July 31, 2024 • 37 mins
Right next to Crypto.com Arena (RIP Staples Center), stands two abandoned and unfinished high rise apartment buildings that have essentially become an art installation, covered almost entirely in graffiti. The tags are a who's who of the LA graffiti scene, including pieces by some of the most well-known artists in the city. But why were these buildings abandoned, how did the artists even get up there and what is the mayor going to do about it?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
All media. Los Angeles, California, a place that I love
almost the tears, which if you know anything about who
prop is propaganda in me, Jason, this is not news
to you. A native born and raised lived all over
(00:25):
the place. I've once I got a bus pass of
the driver's license. I can't think of any part of
town that I don't have a memory in, whether it
was a homies house, a kickbag, a party, some hood
rat things, checking up on some cut paths. You know,
(00:46):
I listen. I love this town. I feel like not
only the town, but the greater Los Angeles area, the SGV.
You know, I got the six to six tattooed on
my back. You know, I went to high school in Ie.
Some of y'all noticed. My sister is still in the Ie,
My aunt and m still in South Central, my daddy
in Pomona, and I'm right here in East Lost like
(01:09):
we were deep here. I married in my wife from
HP what we would call like Southeast La. So like
going down to seventeen, not the seventeen that's like your
South Gates, your cutahee, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park, like my
in laws are in Bellflower. I love this place. I
got roots all over it and of course the time
(01:31):
on or tradition that this podcast has used as a springboard,
which is just la gang life. It's a part of
our experience. But gang life, as in crips and bloods
is a very specific experience. That of course, is what
got exported across the world. You know when we did
the Banging in Little Rock episode, why are there rolling
(01:53):
sixty crypts in Kansas? You know, we talked about this before.
A thing that's gotten exported all all over the world.
There are things that come out of your mouth that
y'all keep calling gen z or you know, hip slang
that's really gang talk. Things that y'all don't know is
gang talk is la. We there are Brooklyn Bloods like
(02:16):
the it's we have exported a certain thing, and not
only that as an export. As one of the things
we exported the Chicano culture lowriders, you know, the smile now,
cry later stuff like all that type of like drawing
in handstyles and lettering that's Chicano. You look in Japan,
you go through Osaka, you would think you in East La.
(02:36):
It's the most bizarre. It's like it messes with your
brain because it's like, man, y'all do Chicanos sometimes better
than we do Chicano Like. It's it's the most I
can't I can't explain it. This is the part of
LA that I fell in love with that I grew
up in. Notice I haven't mentioned anything about Hollywood. Of
course y'all know about that. Of course, this is the
(02:57):
entertainment capital of the world. Of course, the hollywod signed
Griffith Park. You know, the La that the Chili Peppers
talked about, the La that the Doors talked about. LA
from the sixties, the flower Power, the Troubadour as a
venue that launched a thousand careers, the Laurel Canyon scene
(03:18):
I have. I'm not even talking about that. Los Angeles
creates culture, and if you cut me open, I'm a
bleed it. But there's one thing that I want to
talk about today that has now become a tourist attraction
that has been in my mind not only what saved
my life. I mean this quite literally, but as a
(03:40):
beacon of culture, shaping language, cruise, and fashion, and that
is our graffiti. We blanket cities with beautiful rainbows of
art that some may call vandalism. And if those that
do graffiti are honest. They call it vandalism because that's
(04:01):
what it is. But I tell you what our newest
tourist attraction that I would love to talk to y'all
about right now is the Los Angeles downtown Graphebee towers
hook politics, y'all, all right, CALLI folk. I love this
(04:28):
because this is this moment is such a cross section
of politics, culture, you know, urban life, hip hop is
a cross section in the story we about to see
right now, economy, everything. So if you're driving, you know,
down the ten ten Freeway, Chris crosses the entire nation.
But when you're coming in, let's say you're coming in
(04:50):
from the you're gonna go through first, You're gonna you know,
cut through all the deserts, the Palm Springs, Joshua Tree.
Then you're gonna hit the Inland Empire. And then after
you hit the end of the Empire, you're gonna hit
the San Gabriol Valley. The middle part. You know this
like Alhambra, Rosemead, San Gabriel Right before you get to
the seven ten, when you hit City Terrace, you're gonna
(05:12):
see col State, La. Once you hit cal this is
going down the ten, and once you hit Colstaate La,
you're officially in Los Angeles. You're about to go through
City Terrace Boyle Heights and then have a chance to
split and either go up the five to get you
into Hollywood area or like Schefez Ravine to go to
the Dodger Stadium, or you're gonna swing a little bit
(05:35):
a few blocks south to connect to the rest of
the ten alongside the La River. Now this is I'm
doing this on purpose because it's it's very important for
the context. Now you're going to be driving through this
stretch that runs along the downtown bridges where most like
movie scenes when people are driving through the you know,
having the high speed chases and they're like driving through gutters,
(05:57):
that's the La River. Now you're on your way going
into through the Arts District, into downtown Flower District. You
know Jeelry, the Diamond District, Jewelry, like, all of this
is happening right here. Now you're about to get into
La Live. This is where the Lakers play at Crypto Arena,
used to be Staples, the Oscars. It all happens here
(06:19):
a place that if you grew up here, you know
that downtown was blade Runner zombie land. We used to
think as kids, this was the most lackluster downtown, like
it was nothing, like just nothing, because it had its glory,
like there's like the super beautiful like the Belasco, the
(06:41):
Mayan Theater, Orpheum Theater, these places downtown that you could
tell in like, you know, twenties and thirties was like, oh,
it must have been cracking over here. Then it died.
Downtown died until the Lakers left Englewood the form and
they started building La Live when they built the Staples Arena,
and it brought life back to downtown and it became
(07:04):
a place that now I mean kicking in all the time.
You get beautiful high rise buildings, dope bars, and just
a really dope like culture and nightlife. If you're single,
you know, you can't have kids and lay down there.
But it's also there's quite a serious homeless issue down there.
It's back. But a few blocks from Crypto towering over
(07:27):
are four high rises that are a little different than
the other high rise builds because they're blanketed with a
who's who of Los Angeles graffiti riders. And it happened
this year. It is one of the dopest Okay, wait,
let me not say how dope I think it is
because I need to, like, I need to tell you
the story behind it before we get into it. But like,
(07:48):
it's the dope. I'm sorry. I said I wouldn't go
do it, but I have to do it as sciting.
It's the dopest thing the La Graffiti scene. It's four
towers right that are abandoned. And I'm going to tell
you the whole story about this in this podcast, especially
for the LA folks that are listening to this. If
you ever wondered, like how this happened and why ain't
nothing happening? Since I hope they leave it there. They're
(08:08):
not going to leave it there. But here's the thing. So,
it's these four towers that were supposed to be these
fancy lofts, right, fancy high rise apartments overlooking Crypto, overlooking
downtown luxury apartment lofts that they're supposed to be. Ain't
nobody worked on them since twenty nineteen, And the La
Graffiti Scene showed up and showed out every floor from
(08:31):
the bottom all the way up to the top. Each
artist took a floor all the way into the skyline,
it's burners and pieces from the top all the way
to the bottom, and it just kept getting bigger. It
was the greatest gift we got in twenty twenty four.
It started in January and it got filled in a month.
