Cornbread Lives

Executive Producers: Tom Grahsler, Alex Lewis and John Myers
Producer: Alex Lewis
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Engineers: Charlie Kaier, Al Banks, Tina Kalikay, Adam Staniszewski
Production, Sound Design and Mixing: Rowhome Productions
Tile Art: Justin Nagtalon
Theme Song: SNACKMFTIME by SNACKTIME

Special thanks to Michaela Winberg, Michael Olcott, Sarah Moses, Mike Shiffler, and Kayla Watkins.

Art Outside is a production of WHYY.

CONRAD BENNER, HOST: Before we get started, a quick heads up that this episode includes some profanity.

[CARS DRIVING, BIRDS CHIRPING]

CB: Recently I met up with an absolute legend at the Philadelphia Zoo in West Philly.

DARYL MCCRAY: I knew I had to do something bizarre, amazingly bizarre, to snatch the media attention and say, “I’m not there, you gotta write about this.” And I had pondered countless possibilities, what can I do? I wrote, “The real Cornbread is not there.” No impact. I said I thought about this place here. This is a tourist attraction I come here and bombing out, have no choice but to cover it.

CB: That’s Daryl McCray, better known as Cornbread. He’s considered by many to be the world’s very first, modern-day graffiti artist, and his legendary status was cemented right here at the Philadelphia Zoo. In response to false reports about his death in a shooting, he spray painted “Cornbread Lives” on an elephant.

DM: Who’s gonna top that? I knew that would make me the elite graffiti artist of the world.

CB: Because you were saying at the front gate, like you started this.

DM: Well, I said, when I say I started this [EXPLETIVE], I mean all of it. I mean all of it.

[THEME MUSIC]

CB: This is Art Outside a podcast from WHYY about the art of our public spaces and the people who create it.

I’m your host Conrad Benner, and for the last 14 years I’ve been documenting these works for my blog streets department.

Today we bring you the story of American graffiti icon, Daryl “Cornbread” McCray.

In this episode, he tells us the whole story of how and why he tagged that elephant and describes other graffiti writing escapades. We also talk about how becoming Cornbread has been a needed escape from the challenges he’s faced throughout his life.

On the day we met at the Philly Zoo, cornbread told me that he hadn’t been there since April of 1971\. The day that he hopped that fence and spray painted one of their most popular animals.

CB: Did you know there was no elephants here anymore?
DM: I didn’t know that.
CONNIE: There’s not even a picture in front of the elephant.
CB: Oh [EXPLETIVE]!
CONNIE: You gotta get a picture of this.
CB: Just this!

CB: We’re standing in front of the large granite sculpture of an elephant and its calf that’s nearby the entrance to the zoo. It feels like a monument to a now historic and daring launch of an artistic movement. My eyes searched for a Cornbread tag on it. Unfortunately, this isn’t a monument to Cornbread. The sculpture is actually here to memorialize the fact that the Philly Zoo stopped having elephants in 2009.

CB: Can we ask you one more question?
ZOO EMPLOYEE: Yeah. What’s up?
CB: Are there elephants here?
ZOO EMPLOYEE: No elephants.
CB: What happened to the elephants?
ZOO EMPLOYEE: We don’t have enough space to accommodate elephants, so we aren’t able to have one..

CB: Cornbread painted a picture of the scene in 1971\. Back when they had elephants. It was a beautiful spring day when he went to go scope out the zoo, he said it was crowded, particularly around this one specific pit.

[MUSIC]

DM: I wanted know what was holding into curiosity. So I walked over and this guy’s holding the elephant trunk and they’re taking pictures and he’s holding the elephant ears and he’s taking pictures. Some lady taking his picture said, “So aren’t you afraid the elephant’s gonna hurt you?” He said, “No, man. The elephant came from the circus. He used to being around people. He’s harmless.” Well, that’s all I needed to hear.

CB: He came back the next day with a big bag of peanuts. Cornbread says he hopped the fence and beelined right back to the elephant.

DM: I said, okay. “Hey big guy.” “How long you been here?” “You eating my peanuts.” We looking at each other, “Hey big guy, what’s your name big guy.” “You can have one of my peanuts.” “They treat you good big guy?”

CB: You’re buttering him up.

CB: After befriending the elephant Cornbread said he came back again early the next day. It was daybreak, so it was dark enough for a stealthy graffiti writer to go unnoticed.

DM: Get to the pit. Hop into the pit. He turns around. He looks at me and know exactly who I am. I walked up to him.

