how tag came about...

I have a ton of stuff to do toady for Tag's promotional materials for film festivals. Instead of giving you all a very funny story about poop, I thought I would cut and paste the story of how the inspiration for my short film came about...

I got the idea for Tag when I was playing basketball at a local park in Hollywood.
There was a group of young Russian and black kids who were seriously hip hop; the slang, the baggy clothes, the wanna be tough guy attitude, the cliché.

It reminded me of... me. I used to dj hip hop at clubs, scratch for local hip hop acts, freestyle battle with my friends, wear all my clothes gangsta, tag up bathrooms with graffiti, get too faded and get into too much trouble.

Why did I act like that? Good question. A damn good question.

I did it for hip hop; the art of it, the community, the music, the vibe, the rebellion from my utter pasty whiteness.

It was staring at those kids that made me realize that I was no longer like that. While there are remnants of hip hop in my life, (I still love my tilted ballcap and fresh sneakers), the music, the graffiti, and the attitude are nearly gone from my life.

Why don’t I act like that now? Another good question.

Something got lost along the way. Maybe I grew up or maybe I got too old. Maybe I wanted a change. Maybe hip hop just didn’t do it for me anymore. Maybe hip hop changed.

Hip hop isn’t about the art anymore. It’s more about the commercial aspects of the music. Hip hop is more about portraying a bad stereotype. Hip hop is now about violence, misogyny, drug use, who’s gotten shot more and who’s got more bling.

I thought back to my friends Brent and Clint, who were both shot and killed in separate shootings about 7 months apart. Both were ‘gangstas’, mixed up with the wrong kids with bad intentions.

Both were trying to change their bad ways, finally turning a corner at clearing themselves of the crime, violence and self destructive behavior when they were struck down by bullets. Sometimes irony really hurts.

I wondered if any of these kids at the basketball court wanted more from their lives. Does one of them want to be something more than what they are now but are held back by their friends, their situation, their existence?

That’s why I left hip hop, djaying and graffiti to pursue film; a medium of art that didn’t hold such negative connotations.

It hit me then and there, I had to write about this!

I decided right away that I would focus specifically on graffiti instead the music of hip hop (which has been done to death).

Why Graffiti? I firmly believe still to this day that graffiti is the most misunderstood art form. I think Graffiti is beautiful; others think its trash. That dichotomy has always intrigued me.

When I sat down to write, I didn’t want to just recycle my own personal story, I wanted to craft a revisionist telling of a Greek tragedy, told through the guise of the modern hip hop community. I wanted a story with some emotional impact, a unique storytelling dynamic and visual style similar to the art I was talking about. Hopefully, I’ve come close to my intentions.