(08:54):
It became national news because of what I'm about to explain,
which is the tics of it all. But before I
do that, let me talk about graffiti. Graffiti's a Latin word,
maybe it's Greek, one of those, it's argued, but the
(09:15):
argument is the first graffiti that they've seen came in
during like the Roman Empire. Graffiti has to do with
usually or historically, by definition, is a political message. It's
not necessarily vandalism because vandalism has to do with property ownership,
all right, So if there is no ownership of the
(09:38):
location of the griffit, we cannot call this vandalism because
and the eyes of the law, as we know, and
if you listen to anything on cool Zone, you understand
that the law really only exists to protect property and
protecting us. You always say you're trying to protect property. Now,
(10:19):
like anything else, things that were seen as a nuisance,
if you give it some time, becomes gallery work and
celebrated right, you take somebody like Basquiat, it's a craft writer.
We consider him one of the first. Now you pay
millions of dollars for it. Right, I'm gonna jump around here.
But like the drawings and illustrations of somebody like a
(10:40):
mister Cartoon who essentially tattooed every rapper you've ever met.
You get a mister Cartoon tattooed, right, those faces like
I said earlier, the smile now cry later. The type
of lettering, this type of like high calligraphy that you
guys would be like, oh that's gangster writing. It's mister Cartoon.
Big Sleeps, defer These people like og slick, right, these
(11:03):
guys you know those la the la finger that Esteban
took of the girl the black and white picture where
she's throwing up la. So he has one. But they're
like Mickey Mouse cartoon hands. So that's slick. If you've
ever worn a hurly shirt that looked slightly like street wear,
(11:23):
that's Big Sleeps. These names who when I was a preteen,
these were the guys that I've said before. When I
was a child and driving from this city called Melinda,
right right, unincorporated area between West Covina and La Pointe,
twenty minutes east of South Central. Driving there to my
(11:44):
grandmother's house on sixty seventh to San Pedro and south
on the east side of South Central Los Angeles, you
have to cross over this one of these sections, depending
on which way we went, you're crossing the La River.
These since it's paved, it would be these ginormous to me,
larger than life. I just these paintings, these letterings, this,
(12:06):
they were these characters. And if y'all know me again,
my first love, before music, before anything, was I went
to school for illustration. I went to school. I was
gonna be an artist. And why because of graffiti? Why
I rapped graffiti? This is that was my entry to
hip hop. Was whatever that is, that's I want to
be a part of whatever that is. It just it
(12:27):
was so colorful and vibrant in this area that was
so invested in, you know, infested with violence and gang
and just knowing that this was like ghetto art, like
we were making this. There wasn't no guy went on,
no T shirts. We were making this, and it just
captured my imagination in a way nothing else did. Anyway,
I'm ahead of myself. These people weren't getting paid for
(12:50):
this stuff. These people weren't having you know, mister cartoon
got a Modello commercial. This stuff does not the fifty
years of of hip hop, you know, the hip hop
to infinity, these like interactive like that wasn't happening. These
people were criminals if we were running from the law.
One of my favorite one is Chaka, who's from my hood.
They did a whole, a whole like news expos say
(13:13):
about him because he gets because he used to get
up everywhere. Nobody understood how he was able to get up.
I'm gonna give you some I need to I'm saying
vocabulary before I explain it to you. Get up just
means he got his name on a wall somewhere. You
were able to get up somewhere. Anyway, This was the
world that introduced me to everything. But at the time
they were the scourge, and to the general public there
(13:33):
was no distinction between, which made no sense to me.
Sense to me because it was so easy to see
a distinction between destruction of property, vandalism or like marking
of territory, because all they saw was writing on the wall,
and it was so obvious to me. What was the boundary, marking,
(13:55):
markings of a neighborhood gang versus a throw up or
a piece. Now these are again, let me just give
you those vocabulary. A throw up is like you run up.
You're scribbling as fast as you can, working on your handstyles.
The way your handstyles is like the style for which
you write your letters. So you throw up your handstyle,
which is your throw up real quick. That's where you
(14:17):
got up. That's your name. If for me it was props,
because I've always been propaganda. So just my quicks, props,
my little circle, copyright, my little arrow under the bottom.
So you just throw that up, get out of there.
A lot of times you would sometimes you would go
to like you would do sticks where you would go
to a post office and get those like just the
sticker sheets or the hello my name is. We would
(14:38):
just give reams of those things and you just practice
your handstyles and then you would throw them on stop signs,
throw them on this right. So just burner is a
little takes a little more time. A lot of times
those are like one or two color kind of bubble letters,
but they're larger your piece. That's like a mirror. A
lot of times pieces are done by whole crews. But
they are like the size of the building, multi colored,
(15:01):
and they they I mean, they take a long time.
I am trying to take you to a time for
which we didn't have a place like the Arts District,
which when you drive through the Arts District in LA
I'm like, this is graffiti. Like we a lot of
us have records because of this stuff and some of
the dudes doing it, one of them, the homie Vile.
I know Vile's work because he used to do these
(15:22):
eyes and I'm like on fourth and a Lamita, I'm like,
that's Vile like these like these and he is a
legend now. But they were criminals. Okay, the culture is
so strange, but like this thing that became what it
became in Los Angeles of course, or just as far
as hip hop's concern comes out of New York, let's
(15:43):
let's be real comes out of New York. The subway train,
things that like if you ever see you know, Beach
Street or Wild Style, which of course it's like it
is really dated, but if you can, just if you
could suspend reality, please go see these two movies, like
to understand the New York of it all. As far
as like him is concerned. Where a lot of this
stuff came from. There was a lot that had to do,
(16:04):
especially with the subway trains, because you only had like
a few inches to work with in between in between
these tunnels. And that was part of the game. Was
you'd go in there in the middle of the night,
though your burner up, all your peace up on the train,
and then would like wait for the morning for that
train to come out. You go up to your little
to your project building and look down and it was
(16:25):
nothing more glorious than seeing that train come out of
the train tunnel and the sunlight hits your piece that
you didn't that you only saw in the dark, like
you didn't even really get to see it, you haven't
seen it from far away. That was part of you know,
And those props were like now all the ghetto saw
you know what I'm saying, your work. That was part
of it. Part of it was the anonymity of like
like kind of like the vigilanti, like fast as fast
(16:46):
can be. You can't catch me like you. You can't
catch these guys like you. You know the mystery of it,
but like we knew, you knew who that was but
like that mystery of like you know, hide your face
and you just see my work Like that was part
of the adrenaline. Part of the adrenaline of that it
is illegal and you could get caught, Like that's part
of that was part of the allure. It gets to
Los Angeles. You know, we have our train bombing, you
(17:08):
know what I'm saying and stuff like that. Of course
we have that, but like that wasn't our culture. Our
culture again was flowered by gang life. That was always
a part of our culture. So we created Cruise right now,
Tagging crews had a very different history because a lot
of times tagging crews were there as alternatives to gang life,
(17:32):
which is how I got into tag. It was like,
well I don't I like art, but you still get
the adrenaline, right, And there's still, of course territorial stuff
to where it's like, you know, you have different things
like consafas, which means like with safety. So like if
I'm gonna tag and I put consavas, that basically means
that like the neighborhood gang said, you can't touch this one,
right if you cross out a khonsafas or if you
(17:52):
cross out somebody that means we fight, and that's disrespectful anyway.