[SPRAY PAINTING]

DM: “Cornbread Lives.” Went on the other side “Cornbread.” I was kind of disturbed, perplexed because I went through all that to do something that took me less than 60 seconds to do. No biggie. I hop out the pit and I just started writing on everything.

CB: He tagged everything he could that day, not just the elephant, which was his original target. After leaving the pit, he thought he needed to do more to get the kind of attention he wanted, so he tagged concession stands, picnic tables, bathrooms. He wrote “Cornbread Lives” in bright red paint everywhere.

DM: I really bombed this place out and somebody was in that zoo. As soon as I was going and called the police.

CB: He got arrested that day, but it was in jail where Cornbread realized his plan had worked.

DM: I go to the police station and I’m up half the night sleeping. I’m on the bench and every five minutes, 10 minutes…

CB: And they’re obsessed with you, right?

DM:The cops was like, “Which one of you guys is Cornbread?” I said, “Here, what’s up officer?” “Kid gimme your autograph.” This is, this is all day long. All the guys are holding “Yo Cornbread. Who the [EXPLETIVE] is you?” “Cops asked you for your autograph. Who the [EXPLETIVE]?” I said “You gonna hear about me home.” And I became obsessed. They were doing the newspapers. I said, “Whoa.”

CB: This is when the phenomenon of Cornbread really started to take off.

[MUSIC]

CB: After the break, Cornbread talks about how he continued to become especially savvy at earning free media coverage. How his acts and the attention went hand in hand to eventually make Cornbread a global name in the art world. And we go back to the very beginning of a story.

And y’all side note, we hope this is obvious, but we are not encouraging any of you to paint an animal or break into the zoo. But Cornbread’s feet is part of modern graffiti history, so we’re talking about it.

CB: Darryl McCray was born in 1953 and grew up in the Brewerytown neighborhood of North Philadelphia. He told me that his childhood was rough.

DM: My grandparents were two of the most God-fearing individuals I’ve ever met in my life. They were religious fanatics. I have a brother, he’s a year apart, and we stayed under, it’s like a cult. My father used to always talk about my mother’s parents talking about their cult people. But back then there was a lot of cults, you had, they called the nation of Islam a cult, Noble Drew Ali a cult, you gonna call Elijah Muhammad a cult or Prophet Cherry a cult. It’s a cult. But back then they were people who were high integrity, had a lot of respect, and there was a lot of love. There was a lot of unity. Unlike it is today.

And my grandparent, when they were religious fanatics. My mom worked, she went to school and she wasn’t doing that. She was with my father. My father delivered me to my grandparents and she knew me and my brother were well taken care of. We were with her parents, so she’s not worried about us. That had an emotional strain on me because I always had problems, but I needed special attention. Right, and I’d have nobody to kick my ass, correct me when I’m wrong. And I pretty much marched to the beat of my own drum. And my grandfather, he was up there in the age, the most soft-spoken man in the world, highly religious. The Lord this, the Lord, everything about the Lord. Soft spoken. Carried a big stick.

I had nobody to to correct me and I got tired of going to the church, listening to Prophet Jerry’s sermons. We was in church sometime four days a week, seven days. I was with four times, sometimes five. It was a bit much. What I liked about the church was when I walked to church, I got to see my neighborhood. I walked down Columbia Avenue seeing the gang members, the guys on the corners and shooting crap, shining shoes, and the go-go girls on the corner shaking their ass in the bar and I’m like, “Wow.” I was in heaven. So I started hanging with the bad guys. And when they got in trouble, that was so exciting to me. I mean, we’d be robbing freight trains.

CB: What? Really?

DM: Yeah. The tractor was right behind my house. Sometimes the trains would sit there overnight. Man, we’d go in them freight trains. We’d sat there to hold deer. The deer be by about half a size of a table. We stacked them. Deer’s and deer meat, man. We would go to rob stores, steal cars.

CB: And this is, so this would’ve been what? The early sixties?

DM: Early 60s.

CB: And then you got caught, I guess, right?

DM: I mean, I wasn’t going to school. I was in truancy. If I wasn’t getting locked up for truancy, I was getting locked up at curfew, you know? The first thing they asked when I went in front of a judge, “Let me see a school record.” I was getting suspended so much. My mom was taking things off of work and taking me back to school with being reinstated. I was getting locked up sometime, two, three times for the same charge. I goes in front of the judge. He looks at my record. He looked at me and my mom, and she said, “Ms. McCray, I’m gonna have to commit your son.” I looked at her like it was crazy. I said, “Commit? What do you mean commit?” Say I’m going to pose an indefinite term on you. You know what indefinite is?

