BUSTA

Executive Producers: Tom Grahsler
Producers: Michael Olcott, Michaela Winberg
Engineers: Charlie Kaier, Al Banks, Tina Kalikay, Adam Staniszewski
Mixing: Charlie Kaier
Tile Art: Justin Nagtalon
Theme Song: SNACKMFTIME by SNACKTIME

Special thanks to Louisa Boyle, Naomi Brito, Aubrie Costello, Grant Hill, Mike Mehalick, Alejandro Miyashiro, Sarah Moses, Maiken Scott, Jason Andrew Turner, and Kayla Watkins.

Art Outside is a production of WHYY.

[STREET SOUNDS]

JOSE BUSTAMANTE: This trailer has been here for a long time. I’m not sure how many years, but it’s been here, abandoned, for a while.

CONRAD BENNER, HOST: We’re at an industrial area on the outskirts of Philadelphia. It’s in the shadow of the airport, flanked by highways and surrounded by body shops and salvage centers.

Today, we’re following a graffiti writer who has permission to paint anything he wants on an old trailer at a storage facility.

JB: It feels like a dream come true, man. For real. It’s, like, so nice out here. Perfect weather. Not too hot, not too cold, with the sun in the back. Smell of the paint. Like, you can’t ask for much better in life, man.

[SOUND OF SPRAY PAINTING]

[THEME MUSIC]

CB: From WHYY, this is Art Outside, a podcast about the art in our public spaces, and the people who create it. I’m your host, Conrad Benner.

Jose Bustamante goes by BUSTA. He’s a graffiti writer and muralist from Chía, Colombia. He first moved to Philly because of its graffiti history and vibrant mural scene. In our conversation with BUSTA, we learn more about graffiti, what it takes to make it, and why many think it’s actually healthy for cities.

JB: Everybody used to call me BUSTA because it’s faster, easier to say, you know. I used to be, like, into hip hop as a kid. So everybody called me ‘Busta Rhymas’ because of Busta Rhymes, you know.

[SOUND FROM BUSTA RHYMES’ ‘BREAK YA NECK’]

So it kind of stuck to me.

CB: What’s, like, a normal day in your life like when you’re a kid growing up in Chía?

JB: Like where I’m from specifically is kind of like mountainY, you know, like a flat area on mountains. We’re surrounded by mountains. So it’s pretty much in the center of the country, you know. But, you know, I grew up skateboarding in a town where it’s all farms and land, you know what I mean? It’s crazy. So that’s why I kind of always was interested in skateboarding as expression, as art, type of thing, you know, and graffiti too. It started happening. You were seeing graffiti everywhere in the town, in the city. A lot of people from Bogotá that was painting was going out to the suburbs to paint.

CB: Right.

JB: Like you see graffiti in the littlest town of the towns in Colombia.

CB: When it came to his own art, BUSTA started small.

JB: I remember in school, all my notebooks were little doodles and sketches and all different things.

CB: It always starts with the notebook, huh?

JB: Yeah.

CB: I feel like that’s a common story.

JB: No, for sure, because that’s the first, you know, kind of, like, the first thing you’re introduced as a kid is like a pencil and a notebook, a paper.

[MUSIC]

Like graffiti, I started writing graffiti, kind of lettering out there with the spray paint when I was probably 12, 11, you know? And I got into, like, the spray, but I already had like a little tag name.

CB: When you talk about lettering, you’re talking about writing the word BUSTA on a wall, right?

JB: Yeah.

CB: Like in its simplest form? So, you know, that’s a common theme in graffiti, from, like, the early days of the modern day graffiti movement. You know, Philly is arguably the birthplace of that. So why write your name on the wall? What is that?

JB: Instinct.

CB: Instinct?

JB: Yeah, it was like, ‘Oh, I want to leave a mark.’

CB: In Chía, where are you putting up?

JB: Like, the same. We had kind of like a center city, like a little main town.

CB: Mhm.

JB: So we used to hit, like, rooftops up there or highway spots. There’s always, like, a ton of bridges and billboards everywhere too, you know? So there was all that. There was city spots too, little houses, like, side of the houses. Out there, you know, there’s not too much regulation of that. So it just goes wild and many, top to bottom, everything is tagged up from, like, doors of houses and roofs, windows, everything. Like, everything.

CB: Graffiti was exploding in Chía for the first time, and BUSTA was part of it. But that didn’t mean everyone looked at the art form fondly.

Culturally, like, in the town you’re in, what was sort of the sentiment around graffiti?

JB: Oh no, it was bad.

CB: Oh, OK.

JB: Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t taken like a good thing. It was the, you know, rebels and, you know, and graffiti has a big history in Columbia. Before graffiti is protest, you know, because it’s always been, like, a lot of political fights. So graffiti was viewed as that. Like, if you wrote graffiti, you belong to like a guerrilla or something. Kind of the same as here with the gangs, you know what I mean?