What also must be mentioned was the development of what
we would call tag which was in some areas, like
the tagging crew was almost like a recruiting ground or
entry point into joining the set. So some of them
(18:13):
dudes were like just talented thugs. There were crews that
were like, like, this dude's like a tag banger, so
he's a tagger, but he's also a gangster and like
the way that he moved was much more gangway than
some of the other dudes that were like, we're just
in this for the art. Because again LA has been
like colored with gang life. That's just a part of
the way colored. So yeah, there was like some dudes
(18:35):
that were like that was their cover or places where
like the big homies were recruit you know. So that's
that's been a part of the culture too. All of
that's there. The point is what we were able to
develop as a style, as a community, and as a
way for which we were able to celebrate our culture,
our art, our rest in Peace murals, just like in
(18:56):
New York, you know, are honoring our fallen stars. All
of that is kind of a part of graffiti and
this was our art programs. Why I understand color theory,
how I was able to get into my ap art
program in high school was because I came from graffiti.
I already knew how to paint, already knew my primary
and secondary colors, already knew perspective, already knew all that
(19:16):
stuff because you had to do it for graf already
knew how to take a drawing from my black book,
my sketch book, and blow it up bigger. All that
to say, this has been a historical part of all
that is California. We used to call it a victimless crime,
although we were lying to ourselves. Like I said before,
we know there's victims here right now. There was also
a place in Venice Beach that was one of the
(19:38):
first that I know of legal yards. There's a skate
park at the end of Venice Beach, right of course,
y'all y'all know Muscle Beach, y'all know, the basketball court
was very important. But next to that was a skate
park that that was a legal yard, and a lot
of graffiti writers would go over there because again it
was legal. You practice your work, get your skills up,
get your bars up. We would find abandoned places to
go to this anyway, we would find a band in
(20:00):
places again, go practice your handstyles, like I remember sneaking
in the tunnels and abandoned storm drains that like you know,
they they re routed the stuff. So we would sneak
in there and work on our our skills, get you know,
get our fades together, figure out how to have better
can control. Why we would do it there is because
it's not just about how good your art is. The
(20:21):
location is important. That's part of the props. We would
use a lot of times. That's what we would say.
We say, look our our our our currency is props,
you know, because there wasn't any money to be made,
so it's it's the props. It's the clout. And part
of the clout was location. Why we would dangle on
the side of freeways. I know dudes that died because
they just fell from freeway signs. It was a part
(20:41):
of it. The adrenaline, the degree of difficulty to get
the spot, for us to be like, dang, how'd you
catch the spot? How you figure that out was even
a part of and the quality for which you know,
your reputation as you know, adult writer would be right.
I'm not talking about toys, like we'd be here all
night talking about you know what we would consider a
(21:02):
toy and all that good stuff. But all that leads
into why this graffiti tower, Because what a spot to
catch It's perfect, it's abandoned, it's downtown. Every floor is
completely empty, it's not trashed. It's actually super nice. It's
hiding in plain sight. It's been empty since twenty nineteen.
(21:23):
No one's touching it. And then one guy gets the
idea people were like doing their like base jumping and
stuff off of it because it's just sitting there. And
even it just sitting there is absurd in a city
that has such a problem with houseless community. It's just
it's just sitting here and them boys all the way
(21:46):
to the top the lope. You gotta remember, that's why
I want to give you this context. The location of
your spot is also a part of it. This is
why it reached legendary status. Twenty twenty four has given us.
Now I can count two legendary hipop moments, this graffiti
Tower and the Kindrick and Drake thing. Now the politics
of it all all right, we're back. Now it's not
(22:37):
so much. This politics I'm gonna give you is something
that these adult like writers had consciously on their mind.
I'm telling you this as something for us to consider
as a city, how to run a budget, how all
of these things work. Now, flashback to when I said,
you know, downtown died. Downtown died from what I can
(23:00):
gather after the Olympics. The Olympics happened in nineteen eighty four.
That's when we built the coliseum, you know, which was
condemned for a while. USC used to play there, but
they just don't work on it lappen. What happened to
La in a lot of ways is what happens to
all these other major cities. People get grossly misplayed or displaced. Right.
(23:21):
You build up this infrastructure and then it just sits there.
We talked, we did a you could rewind way back.
I want to say it was like episode like eighteen
nineteen something during the was it twenty twenty Olympics, During
the Olympics, when we talked about like should we really
have these right like liking stuff you know you're not
supposed to like, you know, I obviously I become a
(23:43):
complete flag waving patriot when it comes to the Olympics.
But the Olympics always has had devastating, decimating effects on
the city. It just bankrupts it and it displaces hundreds
of people. Downtown died. Okay, now I'm bringing a care
you never thought i'd bring in. Who bought up a
lot of these buildings was the guy who owned the Clippers,
(24:05):
Donald Sterrole, and the Clippers, as we could tell because
they were so trash, was really just I don't know,
laundering a pet project of Donald Sterling, because he would
just sit there. We would say, man, he just sit
there at the Clipper games looking at his investments. He
would just look outside at the buildings he owned that
he wasn't doing nothing in and just making money off of.
(24:28):
Eventually Downtown got sold to China. We wasn't like they
wasn't doing nothing with it. The city said they ain't
had a bread to fix it up. Who came in
first was La Live to build Staples Arena. Now, once
you build Staples Arena, all we need investors. China, as
we all know, ain't stupid. They got sense and they
(24:50):
got bread. Now, all this talk about China becoming the
new World power and all this stuff that like that's
where we as a nation can call because Inas much
as you talking about local grown invest in USA, you
done sold Downtown LA to China. And you think we
don't know this, everybody out here new that's who owned
(25:11):
these buildings. China bought them, So don't so don't you know,
piss on my back and tell me it's raining. Y'all
sold down down to China. Didn't got the nerve to
talk about tariffs anyway. This particular building or this plaza
was called Ocean Wide Plaza, and it's bankrupt. It was
development in downtown LA owned by this Chinese company called
(25:35):
ocean Wide Holdings, which clearly sound made up, right like obviously,
come on, y'all, y'all know out that's y'all made that up.
That's just that's that's a dva. You done stood up
so you can invest this money in. Now check this out. Okay.
They started building this thing, ran out of money, and
they stopped working in twenty nineteen. Right now, since then,
(26:01):
they've been trying to get bidders right to invest in
this and the people who they've been trying to invest in. Now,
keep in mind, we are in the middle of one
of the largest housing crises. I mean, like, are we
lying like ain't enough houses and y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all,
y'all selling our real estate to other people? Okay, So
(26:21):
so here go to bidders Blackstone, black Rock, right, and
some cash rich overseas like sovereign wealth funds like from
the Middle East, like in Asia and Europe. Right, Like, so, y'all,
can you hear this cat, this building just sitting here,
you like, knock it down? It would cost too much
(26:42):
to knock it down? Is they argument? It would cost
too much to knock it down, right, But you're finna
sell it to all these other countries while telling us
we need to invest logo while telling us that the
problem is these illegal immigrants coming into our city. Can
you just what are you talking about now? In a
bankruptcy report? Right, because you had to eventually file bankruptcy, Like, yo,
(27:07):
this thing's okay before I get specifically, like listen, this
thing is about two thirds done and with about it's
one point two billion already invested in it. Like that's
what A guy that's part of the brokerage team, his
name's Mark Tarzinski. He was like, why would anyone I mean,
it's a like, why would anyone knock it? There's nothing
(27:27):
wrong with the building. It's actually good bread and look
if it works. He fit a ball out, like cash out,
cuz like, let me not argue with this, the fact
that like there is bread to be made on this,
And I don't blame him for being like, who wont what?
