December, 2024 › Dead Relatives.

Eleazar.

I moved by myself exclusively for many years. I didn’t want to collab with anyone, I wanted to do it all on my own. That’s a young artist’s game, I feel. When you first get into your art more seriously, you think you’re gonna show everybody – there’s never been a producer, rapper, whatever, that can do it like me.

The deeper you get in the game, you start realizing, damn, a lot of my heroes had teams low-key. Even though on the outside, it looks like one guy. But nobody does anything by themselves – everybody has someone that put them up in their first gallery, gave them their 1st break, gave them their first shot at something greater.

Undertones with Suitcase Joe.

Initially I set out to document Skid Row historically, better than anyone else has. I wanted to thoroughly capture the neighborhood. What I didn’t know would happen, was that I’d fall in love with the people and the place and that it would change my perspective on life all the way around.

POR VIDA CAFÉ.

I hope that we can still be part of this community moving forward, but the future is untold. We don’t know what’s gonna happen when the owner of this building wants to build 4 stories high and put a retail spot under here, probably double or triple our rent. We have a lot to display, but we also have to walk very cordially over the next few years. I predict a big shift coming up. It’s a hard conversation, but I think it’s a conversation that needs to be had now.

FRKO.

Sometimes institutions don’t want my edgy/challenging art. Some of these places want to control what black art is. They only want to show what is comfortable for them.