CB: BUSTA wanted to change this perception. So he took his craft to a place that traditionally looked down on it: art school.

[MUSIC]

JB: They knew I had a background of graffiti. And graffiti in art, it’s always been kind of, like, a lower, like, you know, like, not considered art at all, you know? So for them it was kind of hard to accept at the beginning, but I kind of broke that thing.

And then they started allowing me to explore more graffiti, and they started liking it.

CB: Like, your teachers?

JB: Yeah, like the staff, everybody, you know? Even the owner of the place was hype about that. And they were letting me do my last, like, project for the university was mixing classic art and graffiti.

CB: In his final project, BUSTA wanted to show his teachers that graffiti could stand toe-to-toe with “fine art.”

JB: It was kind of portraits of, like, classic painters, like Rembrandt and Michelangelo and Leonardo. And I was taking them and merging it with letters, and doing different, you know, kind of combinations with letters and portraits, trying to mimic the style of oil painting with the spray paint, you know? Like, kind of making the portraits as close as possible to the classic art style, you know, to kind of show that you can use this medium to generate this type of images. Like, it’s not just spray paint as industrial paint, but it could be an art, an art tool as well. You know, they don’t connect it with art. They don’t see that it can do bigger stuff. So, kind of breaking that stigma in there helped to introduce the graffiti, and like the lettering, and the colors, and talking about composition and balance with the letters. It has to have some type of cohesive look for them to be able to accept it.

CB: His message resonated.

What was the reception to that project?

JB: They loved it. They actually kept some pieces in the academy for display.

CB: Whoa.

JB: So they have them in there, yeah. It’s pretty cool.

[MUSIC]

CB: BUSTA made his mark on the Colombian graffiti scene, and changed some minds at his art school along the way. But he had his heart set on a new city: Philadelphia, which he learned was the birthplace of the modern-day graffiti movement.

That’s coming up, after the break.

[MIDROLL BREAK]

CB: Welcome back to Art Outside. I’m your host, Conrad Benner.

In 2014, BUSTA made a big leap and moved to Philadelphia.

[MUSIC]

JB: I think in the first couple of months, I met a couple writers from here and they showed me around a lot, and I was really, really excited about it. I always had this, like, I always felt, like, excited to see more and, like, learn more. And you meet all these characters, and there is a lot of people here in their 60s, in their 50s, that still or used to write graffiti. And they carry these stories.

CB: You were meeting your heroes at this point.

JB: Yeah, exactly. They were like, you know, I’m never going to get to meet those guys. They’re in another country. They’re in another world, like, you know? And for a kid from Chía, Colombia to come here and end up meeting these guys, and being accepted by them, by some of them too, you know, and being able to surround myself, too, with these people, it was really like enriching, like I don’t know how to call it, nurturing.

CB: So you started to find a community here?

JB: Yeah, like I just started meeting a lot of the community here, so it was pretty cool that they took me in. They accepted me.

CB: Now, BUSTA’s about as prolific in Philly as they are. And here, at this trailer, he’s eager to share his approach in the same nurturing way.

[STREET SOUNDS]

JB: It’s a piece of artwork, a piece of graffiti, whatever you want to call it. But is a combination between graffiti letters, using typography, but changing it with 3D aspects and overlapping, like, elements. And in the middle, there is a portrait of a woman with, like, flowing hair, and, like, a hoodie, with, like, a beanie, like, kind of showing the hip hop aspect. And in the background, there is a moon with some kind of, like, foggy sky and, you know, kind of giving the ambiance or the stage with some leaves kind of, framing the image.

CB: To add the newest layers, he had to get up high. Luckily he had the equipment for it.

[SOUND OF A FORKLIFT BEEPING]

JB: Well, I have access to this lift. So, it’s a luxury to be able to have this space with the tools and the equipment. So, yeah, yeah. This is an amazing tool, man. Little lift gets you a long way. [Laughter]

[MUSIC]

CB: Watching him work, you realize just how much technical skill this craft takes.

JB: I’m kind of fading other tones of other colors on top of the colors that I have already in there. But you gotta do it, like, slow and soft, kind of. The motions go kind of along the shape that you’re doing, you know? And you gotta go up and down or side to side, depends on the effect that you want to create.

[SOUND OF SPRAY PAINTING]

Also, the cap has to go in the direction you want to fade. So it’s not just randomly throwing paint in there, you’ve got to find the shapes and move along with them. Like, I’m doing a fade from purple to yellows, right? So I have to go to purple to pink or magenta, you know, in order for me to jump to orange, and then from orange to yellow. Because purple and yellow are the opposite in the color wheel, so if you mix them, you get brown. But if you make a transition with other colors white enough, you will create these like soft shadings and kind of, like, a highlight and shadow effect.