CB: No what does indefinite mean?

DM: Life. That’s juvenile life. So I was, when I got there was about maybe about 10 other guys had life too. So I got there and we’re seeing to go through the cafeteria, we’ll go through the buffet line. Get our food and at the end of the buffet line and through those shoots, you get your bread. And several times the bread was hard sitting around all day and it was my defiant disorder.

I took matters in my own hands, went to the back of the kitchen and I asked, who’s in charge? They said, Mr. Swanson and there’s his office right there. I comes in, “What can I do for you?” I said, “Mr. Swanson, my grandma make the best cornbread in the world. And I was wondering, would you consider making some cornbread for us?” He looked at me, he said, “Who gave you permission to come into my kitchen?” I said, “Nobody.” “I don’t have time to talk my no cornbread boy, I’m a busy man. Take a walk.” I left. Two days later, I come back. He said, “Man, you keep coming back talking about this cornbread [EXPLETIVE]. I’m a busy person. I don’t have time for your nonsense. Don’t come back to my kitchen again. I make myself clear?” Two days later, I came back again. Kitchen workers see me coming in. “Mr. Swanson, your boul here.” “My boul, who’s my boul?” “Cornbread.” He said, “Come here Cornbread.” I said, “Mr. Swanson, no. I’m not trying to ditch it.” He just grip me up. “Let’s go.” He takes me to the cafeteria, everybody sitting there. Everybody eating their food. He opened up the door, “Mr. Love!” Got everybody up. He turned to me, got me gripped up. “What the hell’s going to keep this Cornbread out my kitchen” and threw me on the floor.

Everybody start teasing me Cornbread, Cornbread this, Cornbread that. They’re teasing me. I write Cornbread on the back of my shirt. I get back in the unit. Everybody called me Cornbread. I read a lot of poetry books and my brother used to get a lot of love letters from his girlfriends and asked, retained the passages. I like poetry and I used to mix the poetry with the love letters my brother wrote. And then they said, I came up with, and I write love letters for the gang members to the girlfriends. They would pay me chips, soda, candy bars. And I was established a report with these guys and when I seen their names on the walls, I would write Cornbread next to it real big. And every time they say gang members, they wrote on the jailhouse wall, I write Cornbread next to it.

CB: Wait, so the names would be on the wall for what reason? In the jail?

DM: Yeah. Writing their name, like, Spooky Boo 15th and Columbus Street Gang.

CB:Gotcha.

DM: You know, I knew that by me, writing them poetry, by writing my name all over the facility that there was an artist that lived inside of me who craved to be recognized. And that was my expression.

CB: Not wrong.

DM: Right? So I already bombed this place out and the gang members thought it was funny, but the administration didn’t think it was funny. They came to me, “You made a mess.”

CB: Now explain what bomb out is for those who don’t know.

DM: When you write your name all over the place. I already bombed YDC, I mean I said I suffered from some sort type of mental deficit. And he came in “The [EXPLETIVE]? Who is this guy?”

CB: Yeah.

DM: Right. And they made a recommendation. I see the psychiatrist. I’ll go see the psychiatrist. Now he wants to know, he’s curious to know what prompted me to write Cornbread all over the place. He asked me, “Do you got a problem?” I said, “No, I ain’t got no problem. But you ain’t seen [EXPLETIVE] yet.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, “When I get outta here, you gonna read about me, I’m gonna set the world on fire.” I knew those people, thought I was an artist there. I buy my place. I got special attention, accolades, and I just got all eyes on me. I knew I didn’t get the same treatment on the bigger scale in the street. When I came home in 1967, I start writing….

CB: How old were you then?

M: 12\. When I came home in ‘67\. I just start walking bus routes. I walk bus routes because the bus carry a lot of people. And if you, every time the bus stop you see Cornbread on both sides of the streets and this is all your way to work. You come home, all you see is Cornbread. You gonna start talking about that guy. That was something brand new. Never heard of about, that was a new brand new phenomena. And my name just started ping all on bus route. I start hearing it. Everywhere I started writing Cornbread all over the city.

CB: Yeah. Actually, do you remember that like, so you’re out, you’re 12, you’re walking these corridors, do you remember the first time you went onto the street?

DM: Yeah.

CB: Was, it was a marker or spray paint?

