sixcentz: what do you write?
priz: I write PRIZ-ONE

sixcentz: when did you first start writing?
priz: I began "street bombing" the tag MR/RM in 1978 along Riverside Drive Park and in the "freight tunnels" aka the Freedom tunnels. By 1979, I "officially" started "motioning" SWAN-ONE on the interiors of the IRT Broadway # 1 line. By1980 I was "hitting" PRISM/PRIZM then PRIZ (for short) on the interiors and exteriors of the subway cars located in the 1 tunnel.

sixcentz: where you from?
priz: I originally was from 137th street and Amsterdam then my family moved downtown to the upper west side of Manhattan by the 1960’s.

sixcentz: who are you down with?
priz: I was put down with a few crews like WAR (Writers Already Respected), TMT (The Magnificent Team) OTB (Out To Bomb) CIA (Crazy Inside Artists), TOP (The Odd Partners), UA (United Artists) BYB (Bad Yard Boys), 3YB (Three Yard Boys) but the two I rock up and recruit for are TSF/TSF (The Spanish Five) crew (vice prez) and CAC (Cool Ass Criminals) aka CACITY (Cool Artistic Creativity.)

sixcentz: who got you into Graff?
priz: In the mid 70’s, I had a next-door neighbor who wrote SAM BYB/The Mosquitoes. He and I use to bench for hours at the 96th street station where the 1,2 and 3 lines ran. He introduced me to writers like JEAN13, DEAN, BAD, BLAZE, ROOK-1 (rip) and SAN-1 from BYB and TCB (The City Burners.) After that, I got the "Graff fever" and couldn’t stop while he fell off. I watched and observed the way "writing" was being done. I had no mentor, so I became self-taught and learned the "hard way" by the ribbing or praise I got from my peers.

sixcentz: what’s your favorite thing to paint? I have to admit I still love to paint on "steel" because of the combination of adrenaline and priz: pressure you overcome to create your name on the side of a train. For me, there will never be a substitute.

sixcentz: what is your favorite paint/color?
priz: I still love the old Krylon flavors before they became chemically altered and discontinued: like Aqua Turquoise, Jungle Green, Pasta Aqua, Avocado, Chippewa, Plum, Erin Green, Burnt Orange, Mandarin Orange, Spanish Brown and (Paper Label vintage) Dusty Pink, OD Khaki.
Rustoleum (Stops Rust) Safety Green, Meadow Green, Regal Red, Sand and Battleship Gray. Don’t get me started on the Epoxy, Wet Look and Red Devil brands.

sixcentz: who were your influences?
priz: The numerous pieces and hand styles by the members of crews like BYB (Bad Yard Boys), TSF (First Generation writers), "The Young City Boy/Yoke City Mob" later to be known as TC5 (The Crazy Five), CYA Crazy Young Artists) RTW (Rolling Thunder Writers), TMT (The Magnificent Ten) and, TDS (The Death Squad). The work I saw on those "steel dragons" was the influential "eye candy" that hooked me into being a "Graffiti writer."

sixcentz: what do you feel about graffiti today?
priz: In my opinion, today’s new international "aerosol art" styles are different in color, size, detail and diversity but that "raw subway edge" is nonexistent. "Some" cats today can rock a "wild style 3d piece" but they have "no skills" in hand style or the "basics." If they do a simple style piece on a wall, it can’t stand-alone unless it has an elaborate background and characters to "hype it up." Strip off all that stuff and the pieces have no individual flow or grace.
All of the styles today have been already done, recycled and then reused with the addition of the aerosol technology that was not available to us 20 years ago.

sixcentz: who do you give props to today?
priz: Any "old school" cat from the 60’s to early 80’s that is still doing his thing his way, in the right way without bending to today’s "mainstream writer’s" new definition of writing standards.