Now the bankruptcy They said that this thing's market value
(27:51):
is almost three hundred and thirty four million dollars, right,
but costs to finish it and to fix it is
eight hundred and sixty five million, right, And it's only
an it and they're sixty percent finished. But you obviously
got set back because you got to fix all these pieces. Now,
if it were me, I would leave the pieces in
charge double like I feel like you got a piece
(28:12):
of history. But they don't think like me. Now the developers, right,
which is normal. Developers sometimes stall time from time because
you run out of money, but rarely do they just
give up and walk away and just leave something have done.
And part of why they could do that is because
they don't live here. But it's actually more sinister than that,
and I'm explaining it to you in a second. Now,
(28:32):
this same company, Ocean Wide Holdings. They bought this parking
lot across the street from the arena back in twenty fourteen, right,
and then that's when they started working on the tower.
So they've been working on this for a while. Right.
It was supposed to have apartments, five star hotel right,
up market stores, restaurants. Right. They were trying to make
(28:53):
this look like some time square out this mug. They
was like, we out of money. We good now how
they ran out of money again? And listen to the politics.
Why they couldn't finish this mug wasn't just the natural
like oh we overspent man, you know, we underestimated the costs.
It's because the Chinese government said, we don't like money
flowing out bound. Y'all need to leave y'all money here.
(29:16):
FAM's it was politics. They said, you you spend it
too much money other places. You need to spend your
money here. And since they don't have a free market
economy like we do, at least they don't lie to
themselves to say they got a free market economy, they
just they just mask off with it. They was like,
y'all need to stop spending your money over there. Sometimes
shutting stuff down just works. That's the type stuff Trump
(29:37):
be on. So then you had to stop because the
contract builders stopped being paid. Now, if you're a general contractor,
you like and the people that paid you filing Chapter
eleven bankruptcy, you like, okay, cool, I need my money.
Though I did my part, I need my money. So
(29:59):
ocean wide, they owe back taxes to LA and they
read to repay the money the city of Los Angeles
for all the security they tried to put in place
in response to the graffiti stuff. The city allotted four
million dollars. Now on one hand, in the city's defense
because I'm gonna drag them later in the city's defense.
(30:22):
You get a building like that, it's like, oh, dope,
y'all gonna pay for it. Y'all gonna build it. We
just get to collect taxes on it, run it. That's
quite a play in the defense. If I get to
just collect taxes on some mind spend spin to build
and you gotta get all the permits and you gotta
hire niggas here, I'm creating jobs, I'm collecting tax bread
(30:43):
and I ain't gotta invest that. Oh that's a lick
in they defense. I get it. That's a lick. They
obviously graffiti the furthest thing from their mind also the
furthest thing from their minds. What JJ in king was Finna?
Do you? Was Finna? Just like you mess it up
the play? And they like, we done ran this play before.
(31:06):
It's an easy play. And we get to get on
the camera and say we're doing good for the city.
Were providing homes. We build it off, like is you
providing homes? Because even if you finished, as you're talking
about these four thousand and five thousand dollars a month
lofts in downtown, who these homes for? But I'll see
the play you running. It just makes sense. We'll make
(31:28):
the bread off the taxas. However, y'all thought y'all was
gonna get y'all money. Wait hey, so back to my thought.
The city allotted four million dollars to erect the fence
to protect you from the painters. Yo. On our local news,
I loved it. They were doing these like these little
expos a pieces where these people was like, well, we're
(31:51):
not trying to condone vandalism, but let's interview our l
a graffiti scene and they had like the little Latina
newsperson come inner view these dudes, and I could see
her trying to like humanize it. I'm looking at this
lady and I'm like, okay, you look at you around
our as. I was like, oh, you used to tag
when you were younger. I could totally tell anyway. In February,
(32:12):
listen to me, four million dollars to put a fence
up to protect the building that they don't own and
ain't gonna get they money for to protect it from painters.
Y'all this listen. You have you ever have a friend
(32:37):
that you going out to eat with and they all
of a sudden being like, oh man, I ain't got
it this week, I get it next week. And you
look at their feet, they wearing a pan new pair
of JS. Oh you got it. You just don't. You
just spend it in on stuff that don't matter. Let
me get this straight. City in Los Angeles, you you
(32:57):
gonna spend full million dollars to protect the building that
ain't yours, that ain't gonna be done that you're finna
sell to another country? You who you gonna get your
money back? Let me ask you something. You think they
gonna pay you back? I thought you was from the hood.
I thought you was from La. You ain't gonna get
you who you gonna get your money back? Y'all really
(33:23):
think you gonna get your money back? You think the
people they're selling this too after the brokers done got
their commission. Come here, come here, come here. Do you
know how much trash we talked to China? You think
Beijing ain't gonna get you your money? Here's my suggestion.
(33:45):
Leave it there, Let it be an art installation, buy
it yourself, because you know what The Olympics is coming,
and yo, little sorry tal still need to figure out
where to put the one hundred and fifty thousand population
of a houseless You also got a housing shortage in
(34:06):
Los Angeles. I don't understand why your math ain't mathing,
but I get it. You ain't got it, though, but
I get it. The graffiti is the nuisance, and like
we said, your job is not to protect us but property.
So on behalf of Los Angeles. I want to say
(34:26):
thank you to the La graffiti scene for giving us
something beautiful. And I hope every time our local government
looks at that that they think we really got it
all backwards, don't we. I'm definitely not saying just shove
the homeless into a building, because that's not that's not
loving at all. There's organizations like Path Partners, which I
(34:49):
will link into this show notes, who are doing amazing,
amazing things to help transition our houseless population. At least
that I can tell. I'm not one of the ours. Listen,
maybe they got some skeletons in their closet that I
don't know of, if so correct me, But from what
I've seen, prey dope er, I just think there's a
(35:10):
better use of your money than four million dollars to
put up a fence to protect something that ain't even yours.
But you know what, don't listen to me. What do
I know? All right? Now, don't you hit stop on
(35:34):
this pod? You better listen to these credits. I need
you to finish this thing so I can get the
download numbers. Okay, so don't stop it yet, but listen.
This was recorded in East Lost Boyle Heights by your
boy Propaganda. Tap in with me at prop hip hop
dot com. If you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got
(35:54):
terraform Coldbrew. You can go there dot com and use
promo code hood get to twenty percent off get yourself
some coffee. This was mixed, edited, and mastered by your
boy Matt Alsowski Killing the Beat Softly. Check out his
website Mattowsowski dot com. I'm a speller for you because
I know M A T. T O S O W
(36:17):
s ki dot com Matthowsowski dot com. He got more
music and stuff like that on there, so gonna check out.
The Heat Politics is a member of cool Zone Media,
executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia podcast network.
Your theme music and scoring is also by the one
and nobly Matt Awsowski. Still killing the beat softly, So listen.
