Prolific

2023 - 1 - 1

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Image courtesy of "Los Angeles Times"

Rammellzee's prolific art has long been obscured. That's starting to ... (Los Angeles Times)

Dozens of pieces the artist Rammellzee created, including sculptures and paintings made with canvas, cardboard, wood, and even carpet, are on view at L.A.'s ...

There’s a sense that as much as he wanted the work to be seen, iconoclast to the end, Rammellzee was determined to protect it until he was no longer of this earth. “He always had an edge, there was a toughness and aggression, and that’s very much part of the work.” By 19, he had officially retired from that activity, even sending a letter of “resignation” to the Transit Authority, and was enrolled in a program for high school dropouts at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, executing complex works in marker on board. In 1983, Basquiat produced a 10-minute hip-hop record called “Beat Bop,” a street corner narrative in which Rammellzee emerges as the first signifying rapper, adopting multiple voices and personas. An all-rounder in the early hip-hop scene, Rammellzee was an honorary member of legendary b-boy group Rock Steady Crew and likely the first Five Percenter to rock the mic. Through the ’90s and aughts, Rammellzee largely retreated from public view and disengaged from the art world. “We would listen to Ramm’s incredible, far-out ideas and look at each other in complete amazement,” he says. He was captured during the closing concert filmed for the seminal hip-hop movie “Wild Style,” at the East River Amphitheater in October 1981, wearing a trench coat and holding a mic in one hand and a shotgun in the other. At some point, he became involved with Five-Percent Nation, the New York offshoot of the Nation of Islam, and began calling himself Rammellzee. “The title of that photograph is ‘Jean-Michel and Rammellzee Exiting Maxfield’s,’” says Torton. The works in the show, including more than 60 paintings on canvas, cardboard, wood and even carpet — some in three dimensions or coated with resin, dense with information, overlaid with texts and swirls of spray paint. Basquiat through the immense fame that came with his rapid artistic success; Rammellzee as an outsize influence on the hip-hop culture he helped birth.

Post cover
Image courtesy of "NNN"

Rammellzee's prolific art has long been obscured. That's starting to ... (NNN)

In the early 1980s, the New York artist Rammellzee made two trips to Los Angeles with his friend Jean-Michel Basquiat. The second, in March 1983, ...

“He always had an advantage, there was toughness and aggressiveness, and that’s a big part of the job.” A sign hung on the door of the Battle Station read: “Whoever dies with the most toys, he wins.” Rammellzee certainly did. He worked in isolation in a second-floor walk-up loft in Tribeca, New York, called Battle Station, which was painstakingly recreated after his death in collaboration with his late wife, Carmela Zagari, as part of Art in the Streets. An all-rounder in the early hip-hop scene, Rammellzee was an honorary member of the legendary b-boy group Rock Steady Crew and probably the first Five Percenter to rock the mic. At 19, he had officially retired from that activity, even sending a “resignation” letter to the Transit Authority, and was enrolled in a high school dropout program at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, executing complex works. Nick Taylor, who played in Basquiat’s noise-rock group Grey, and was a friend of both artists, recalls Rammellzee’s visits to Basquiat’s loft-studio. At some point, he became involved with the Five-Percent Nation, the New York branch of the Nation of Islam, and began calling himself Rammellzee. By his own account, he began painting trains at age 9, stealing the keys from his father, a New York City transit cop, at their home in Far Rockaway, Queens, to gain access to the train yards by the night. Rammellzee gave his vision a name, Gothic Futurism, which lends itself to the title of a major retrospective at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery (through Jan. [y](https://nnn.ng/videodownload/youtube-downloader/) 1980s, the New York artist [Ram](https://nnn.ng/tag/ram/)mellzee made two trips to Los Angeles with his friend Jean-Michel Basquiat. Max Wolf, the former director of Red Bull Gallery in New York who curated an extensive retrospective, “Rammellzee: Racing for Thunder,” there in 2018, describes the costumes as “much more ceremonial objects than objets d’art.” Basquiat through the immense fame that came with his rapid artistic success; Rammellzee as a major influence on the hip-hop culture that he helped create.

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