sixcentz: any good stories?
priz: Yeah, Lady Luck does smile on writers now and then………it was a brisk, New York winter morning in 1981. I was carrying 2 Krylon silvers and 2 glossy black cans of paint in my coat pocket and a hand full of "kitchen magic" fat caps that I had racked and a flooded Red FloMaster Ink homemade mop in my breast pocket.
I rode the last car uptown on # 1 line to meet up with STAN at 125th street station and then from there we would head up to 137th-145th street aka the 1 tunnel.
Occasionally on weekends, there would be four sets of trains sleeping side by side, two sets on the Uptown and Downtown "off hour tracks."
When I got to 125th street station STAN, SON-ONE and CHRIS 217 AW (Acid Writers) were also there and decided to come down with us.
When we all got to 145th station, we looked out for any unnecessary police activity that could lead to us being raided. In those days, "The Spanish Five" were the self-proclaimed "landlords" of the one tunnel that we occasionally shared with "the Ball Busters" crew, who had "beef" with ZULU NATION at the time. If these dudes saw you down there and didn’t know you, you were going to be rolled on! Between them and us we kept the lay-up free of the "bullsh#t and troublemakers" which also kept the "police intervention" to a minimum.
When we got off the train at 145th street station, we scanned the platform for 5-0’s, then hopped down onto the tracks, and sprinted to the dimly lit sets of snoring trains. CHRIS 217climbed up between the cars and went inside to hit the headboards, ceilings and panels. STAN, SON and I started doing several windows down simples. I was doing PRIS (short for PRISM) fill-ins between the two sets.
When I ran out of paint, I climbed inside the trains and started looking for "clean spots" to hit which in those days seemed close to impossible because of all the numerous tags already put there.
Therefore, I caught ceiling and window tags with my mop. Between the Flow master ink fumes and the spray paint vapors I was starting to get dizzy so I walked to the next car. I noticed what seem to be balls of light that could only be flashlights. Therefore, I slid down the train window and mentioned this to STAN. He looked down the lane and saw nothing.
We then heard the "pu shhhhhhhhhhhh" sound of the train’s air brakes that echoed inside the tunnel. "What the f*%#k?" We were caught completely off guard.
Before STAN could say anything, he turned around and saw the yellow work train that came to a complete stop on the uptown service track behind the set we were now in.
A NYCTA track worker aka a "work bum" climbed down the front of the train onto the tracks with his flashlight on. STAN and SON quietly climbed inside the subway car I was in and we all watched in darkness. I could hear the radio from the motorman’s cab. I guess he hadn’t smelled the paint vapors.
Suddenly the door opened up from behind us and CHRIS 217 stepped in. He had been watching everything from inside the train he was bombing. We weren’t too worried about work bums because in our past encounters with them, they would sometimes tell us not to "break the train’s windows" and then go on their merry way, but sometimes you ran into the ones that were having a bad day and needed to take it out on someone. When these "yo-yo‘s" did see, they would usually place a call to the trainmaster who then would call the transit police.
We definitely were not about to spend the afternoon playing "duck, duck goose" with the MTA and the TP.
Because the work train was now blocking the emergency exit, we all decided to get out of there by walking downtown to 137th street station which was the closest and most available way out.
STAN, SON, CHRIS 217 and I climbed down the set of trains and quietly walked towards the downtown track. We stepped out from behind the open columns and inconspicuously walked by the yellow train hoping that the work bum would be too busy to take notice of us. He must have heard us because he looked up from the tracks and shined his flashlight in our direction.
He stood their staring coolly at us while we continued to walk pass him and then one of us waved at him and soon we were all waving at him in between the chuckles and the muffled comments we were making.
Then the motorman inside the work train saw us too and decided to give us two loud short blasts from the train horn, which startled all of us. I then responded by giving him "the finger" which really made everybody laugh. Then came another blast from the train horn!
I knew that the TA sometimes signaled cops this way, so we all now ran around the curve of pillars and there was the 137th street station. We slowed down and sneaked up on it, looking to see that no one had spotted us and when no one did, we climbed the yellow ladder at the platform’s end and quickly walked through the turnstiles and up the stairs into the street holding our breathes while two police officers walked by us and into the subway in the direction that we had just come from.

sixcentz: any shout outs?
priz: Thanks SIXCENTZ for letting me reminisce. Much love to the First and second generation TSF/TS5 members. LOKAKAY, PANZA, 2PRONE CAC SHADES OF GREY HALL OF FAME INC, STYLE MONSTA, CACITY CREW past and present members
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sixcentz: thanks a lot....