cons of crew graffiti. i've been around long
enough to sort of get the gist of the main reasons that people do graffiti in crews obviously,
but as someone who's always been happy not representing um i'd love to hear from some
more experienced crew graffiti writers more of the benefits that you guys get. but that being said,
if you want to know not who to paint with but WHERE to paint, or more specifically where
NOT to paint, then you can check out this video on screen right now that we did on the channel
about the top five fastest places graffiti gets buffed! i hope to see you over there
soon. you can always subscribe to see more of the content here on the channel. until then, peace!