All posts tagged: Hip Hop Is My Religion

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.30.23

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.30.23

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week!

Where is the mafia news? Have you noticed how there is no news anymore about the mafia in the US? No sting operations, uncovered networks, perp walks, or wagging tongues? The New York tabloids used to go for days about Don this and Don that, accompanied by blurry surveillance photos in black and white. Did the mafia disappear? All our companies and industries and institutions are relatively free of corruption now, right?

Now our gripping concerns across the country are wokeism, racism, transphobia, ableism, ageism, pronouns, immigrants on the border, the government itself, abortion, and gun control. There are two teams, two sides; One is patently evil, and the other clearly is virtuous. Patriot vs Terrorist. Your solemn, weighty decision is to pick which team you are on and to join in the great debate as we head into election season, evidence of our thriving democracy! Go Team Good!

This week we wander through the seemingly emptier streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, The Village, and Soho to discover what street artists are bringing to their audience with earnest amor de primavera. The results are bracing, racing, effete, mysterious, hip hop, heady, graphic, and subversive: even as the flowering trees and ground vegetation is abloom, and the April rains have been prodigious.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Praxis, CRKSHNK, VOZ, Lexi Bella, Pear, Zexor, CP Won, Ollin, Phetus88, Eternal Possessions, Humble, Font147, and Whatifier.

Humble (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Humble (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Humble (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Humble (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Humble (photo © Jaime Rojo)
CP WON for East Village Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
#whatifier (photo © Jaime Rojo)
PEAR (photo © Jaime Rojo)
FONT147 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
FONT147 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
FONT147 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
CRKSHNK (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Lexi Bella (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Lexi Bella (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Praxis (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Praxis (photo © Jaime Rojo)
LOSO! (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Phetus88 and Hip Hop Is My Religion (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Phetus88 and Hip Hop Is My Religion (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Phetus88 and Hip Hop Is My Religion (photo © Jaime Rojo)
ZEXOR. This roller piece has been on this wall for a minute; we’ve published it before. What’s remarkable this time around is that the city just completed the renovation of three small parks in the area, and this was one of them, and they left the graffiti intact. That hasn’t always been the case with municipal property. Graffiti is/was usually the first thing to get buffed/painted over, involving a beautification project by the city of New York. Not this time. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
The palimpsest at the Houston/Bowery Wall continues… (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Eternal Possessions (photo © Jaime Rojo)
They It Forward (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Ollin Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Ollin Crew (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Untitled. Pink Dogwood. Spring 2023. NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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BSA Images Of The Week: 01.15.23

BSA Images Of The Week: 01.15.23

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week!

It’s Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, and we proudly declare that Black Lives Matter. One day we won’t have to say it because it will be prominent and evident in people’s actions, but until then, we must continue.

We found some great stuff on the street this week – strong, simple works that make their statement quickly as you zoom by. Perhaps you pause and consider, but this is the city, bro, and you are busy.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: REVS, BK Foxx, Nina Chanel Abney, 1010, Zexor, CP Won, Glare, Hip Hop is My Religion, Pulp, Zaver, Jim Tozzi, Martymart54, Medi, Rothko Rowdy, Detor Lak, Indigo Kids, Tocer, MTA Original, and a poem by Adi Helman.

Jim Tozzi (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Jim Tozzi (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Nina Chanel Abney for the Highline (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Martymar54. Madi. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Looks like we’re headed toward the year of the Rabbit! BK Foxx. CP Won for East Village Walls. Year of the Rabbit. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sneak Peek at 1010 mural, soon to be officially unvailed for a huge development in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Sneak Peek at 1010 mural, soon to be officially unveiled for a massive development in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Rothko Rowdy (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Rothk Rowdy (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Detor Lak as interpreted through Iron Maiden (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Indigo Kids (photo © Jaime Rojo)
GLARE, ZAVER, TOCER. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
REVS (photo © Jaime Rojo)
ZEXOR RIP (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Pulp (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hip Hop Is My Religion. MTA Original. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Adi Helman (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Untitled. Hutchinson Island, FL. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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Photos Of BSA #4: Brooklyn King Biggie Still Rules

Photos Of BSA #4: Brooklyn King Biggie Still Rules

Happy Holidays! We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA readers, friends, and family for all of your support in 2022. We have selected some of our favorite shots by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo, and we’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street.


Brooklyn is in Kings County, New York. It’s common for people here to refer to graffiti kings, barbecue kings, Kings of the Sea, the King of Glory, and kings of myriad realms; so infatuated are we with the concept of royalty- despite the US history of breaking away from King George III to form a more perfect union.

In the terminology of our pop hagiography, there can be no doubt which portrait appears in the most murals throughout our borough – Christopher George Latore Wallace, better known by his stage names the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or simply Biggie. 25 years after his death, you see Biggie all over Brooklyn, and he truly is a king.

Hip Hop is my Religion. Bedstuy Walls. Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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BSA Images Of The Week: 11-06-22

BSA Images Of The Week: 11-06-22

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week!

It’s New York City Marathon Day! 50,000 people running through the street, which is not much different from the Macy’s One Day Sale – except it’s outside.

In other NYC news, do you ever feel like a slowly boiling frog? NYPD is talking about partnering with Amazon’s Ring network; the New York Times explains that all those 5G network towers going up on the streets around the city are really just upgraded cell phone equipment, the police will begin a “Drone Unit” to fight crime– “said to be equipped with night vision technology,” this article says, they “won’t be weaponized,” and the NYPD digi-dog program from Boston Dynamics has been discontinued for right now and drones patrolling streets soon, right? Also on Friday the New York Federal Reserve announced plans for a new Fed digital dollar – a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) and the new UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is all in favor of completely digitized money. Meanwhile, it looks like NYC schools are going to be a lot safer with new initiatives to put biometric screening in them including maybe facial recognition. Nothing to worry about, right?

The city pays tributes to its heroes in different ways, and NYC street art loves Biggie Smalls more than anyone, along with folks like Spike Lee and Jean Michel Basquiat. This week we spotted a few new ones among the bevy of new street art beauties we discovered below.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring: Jason Naylor, Homesick, Savior El Mundo, King Baby, Mutz, Glare, Banksy Hates Me, Ashley Hodder, Raisa Nosova, Qzar, Spin, INU, Cheatz, Ultraboyz, Humble, Carlos RMK, and Yuzly Mathurin.

Hip Hop Is My Religion. Detail. Bedstuy Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hip Hop Is My Religion. Bedstuy Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Yuzly Mathurin. Bedstuy Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Ashley Hodder (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Savior El Mundo (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Mahsa Zhina Amini. #iranrevolution (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Raisa Nosova (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
MUTZ (photo © Jaime Rojo)
QZAR. SPIN. LOVE. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
INU. HOMESICK. KING BABY. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Homesick (photo © Jaime Rojo)
GLARE. CHEATZ. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Banksy Hates Me. Although truthfully he probably doesn’t. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Ulatraboyz (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Humble (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Carlos RMK. Shop 1 Culture. Bedstuy Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Jason Naylor (photo © Jaime Rojo)
This looks like a version of the children’s street game Skelly. The design is very similar but the numerology is different…and certainly, with some of the words written with chalk, it wasn’t being played by children. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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