(36:41):
Don't let nobody lie to you. If you understand urban living,
you understand politics. These people is not smarter than you.
We'll see y'all next week. The
All media. Los Angeles, California, a place that I love
almost the tears, which if you know anything about who
prop is propaganda in me, Jason, this is not news
to you. A native born and raised lived all over
(00:25):
the place. I've once I got a bus pass of
the driver's license. I can't think of any part of
town that I don't have a memory in, whether it
was a homies house, a kickbag, a party, some hood
rat things, checking up on some cut paths. You know,
(00:46):
I listen. I love this town. I feel like not
only the town, but the greater Los Angeles area, the SGV.
You know, I got the six to six tattooed on
my back. You know, I went to high school in Ie.
Some of y'all noticed. My sister is still in the Ie,
My aunt and m still in South Central, my daddy
in Pomona, and I'm right here in East Lost like
(01:09):
we were deep here. I married in my wife from
HP what we would call like Southeast La. So like
going down to seventeen, not the seventeen that's like your
South Gates, your cutahee, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park, like my
in laws are in Bellflower. I love this place. I
got roots all over it and of course the time
(01:31):
on or tradition that this podcast has used as a springboard,
which is just la gang life. It's a part of
our experience. But gang life, as in crips and bloods
is a very specific experience. That of course, is what
got exported across the world. You know when we did
the Banging in Little Rock episode, why are there rolling
(01:53):
sixty crypts in Kansas? You know, we talked about this before.
A thing that's gotten exported all all over the world.
There are things that come out of your mouth that
y'all keep calling gen z or you know, hip slang
that's really gang talk. Things that y'all don't know is
gang talk is la. We there are Brooklyn Bloods like
(02:16):
the it's we have exported a certain thing, and not
only that as an export. As one of the things
we exported the Chicano culture lowriders, you know, the smile now,
cry later stuff like all that type of like drawing
in handstyles and lettering that's Chicano. You look in Japan,
you go through Osaka, you would think you in East La.
(02:36):
It's the most bizarre. It's like it messes with your
brain because it's like, man, y'all do Chicanos sometimes better
than we do Chicano Like. It's it's the most I
can't I can't explain it. This is the part of
LA that I fell in love with that I grew
up in. Notice I haven't mentioned anything about Hollywood. Of
course y'all know about that. Of course, this is the
(02:57):
entertainment capital of the world. Of course, the hollywod signed
Griffith Park. You know, the La that the Chili Peppers
talked about, the La that the Doors talked about. LA
from the sixties, the flower Power, the Troubadour as a
venue that launched a thousand careers, the Laurel Canyon scene
(03:18):
I have. I'm not even talking about that. Los Angeles
creates culture, and if you cut me open, I'm a
bleed it. But there's one thing that I want to
talk about today that has now become a tourist attraction
that has been in my mind not only what saved
my life. I mean this quite literally, but as a
(03:40):
beacon of culture, shaping language, cruise, and fashion, and that
is our graffiti. We blanket cities with beautiful rainbows of
art that some may call vandalism. And if those that
do graffiti are honest. They call it vandalism because that's
(04:01):
what it is. But I tell you what our newest
tourist attraction that I would love to talk to y'all
about right now is the Los Angeles downtown Graphebee towers
hook politics, y'all, all right, CALLI folk. I love this
(04:28):
because this is this moment is such a cross section
of politics, culture, you know, urban life, hip hop is
a cross section in the story we about to see
right now, economy, everything. So if you're driving, you know,
down the ten ten Freeway, Chris crosses the entire nation.
But when you're coming in, let's say you're coming in
(04:50):
from the you're gonna go through first, You're gonna you know,
cut through all the deserts, the Palm Springs, Joshua Tree.
Then you're gonna hit the Inland Empire. And then after
you hit the end of the Empire, you're gonna hit
the San Gabriol Valley. The middle part. You know this
like Alhambra, Rosemead, San Gabriel Right before you get to
the seven ten, when you hit City Terrace, you're gonna
(05:12):
see col State, La. Once you hit cal this is
going down the ten, and once you hit Colstaate La,
you're officially in Los Angeles. You're about to go through
City Terrace Boyle Heights and then have a chance to
split and either go up the five to get you
into Hollywood area or like Schefez Ravine to go to
the Dodger Stadium, or you're gonna swing a little bit
(05:35):
a few blocks south to connect to the rest of
the ten alongside the La River. Now this is I'm
doing this on purpose because it's it's very important for
the context. Now you're going to be driving through this
stretch that runs along the downtown bridges where most like
movie scenes when people are driving through the you know,
having the high speed chases and they're like driving through gutters,
(05:57):
that's the La River. Now you're on your way going
into through the Arts District, into downtown Flower District. You
know Jeelry, the Diamond District, Jewelry, like, all of this
is happening right here. Now you're about to get into
La Live. This is where the Lakers play at Crypto Arena,
used to be Staples, the Oscars. It all happens here
(06:19):
a place that if you grew up here, you know
that downtown was blade Runner zombie land. We used to
think as kids, this was the most lackluster downtown, like
it was nothing, like just nothing, because it had its glory,
like there's like the super beautiful like the Belasco, the
(06:41):
Mayan Theater, Orpheum Theater, these places downtown that you could
tell in like, you know, twenties and thirties was like, oh,
it must have been cracking over here. Then it died.
Downtown died until the Lakers left Englewood the form and
they started building La Live when they built the Staples Arena,
and it brought life back to downtown and it became
(07:04):
a place that now I mean kicking in all the time.
You get beautiful high rise buildings, dope bars, and just
a really dope like culture and nightlife. If you're single,
you know, you can't have kids and lay down there.
But it's also there's quite a serious homeless issue down there.
It's back. But a few blocks from Crypto towering over
(07:27):
are four high rises that are a little different than
the other high rise builds because they're blanketed with a
who's who of Los Angeles graffiti riders. And it happened
this year. It is one of the dopest Okay, wait,
let me not say how dope I think it is
because I need to, like, I need to tell you
the story behind it before we get into it. But like,
(07:48):
it's the dope. I'm sorry. I said I wouldn't go
do it, but I have to do it as sciting.
It's the dopest thing the La Graffiti scene. It's four
towers right that are abandoned. And I'm going to tell
you the whole story about this in this podcast, especially
for the LA folks that are listening to this. If
you ever wondered, like how this happened and why ain't
nothing happening? Since I hope they leave it there. They're
(08:08):
not going to leave it there. But here's the thing. So,
it's these four towers that were supposed to be these
fancy lofts, right, fancy high rise apartments overlooking Crypto, overlooking
downtown luxury apartment lofts that they're supposed to be. Ain't
nobody worked on them since twenty nineteen, And the La
Graffiti Scene showed up and showed out every floor from
(08:31):
the bottom all the way up to the top. Each
artist took a floor all the way into the skyline,
it's burners and pieces from the top all the way
to the bottom, and it just kept getting bigger. It
was the greatest gift we got in twenty twenty four.
It started in January and it got filled in a month.