DM: It was spray paint. It was spray paint.

CB: Plenty of people probably didn’t like it, right?

DM: No. it was hard to accept because it was something brand new. I mean, it was blazing. It was consistent. You couldn’t get away from it. I made you, I made you pay attention to it. You could not get away from it.

CB: And where were you? ‘Cause I think now a lot of graffiti is seen like on abandoned buildings or construction material. Where were you? Where were you putting, were you using every wall in the city?

DM: I didn’t write on people houses. I didn’t write on cars. I didn’t write on churches. But the commercial buildings, it’s mines. Right. And. I made Philadelphia pay me attention. They talked about me like they talked about Jesus. I was something brand new and I would hear people talking about me. But at that time I was like, Banksy. Yeah. I didn’t want them to know who I am.

CB: That’s actually one of the questions I wanted to ask you too, is like, you must have, ’cause you were anonymous, right? This is before Instagram, before video stuff.

DM: Right

CB: You must have been in situations and you just said it, where like you’re hearing people talk about you.

DM: Yes.

CB: What was that like? What were people saying?

DM: Who is this Cornbread?

CB: It’s just bold curiosity? Right, okay.

DM: People be looking for my name.

CB: So when we met last week, we met at the Philadelphia Zoo. This is a place where you famously tagged “Cornbread Lives” on a calm elephant, a momentarily calm elephant that you had been sort of, had your eyes on for a few days, and, it was in an effort to get the news out that you weren’t dead, a news or a false news report to come out that you had died. You were not dead. You went around the town, wrote “Cornbread Lives” on a bunch of things, but you thought, let me make some big moment here and go to the zoo. Get a lot of attention. So the elephant happens, you’re released, you still want the attention, you still want the media to know that you’re living. You want to be unmistakable. So then you hear the Jackson 5 are coming. And they used to see this thing, can’t imagine it now in this post-9/11 world, but the airport wasn’t as secure and it sounds like the musicians would do this thing where they’d fly in. Get off their plane for two seconds, sign a bunch of autographs, not even perform that night in Philly, and then just go off to the next destination. So you saw that as an opportunity to do something risky. What’d you do?

DM: Georgie Woods announced on the radio that the Jackson 5 was coming to do a battle against the Five Stairsteps, and then he entered…

CB: What does that mean?

DM: Five steer steps is another…

CB: Oh another group! Gotcha.

DM: Young kids like the Jackson 5\. Five Stairsteps tarts ducking their [EXPLETIVE]. They can bully step. And sing. And he said “Anybody who wanted to autographs could come to the Philadelphia airport and get autographs.” If the Rolling Stones come to town, it was simple. Come out to the tarmac, meet and greet, take pictures, handshake. It was like that. He said Rolling Stones, then with the Beatles came to town. It was like that, but 9/11 happened and all that [EXPLETIVE] changed. So he announced that the Jackson 5 was coming, he was gonna meet and greet, come out the tarmac and take some pictures and shake hands. That was not the case. It was about trying to get publicity for the show. Because when they came in, the plane came in at idle, about 10 minutes, the steps got down. Michael came on top of the stairwell. Everybody went ballistic, screaming, hollering. Michael, Tito, Jackie, Marlon and Jermaine came down the stairwell into the crowd. Total chaos. Ballistic screaming, hollering, hooping.

CB: Sure
DM: I went up the steps, holding onto the rail and write my name on the jet.
CB: Can I ask a silly question? Did you go knowing you were gonna do that to the jet? Was that your idea?
DM: No, no. I wanted to go down here and I was thinking about writing my name on several airplanes.
CB: Oh, that’s right! And then, right. You were already stalking the airport.
DM: Right. Right.
CB: That’s right!.
DM: Right, and but I knew that if I could write my name on this jet, that would make me the elite graffiti artists of the world.
CB: Right. ’cause if you just tagged a plane, would, we would still be talking about it to this day? Maybe? Maybe?
DM: I don’t know. I think planes have been written on before,
CB: But right, you did the Jackson 5 Jet and 50 years later we’re still talking about it.
DM: Yeah. That’s legendary status.

CB: When we were in, when we were at the zoo, you mentioned that, this is how I interpreted what you said. You said in the early, was it late 90s or early 2000s, you were invited to an exhibition and there were all these like big names and like other like really, really famous graffiti writers and you got invited. And when you showed up, everyone just stopped in their tracks and like expressed their admiration for you and what you had done and how you got this all started and it, at least how I interpret it, you felt shocked by it and you felt true appreciation in that moment, and it kind of changed, it sparked a change in you, and that was like your, to put it in modern contemporary language, your legendary era where like beginning in the early 2000s, that’s when you stepped into this like father, grandfather role of this art form. Is that a way to interpret it?

