James Emmett Jankowiak wonders why hip-hop got a bad rap. “People assume hip-hop is all bad,” he says. “The hip-hop music I grew up with didn’t mention guns or violence. ‘Rapper’s Delight’ talked about improving yourself as a person.” Even when a song glorified guns, “it didn’t make me want to go out and buy one.”
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As a teenager in Back of the Yards, Jankowiak became a tagger. He’d spray paint his nickname, “Casper,” on buildings and el trains. Though he knew graffiti was illegal, he thinks it was far from destructive. Hip-hop kept him out of gangs, he says, and put him in touch with creative types. “It’s a certain frame of mind more than anything, and it includes everyone from the get-go, including blacks, whites, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans.”
Jankowiak is a bit reluctant to talk about his street past–he hates the term “tagger,” preferring “writer” instead–but it’s very much alive in his paintings. He still uses sharp diagonals, bubble letters, and vibrant colors. The brick and steel that once served as his canvas are re-created with layers of paint and torn paper. One of Nick Fury’s installations provides a historical perspective on his own graffiti days. Featured under glass are about ten different markers he used to decorate walls and trains around the city. He used spray paint–now outlawed in Chicago–as well as Speed Stick deodorant and shoe dye, which is difficult to remove.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jim Newberry.