(08:54):
It became national news because of what I'm about to explain,
which is the tics of it all. But before I
do that, let me talk about graffiti. Graffiti's a Latin word,
maybe it's Greek, one of those, it's argued, but the
(09:15):
argument is the first graffiti that they've seen came in
during like the Roman Empire. Graffiti has to do with
usually or historically, by definition, is a political message. It's
not necessarily vandalism because vandalism has to do with property ownership,
all right, So if there is no ownership of the
(09:38):
location of the griffit, we cannot call this vandalism because
and the eyes of the law, as we know, and
if you listen to anything on cool Zone, you understand
that the law really only exists to protect property and
protecting us. You always say you're trying to protect property. Now,
(10:19):
like anything else, things that were seen as a nuisance,
if you give it some time, becomes gallery work and
celebrated right, you take somebody like Basquiat, it's a craft writer.
We consider him one of the first. Now you pay
millions of dollars for it. Right, I'm gonna jump around here.
But like the drawings and illustrations of somebody like a
(10:40):
mister Cartoon who essentially tattooed every rapper you've ever met.
You get a mister Cartoon tattooed, right, those faces like
I said earlier, the smile now cry later. The type
of lettering, this type of like high calligraphy that you
guys would be like, oh that's gangster writing. It's mister Cartoon.
Big Sleeps, defer These people like og slick, right, these
(11:03):
guys you know those la the la finger that Esteban
took of the girl the black and white picture where
she's throwing up la. So he has one. But they're
like Mickey Mouse cartoon hands. So that's slick. If you've
ever worn a hurly shirt that looked slightly like street wear,
(11:23):
that's Big Sleeps. These names who when I was a preteen,
these were the guys that I've said before. When I
was a child and driving from this city called Melinda,
right right, unincorporated area between West Covina and La Pointe,
twenty minutes east of South Central. Driving there to my
(11:44):
grandmother's house on sixty seventh to San Pedro and south
on the east side of South Central Los Angeles, you
have to cross over this one of these sections, depending
on which way we went, you're crossing the La River.
These since it's paved, it would be these ginormous to me,
larger than life. I just these paintings, these letterings, this,
(12:06):
they were these characters. And if y'all know me again,
my first love, before music, before anything, was I went
to school for illustration. I went to school. I was
gonna be an artist. And why because of graffiti? Why
I rapped graffiti? This is that was my entry to
hip hop. Was whatever that is, that's I want to
be a part of whatever that is. It just it
(12:27):
was so colorful and vibrant in this area that was
so invested in, you know, infested with violence and gang
and just knowing that this was like ghetto art, like
we were making this. There wasn't no guy went on,
no T shirts. We were making this, and it just
captured my imagination in a way nothing else did. Anyway,
I'm ahead of myself. These people weren't getting paid for
(12:50):
this stuff. These people weren't having you know, mister cartoon
got a Modello commercial. This stuff does not the fifty
years of of hip hop, you know, the hip hop
to infinity, these like interactive like that wasn't happening. These
people were criminals if we were running from the law.
One of my favorite one is Chaka, who's from my hood.
They did a whole, a whole like news expos say
(13:13):
about him because he gets because he used to get
up everywhere. Nobody understood how he was able to get up.
I'm gonna give you some I need to I'm saying
vocabulary before I explain it to you. Get up just
means he got his name on a wall somewhere. You
were able to get up somewhere. Anyway, This was the
world that introduced me to everything. But at the time
they were the scourge, and to the general public there
(13:33):
was no distinction between, which made no sense to me.
Sense to me because it was so easy to see
a distinction between destruction of property, vandalism or like marking
of territory, because all they saw was writing on the wall,
and it was so obvious to me. What was the boundary, marking,
(13:55):
markings of a neighborhood gang versus a throw up or
a piece. Now these are again, let me just give
you those vocabulary. A throw up is like you run up.
You're scribbling as fast as you can, working on your handstyles.
The way your handstyles is like the style for which
you write your letters. So you throw up your handstyle,
which is your throw up real quick. That's where you
(14:17):
got up. That's your name. If for me it was props,
because I've always been propaganda. So just my quicks, props,
my little circle, copyright, my little arrow under the bottom.
So you just throw that up, get out of there.
A lot of times you would sometimes you would go
to like you would do sticks where you would go
to a post office and get those like just the
sticker sheets or the hello my name is. We would
(14:38):
just give reams of those things and you just practice
your handstyles and then you would throw them on stop signs,
throw them on this right. So just burner is a
little takes a little more time. A lot of times
those are like one or two color kind of bubble letters,
but they're larger your piece. That's like a mirror. A
lot of times pieces are done by whole crews. But
they are like the size of the building, multi colored,
(15:01):
and they they I mean, they take a long time.
I am trying to take you to a time for
which we didn't have a place like the Arts District,
which when you drive through the Arts District in LA
I'm like, this is graffiti. Like we a lot of
us have records because of this stuff and some of
the dudes doing it, one of them, the homie Vile.
I know Vile's work because he used to do these
(15:22):
eyes and I'm like on fourth and a Lamita, I'm like,
that's Vile like these like these and he is a
legend now. But they were criminals. Okay, the culture is
so strange, but like this thing that became what it
became in Los Angeles of course, or just as far
as hip hop's concern comes out of New York, let's
(15:43):
let's be real comes out of New York. The subway train,
things that like if you ever see you know, Beach
Street or Wild Style, which of course it's like it
is really dated, but if you can, just if you
could suspend reality, please go see these two movies, like
to understand the New York of it all. As far
as like him is concerned. Where a lot of this
stuff came from. There was a lot that had to do,
(16:04):
especially with the subway trains, because you only had like
a few inches to work with in between in between
these tunnels. And that was part of the game. Was
you'd go in there in the middle of the night,
though your burner up, all your peace up on the train,
and then would like wait for the morning for that
train to come out. You go up to your little
to your project building and look down and it was
(16:25):
nothing more glorious than seeing that train come out of
the train tunnel and the sunlight hits your piece that
you didn't that you only saw in the dark, like
you didn't even really get to see it, you haven't
seen it from far away. That was part of you know,
And those props were like now all the ghetto saw
you know what I'm saying, your work. That was part
of it. Part of it was the anonymity of like
like kind of like the vigilanti, like fast as fast
(16:46):
can be. You can't catch me like you. You can't
catch these guys like you. You know the mystery of it,
but like we knew, you knew who that was but
like that mystery of like you know, hide your face
and you just see my work Like that was part
of the adrenaline. Part of the adrenaline of that it
is illegal and you could get caught, Like that's part
of that was part of the allure. It gets to
Los Angeles. You know, we have our train bombing, you
(17:08):
know what I'm saying and stuff like that. Of course
we have that, but like that wasn't our culture. Our
culture again was flowered by gang life. That was always
a part of our culture. So we created Cruise right now,
Tagging crews had a very different history because a lot
of times tagging crews were there as alternatives to gang life,
(17:32):
which is how I got into tag. It was like,
well I don't I like art, but you still get
the adrenaline, right, And there's still, of course territorial stuff
to where it's like, you know, you have different things
like consafas, which means like with safety. So like if
I'm gonna tag and I put consavas, that basically means
that like the neighborhood gang said, you can't touch this one,
right if you cross out a khonsafas or if you
(17:52):
cross out somebody that means we fight, and that's disrespectful anyway.
