Cuba & Dzyer
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Cuba & Dzyer
- How it all began...
- San Francisco graffiti legend Clarence "Cuba" Robbs was born and raised on the East Coast of the United States in a blue collar, working class city called Baltimore in the state of Maryland.
He first began writing graffiti when he was 15 years old in 1979. He would tag, scrawl, or write his name almost city wide in strategic locations where seeing my name written appealed to him visually and aesthetically. He was influenced and inspired to write graffiti from an older writer from New York City who called himself The Revolt. Seeing his tags in extremely key locations around Baltimore gave Cub a burning desire to write also.
Back in the early days of bombing, there were no other people practicing this art form. Your tags really stood out. At one point Cuba had so many tags around the town that mine were more visible than The Revolt. He began to inspire other local writers to get their names up as well. This is another form of hip hop culture that was imported into Baltimore from NYC in 1978. A graf scene began emerging.
Graffiti art is against the law in most, if not all parts of the United States. Therefore, one must duck and hide to express one's self. He admits that this can be down right exhilarating when you successfully place a tag.
By 1982 he began slowly advancing to another level creatively. He began to do what is known as piecing; creating your name, but in a more macrocosmic and more cartoonistic form. In other words, focusing more on being a painter than just a writer.
He left home when he was 18, promising never to cross the Mississippi river again. He moved to the West Coast and San Francisco. From 1983 – 1985 he would piece and tag San Francisco, but not nearly as relentlessly as when he was a teenager. As he became older, his motivation altered. His desire to do art was more emotionally and politically driven while in high school it was more for rebellious reasons. He had a burning desire for public expression.
Now with 27 years of experience, Cuba has done commissioned walls for businesses like Request Records in Hawaii, Revolution Cafe in the Mission, and Elleston World of Reggae in the Bainiew district.
Cuba works with apprentice DZyer, who has been writing graffiti art for 17 years.
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