DM: It’s a feeling I can’t describe. But I don’t feel good because I feel as though I need, I should have much more money that comes with this.

CB: Okay, that’s fair.

DM: And that’s all about surrounding yourself with the right people who can make it happen, as if you haven’t done that yet.

CB: It’s really hard. I mean, this is a conversation I feel like I have with so many artists where it’s like, yeah, it’s hard to figure out how to make this a career and to support yourself with it. And then it’s what you said, it’s kind of like who are you surrounding yourself with?

DM: Right, a lot of people find me, you know? And I didn’t know that it’s so much {EXPLETIVE] come with this. A lot of it.

CB: What do you mean?

DM: Because I used to like, I used to believe everything everybody told me and took it for face value. You tell me something, I be talking about it. And nothing happens. You know what I’m saying? We gonna do this, we’re gonna do that. I be talking about it and people got tired of me talking about what’s gonna happen and it never happened.

CB: Like all the people said, Hey, let’s go to the zoo, and then never turned out.

DM: Well, that was something I had to do. I had to do that. If I didn’t do that I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you now.

CB: So. I only got my passport for the first time last year. I just started traveling and I went to Europe this past summer, and when I was in Amsterdam, everyone says, you have to go to this place. It’s called the Straat Museum. It’s the Street Art and Graffiti Museum, blah, blah, blah of the world. You go and there’s like dozens and dozens and dozens of murals from some of the most. Impressive, important graffiti writers from the globe, from like history, right? ‘Cause this is modern history and muralists and blah, blah, blah. And so I go and I go, I’m excited, right? I’m all, I have my…

DM: Didn’t you take a picture and send it to me?

CB: Took a video and yeah! Well, and when I go in the middle of it all, in the middle of it all is a big ass mural from you. It says “Cornbread. I started this [EXPLETIVE]” and I go, wow, that is that impact. That’s the impact. And that is what you’re, to this whole community, known as. The person who took that first step. You know, as you mentioned, there were some people in like gangs who were doing graffiti, but you were the first one to say, I wanna take it in this direction, make it about myself, create a moniker, and blow up as an individual. So as you look to the future, how do you want to be remembered? What do you want your legacy to be?

DM: I want to be remembered as the world’s first modern-day graffiti artists who changed the world. I believe that had it been somebody else, it had been something different.

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

DM: Yo, yo, yo, come take our picture.
CB: Oh yea, good, good good.

CB: Back at the Philadelphia Zoo Cornbread wants a photo souvenir of his first return to the scene in over 50 years.

DM: Why don’t I step over?

CB: And just like back in the day, he’s stepping over a fence to pose in front of the statue of the stone elephants and y’all I nearly left my body in this moment. I kind of felt like I was getting a peek back at that morning in 1971.

CONNIE: You want step over?
DM: Yeah.
CONNIE: I don’t think you can do that.
DM: I can do that.
CONNIE: I forgot, you’re Cornbread.
CB: Yeah. Do we have a marker?
DM: Nah, I’m just gonna to step over here.
CONNIE: Be careful!
CB: Yes. Always a rule breaker. What are the chances there’s no elephants here, but there’s a monument to elephants.
DM: Well maybe they didn’t want other kids writing on elephants.

[MUSIC]

That’s season two y’all. Five more incredible conversations with remarkable artists who create art in our public space here in Philly. If you’ve enjoyed this season, if you like what we’re doing, this is where I invite you to give the show a five star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can even write a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, tell your art loving friends and family to check out Art Outside. Actions like these help podcasts like ours grow and keep going strong. Thanks for listening.

[THEME MUSIC]

This episode of Art Outside was produced by Alex Lewis.

Our associate producer is Bibiana Correa.

Tom Grahsler is our executive producer.

Art Outside’s production, sound design and mixing is by Rowhome Productions. Rowhome’s Executive Producers are John Myers and Alex Lewis.

Our engineers are Charlie Kaier, Diana Martinez, Tina Kalakay, Adam Staniszewski, Joyce Lieberman , and Al Banks.

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

Special thanks to Michaela Winberg, Michael Olcott, Sarah Moses, Mike Shiffler, and Kayla Watkins.

I’m your host, Conrad Benner.

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