CB: All this effort for a piece in a mostly empty part of the city, that few people will see. But that doesn’t bother BUSTA in the least.

JB: Graffiti has that essence of you got to go and look for it. You got to go out of your way and find it. You know, you got to explore, you got to and it’s always in places where you don’t expect them to be, you know? Like graffiti just pops up, you know?

And I feel like having this in here, where you’re not expecting it, in, I don’t know, some weird part of the city, it kind of gives it that edge too. I don’t want to present it as an art piece in a gallery or like, pristine, like, ‘Hey, look, this is what I did, like, everybody,’ like, you know, I just want that to be it. And if you find it, appreciate it. If you don’t find it, you didn’t see it. You know? [Laughter]

CB: BUSTA has learned a lot about graffiti since he moved to Philly.

JB: I try to respect the spaces. And I know that where I paint is places where, it’s not somebody else’s property per say. Or it’s, like, government.

CB: Like a highway?

JB: Like a highway or something that is not, you know, that I know I’m not going to affect an individual.

CB: The Amtrak corridor.

JB: Like, exactly, like, I don’t, there are places that are city owned that are pretty much abandoned, or just big gray spaces, that, you know, they should be intervened. Of course. In my opinion. I just try to go, like, in my way of respecting the neighbor. And I always try to put myself in the other person’s situation.

[MUSIC]

CB: He learned this lesson the hard way.

JB: I was, you know, maybe a little too stupid. And I did this big piece in the side of a house. And it was illegal, of course, and police came to me and, like, I didn’t hear the cars or anything.

[SOUND OF POLICE SIREN]

So they kind of, boom, boom, boom, got me and, you know, the whole deal. That was like 2015 or 2014 when I just got here from Colombia. And I was in another mindset of trying to just paint. And I came from a place where painting graffiti was easier in the sense of, like, not easier, but I was used to painting more illegally in there, you know what I mean? So coming here, I kind of was trying to see, to test the waters, when it was pretty fresh, you know what I mean? And I kind of learned from those experiences. I had a couple experiences when I got here that, you know, went to that level for me to really understand that, yo, there are certain rules and respect you got to have, and things like that.

CB: This is something that BUSTA often grapples with. He’s a full-time artist with a family, so he’s got bills to pay. He’s done plenty of commissioned work, like a mural at Lincoln Financial Field, projects for the Mummers Parade and inside Philly schools. But to fulfill himself creatively, he has to make time for graffiti.

At the end of the day, BUSTA wouldn’t have it any other way. He says at its core, graffiti has to be non-commissioned.

It’s, like, tough when, like, if you’re known for your graffiti writing and you have a graffiti style, but you’re paid to do a mural in that graffiti style, like, yeah, what is it?

JB: I feel like for everybody doing graffiti at some point, they wish that, you know? But there is that part of, like, they don’t want that to happen, like, they don’t want the capitalism, the commercial end to it, to affect it and change it as it happened with the hip hop culture in some sense.

[MUSIC]

But graffiti, the essence of graffiti, is illegality. It’s doing it for you, by you, in places that you’re not supposed to. Because, you know, at the end of the day, there is a history to it. There is, like, a legacy. There is all these things that you have to, if you are part of that, you have to respect and understand, you know? If you’re not part of it, do whatever you want. You know, at the end graffiti was meant to be lawless.

CB: To some, the illegality actually makes graffiti more valuable to the culture.

OK, I heard once someone describe the modern-day graffiti movement as the most important art movement of our time. How do you feel about that?

JB: It’s accurate. For the time, yeah. I feel like, I’m sure there is going to be more, or something else that comes out of it. Because when graffiti becomes completely accepted and merged into the art world, there is going to have to be another culture or subculture or something that is going to appear against that, and that’s going to be the new graffiti. But there’s always something like that. Like you look through our history, it’s always revolutions. There’s, like, a moment in art where people are doing something that they’re not supposed to, and that becomes the staple for the next generation. And then the next one takes it, breaks that down, and it’s a cycle.

[THEME MUSIC]

CB: This is Art Outside. I’m your host, Conrad Benner.

Our producers are Michael Olcott and Michaela Winberg. Our engineer is Charlie Kaier, with engineering help from Al Banks, Tina Kalakay, and Adam Staniszewski. Our executive producer is Tom Grahsler.

Our theme song is Snackmftime by SNACKTIME. Our tile art was created by El Toro, aka Justin Nagtalon.

Special thanks to Louisa Boyle, Naomi Brito, Aubrie Costello, Grant Hill, Mike Mehalick, Alejandro Miyashiro, Sarah Moses, Maiken Scott, Jason Andrew Turner, and Kayla Watkins.

Art Outside is a production of WHYY. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey everybody. If you’ve enjoyed this season of Art Outside, we have one tiny favor to ask of you. And that’s to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us to spread the word about the important work these artists are doing. And we’d really appreciate it. Thanks y’all.