What also must be mentioned was the development of what
we would call tag which was in some areas, like
the tagging crew was almost like a recruiting ground or
entry point into joining the set. So some of them
(18:13):
dudes were like just talented thugs. There were crews that
were like, like, this dude's like a tag banger, so
he's a tagger, but he's also a gangster and like
the way that he moved was much more gangway than
some of the other dudes that were like, we're just
in this for the art. Because again LA has been
like colored with gang life. That's just a part of
the way colored. So yeah, there was like some dudes
(18:35):
that were like that was their cover or places where
like the big homies were recruit you know. So that's
that's been a part of the culture too. All of
that's there. The point is what we were able to
develop as a style, as a community, and as a
way for which we were able to celebrate our culture,
our art, our rest in Peace murals, just like in
(18:56):
New York, you know, are honoring our fallen stars. All
of that is kind of a part of graffiti and
this was our art programs. Why I understand color theory,
how I was able to get into my ap art
program in high school was because I came from graffiti.
I already knew how to paint, already knew my primary
and secondary colors, already knew perspective, already knew all that
(19:16):
stuff because you had to do it for graf already
knew how to take a drawing from my black book,
my sketch book, and blow it up bigger. All that
to say, this has been a historical part of all
that is California. We used to call it a victimless crime,
although we were lying to ourselves. Like I said before,
we know there's victims here right now. There was also
a place in Venice Beach that was one of the
(19:38):
first that I know of legal yards. There's a skate
park at the end of Venice Beach, right of course,
y'all y'all know Muscle Beach, y'all know, the basketball court
was very important. But next to that was a skate
park that that was a legal yard, and a lot
of graffiti writers would go over there because again it
was legal. You practice your work, get your skills up,
get your bars up. We would find abandoned places to
go to this anyway, we would find a band in
(20:00):
places again, go practice your handstyles, like I remember sneaking
in the tunnels and abandoned storm drains that like you know,
they they re routed the stuff. So we would sneak
in there and work on our our skills, get you know,
get our fades together, figure out how to have better
can control. Why we would do it there is because
it's not just about how good your art is. The
(20:21):
location is important. That's part of the props. We would
use a lot of times. That's what we would say.
We say, look our our our our currency is props,
you know, because there wasn't any money to be made,
so it's it's the props. It's the clout. And part
of the clout was location. Why we would dangle on
the side of freeways. I know dudes that died because
they just fell from freeway signs. It was a part
(20:41):
of it. The adrenaline, the degree of difficulty to get
the spot, for us to be like, dang, how'd you
catch the spot? How you figure that out was even
a part of and the quality for which you know,
your reputation as you know, adult writer would be right.
I'm not talking about toys, like we'd be here all
night talking about you know what we would consider a
(21:02):
toy and all that good stuff. But all that leads
into why this graffiti tower, Because what a spot to
catch It's perfect, it's abandoned, it's downtown. Every floor is
completely empty, it's not trashed. It's actually super nice. It's
hiding in plain sight. It's been empty since twenty nineteen.
(21:23):
No one's touching it. And then one guy gets the
idea people were like doing their like base jumping and
stuff off of it because it's just sitting there. And
even it just sitting there is absurd in a city
that has such a problem with houseless community. It's just
it's just sitting here and them boys all the way
(21:46):
to the top the lope. You gotta remember, that's why
I want to give you this context. The location of
your spot is also a part of it. This is
why it reached legendary status. Twenty twenty four has given us.
Now I can count two legendary hipop moments, this graffiti
Tower and the Kindrick and Drake thing. Now the politics
of it all all right, we're back. Now it's not
(22:37):
so much. This politics I'm gonna give you is something
that these adult like writers had consciously on their mind.
I'm telling you this as something for us to consider
as a city, how to run a budget, how all
of these things work. Now, flashback to when I said,
you know, downtown died. Downtown died from what I can
(23:00):
gather after the Olympics. The Olympics happened in nineteen eighty four.
That's when we built the coliseum, you know, which was
condemned for a while. USC used to play there, but
they just don't work on it lappen. What happened to
La in a lot of ways is what happens to
all these other major cities. People get grossly misplayed or displaced. Right.
(23:21):
You build up this infrastructure and then it just sits there.
We talked, we did a you could rewind way back.
I want to say it was like episode like eighteen
nineteen something during the was it twenty twenty Olympics, During
the Olympics, when we talked about like should we really
have these right like liking stuff you know you're not
supposed to like, you know, I obviously I become a
(23:43):
complete flag waving patriot when it comes to the Olympics.
But the Olympics always has had devastating, decimating effects on
the city. It just bankrupts it and it displaces hundreds
of people. Downtown died. Okay, now I'm bringing a care
you never thought i'd bring in. Who bought up a
lot of these buildings was the guy who owned the Clippers,
(24:05):
Donald Sterrole, and the Clippers, as we could tell because
they were so trash, was really just I don't know,
laundering a pet project of Donald Sterling, because he would
just sit there. We would say, man, he just sit
there at the Clipper games looking at his investments. He
would just look outside at the buildings he owned that
he wasn't doing nothing in and just making money off of.
(24:28):
Eventually Downtown got sold to China. We wasn't like they
wasn't doing nothing with it. The city said they ain't
had a bread to fix it up. Who came in
first was La Live to build Staples Arena. Now, once
you build Staples Arena, all we need investors. China, as
we all know, ain't stupid. They got sense and they
(24:50):
got bread. Now, all this talk about China becoming the
new World power and all this stuff that like that's
where we as a nation can call because Inas much
as you talking about local grown invest in USA, you
done sold Downtown LA to China. And you think we
don't know this, everybody out here new that's who owned
(25:11):
these buildings. China bought them, So don't so don't you know,
piss on my back and tell me it's raining. Y'all
sold down down to China. Didn't got the nerve to
talk about tariffs anyway. This particular building or this plaza
was called Ocean Wide Plaza, and it's bankrupt. It was
development in downtown LA owned by this Chinese company called
(25:35):
ocean Wide Holdings, which clearly sound made up, right like obviously,
come on, y'all, y'all know out that's y'all made that up.
That's just that's that's a dva. You done stood up
so you can invest this money in. Now check this out. Okay.
They started building this thing, ran out of money, and
they stopped working in twenty nineteen. Right now, since then,
(26:01):
they've been trying to get bidders right to invest in
this and the people who they've been trying to invest in. Now,
keep in mind, we are in the middle of one
of the largest housing crises. I mean, like, are we
lying like ain't enough houses and y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all,
y'all selling our real estate to other people? Okay, So
(26:21):
so here go to bidders Blackstone, black Rock, right, and
some cash rich overseas like sovereign wealth funds like from
the Middle East, like in Asia and Europe. Right, Like, so, y'all,
can you hear this cat, this building just sitting here,
you like, knock it down? It would cost too much
(26:42):
to knock it down? Is they argument? It would cost
too much to knock it down, right, But you're finna
sell it to all these other countries while telling us
we need to invest logo while telling us that the
problem is these illegal immigrants coming into our city. Can
you just what are you talking about now? In a
bankruptcy report? Right, because you had to eventually file bankruptcy, Like, yo,
(27:07):
this thing's okay before I get specifically, like listen, this
thing is about two thirds done and with about it's
one point two billion already invested in it. Like that's
what A guy that's part of the brokerage team, his
name's Mark Tarzinski. He was like, why would anyone I mean,
it's a like, why would anyone knock it? There's nothing
(27:27):
wrong with the building. It's actually good bread and look
if it works. He fit a ball out, like cash out,
cuz like, let me not argue with this, the fact
that like there is bread to be made on this,
And I don't blame him for being like, who wont what?
Now the bankruptcy They said that this thing's market value
(27:51):
is almost three hundred and thirty four million dollars, right,
but costs to finish it and to fix it is
eight hundred and sixty five million, right, And it's only
an it and they're sixty percent finished. But you obviously
got set back because you got to fix all these pieces. Now,
if it were me, I would leave the pieces in
charge double like I feel like you got a piece
(28:12):
of history. But they don't think like me. Now the developers, right,
which is normal. Developers sometimes stall time from time because
you run out of money, but rarely do they just
give up and walk away and just leave something have done.
And part of why they could do that is because
they don't live here. But it's actually more sinister than that,
and I'm explaining it to you in a second. Now,
(28:32):
this same company, Ocean Wide Holdings. They bought this parking
lot across the street from the arena back in twenty fourteen, right,
and then that's when they started working on the tower.
So they've been working on this for a while. Right.
It was supposed to have apartments, five star hotel right,
up market stores, restaurants. Right. They were trying to make
(28:53):
this look like some time square out this mug. They
was like, we out of money. We good now how
they ran out of money again? And listen to the politics.
Why they couldn't finish this mug wasn't just the natural
like oh we overspent man, you know, we underestimated the costs.
It's because the Chinese government said, we don't like money
flowing out bound. Y'all need to leave y'all money here.
(29:16):
FAM's it was politics. They said, you you spend it
too much money other places. You need to spend your
money here. And since they don't have a free market
economy like we do, at least they don't lie to
themselves to say they got a free market economy, they
just they just mask off with it. They was like,
y'all need to stop spending your money over there. Sometimes
shutting stuff down just works. That's the type stuff Trump
(29:37):
be on. So then you had to stop because the
contract builders stopped being paid. Now, if you're a general contractor,
you like and the people that paid you filing Chapter
eleven bankruptcy, you like, okay, cool, I need my money.
Though I did my part, I need my money. So
(29:59):
ocean wide, they owe back taxes to LA and they
read to repay the money the city of Los Angeles
for all the security they tried to put in place
in response to the graffiti stuff. The city allotted four
million dollars. Now on one hand, in the city's defense
because I'm gonna drag them later in the city's defense.
(30:22):
You get a building like that, it's like, oh, dope,
y'all gonna pay for it. Y'all gonna build it. We
just get to collect taxes on it, run it. That's
quite a play in the defense. If I get to
just collect taxes on some mind spend spin to build
and you gotta get all the permits and you gotta
hire niggas here, I'm creating jobs, I'm collecting tax bread
(30:43):
and I ain't gotta invest that. Oh that's a lick
in they defense. I get it. That's a lick. They
obviously graffiti the furthest thing from their mind also the
furthest thing from their minds. What JJ in king was Finna?
Do you? Was Finna? Just like you mess it up
the play? And they like, we done ran this play before.
(31:06):
It's an easy play. And we get to get on
the camera and say we're doing good for the city.
Were providing homes. We build it off, like is you
providing homes? Because even if you finished, as you're talking
about these four thousand and five thousand dollars a month
lofts in downtown, who these homes for? But I'll see
the play you running. It just makes sense. We'll make
(31:28):
the bread off the taxas. However, y'all thought y'all was
gonna get y'all money. Wait hey, so back to my thought.
The city allotted four million dollars to erect the fence
to protect you from the painters. Yo. On our local news,
I loved it. They were doing these like these little
expos a pieces where these people was like, well, we're
(31:51):
not trying to condone vandalism, but let's interview our l
a graffiti scene and they had like the little Latina
newsperson come inner view these dudes, and I could see
her trying to like humanize it. I'm looking at this
lady and I'm like, okay, you look at you around
our as. I was like, oh, you used to tag
when you were younger. I could totally tell anyway. In February,
(32:12):
listen to me, four million dollars to put a fence
up to protect the building that they don't own and
ain't gonna get they money for to protect it from painters.
Y'all this listen. You have you ever have a friend
(32:37):
that you going out to eat with and they all
of a sudden being like, oh man, I ain't got
it this week, I get it next week. And you
look at their feet, they wearing a pan new pair
of JS. Oh you got it. You just don't. You
just spend it in on stuff that don't matter. Let
me get this straight. City in Los Angeles, you you
(32:57):
gonna spend full million dollars to protect the building that
ain't yours, that ain't gonna be done that you're finna
sell to another country? You who you gonna get your
money back? Let me ask you something. You think they
gonna pay you back? I thought you was from the hood.
I thought you was from La. You ain't gonna get
you who you gonna get your money back? Y'all really
(33:23):
think you gonna get your money back? You think the
people they're selling this too after the brokers done got
their commission. Come here, come here, come here. Do you
know how much trash we talked to China? You think
Beijing ain't gonna get you your money? Here's my suggestion.
(33:45):
Leave it there, Let it be an art installation, buy
it yourself, because you know what The Olympics is coming,
and yo, little sorry tal still need to figure out
where to put the one hundred and fifty thousand population
of a houseless You also got a housing shortage in
(34:06):
Los Angeles. I don't understand why your math ain't mathing,
but I get it. You ain't got it, though, but
I get it. The graffiti is the nuisance, and like
we said, your job is not to protect us but property.
So on behalf of Los Angeles. I want to say
(34:26):
thank you to the La graffiti scene for giving us
something beautiful. And I hope every time our local government
looks at that that they think we really got it
all backwards, don't we. I'm definitely not saying just shove
the homeless into a building, because that's not that's not
loving at all. There's organizations like Path Partners, which I
(34:49):
will link into this show notes, who are doing amazing,
amazing things to help transition our houseless population. At least
that I can tell. I'm not one of the ours. Listen,
maybe they got some skeletons in their closet that I
don't know of, if so correct me, But from what
I've seen, prey dope er, I just think there's a
(35:10):
better use of your money than four million dollars to
put up a fence to protect something that ain't even yours.
But you know what, don't listen to me. What do
I know? All right? Now, don't you hit stop on
(35:34):
this pod? You better listen to these credits. I need
you to finish this thing so I can get the
download numbers. Okay, so don't stop it yet, but listen.
This was recorded in East Lost Boyle Heights by your
boy Propaganda. Tap in with me at prop hip hop
dot com. If you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got
(35:54):
terraform Coldbrew. You can go there dot com and use
promo code hood get to twenty percent off get yourself
some coffee. This was mixed, edited, and mastered by your
boy Matt Alsowski Killing the Beat Softly. Check out his
website Mattowsowski dot com. I'm a speller for you because
I know M A T. T O S O W
(36:17):
s ki dot com Matthowsowski dot com. He got more
music and stuff like that on there, so gonna check out.
The Heat Politics is a member of cool Zone Media,
executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia podcast network.
Your theme music and scoring is also by the one
and nobly Matt Awsowski. Still killing the beat softly, So listen.
(36:41):
Don't let nobody lie to you. If you understand urban living,
you understand politics. These people is not smarter than you.
We'll see y'all next week. The
Host
Prop
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