Hey party people! Do you know Cahbasm? A street artist from Buffalo Syracuse NYC. This guy is funky fresh and the Fatcap team is the most generous of all time… here’s the Cahbasm interview!

FC:Where are you from? What’s your background?
I am from upstate ny cities (yes actually in the city, not some bullshit suburb) buffalo, syracuse. grew up playing hockey and skateboarding and skipping school to eat pizza.

FC:What was the interest in art and what lead you to create all those things?
i couldn’t help but break the law in some way all the time, as in drugs, underage drinking, skateboarding, or graffiti. But with graffiti you kinda gotta have a thing, you cant just kickflip and be ok, you have to invent shit. Graf got me into it, i mean everyone draws as a kid and i was avid, but the whole teenage graf thing makes it a hell of a lot cooler to do and think about art.

FC:How would you define your work and what inspires you?
bitten maybe, i donno i am just kinda falling into place, trying to do my thing but i am still ridin’ on so many other artists, we all are. gather my inspiration from a shitload of things, a lot of artists and people, probably too many artists. i like things that have recently became obsolete, slow things, a lot of america, imperialism you know.

FC:What was your best and your worst creation?
shit i have a blackbook that is all these terrible drawings i started writing SAR (this was all before the SARS thing) so its me attempting to be original and do graffiti at the same time, i didn’t believe in biting therefore i sucked big time made way slow progression. The whole book is really bad, i used to think it wasn’t bad but i was an idiot. As for best, uhh i like my collaborations with devowski a great deal, also some Anpanman drawings that no one thinks anything of, usually the work i like no one else does…

FC:If your style was a music band or a song? Which one would it be?
fuckin’… probably like Pharcyde or Masta Ace - Sittin’ on Chrome or That’s What friends are for, but only the stevie verse,
maybe through some Bartok in there, or busdriver, blueprint - boombox, maybe ODB, anything involving windows 3.1

FC:What kind of books do your read?
humm, history, architecture stuff, james joyce.

FC: Do you do drugs? Do you need something particular to be creative?
drugs can be alright, never really help me with my work, maybe the occasional hit will help but rarely, i love good beer.

FC:Do you feel the work you are doing is something that should be preserved or stayed transcience?
uhhhh.. i guess it’s important, i mean history time thing, sure the older it gets the more relavant it becomes especially it helps to define this era, i mean my work and other artists work as well. i try to use archival shit …. thats some stab at that.

FC:What’s your worst and best habits?
biting. beering. womaning.

FC:Do you dream in graffiti and colors ?
muted colors, i’ve dreamt of doing graffiti… never of my work though

FC:What did you do last week?
painted, drank, cooked, ate, talked on a telephone, rode a bicycle, maybe a train, oh and a boat i went to Shaolin, fuck i hate it there.

FC:What was your most adventurous and dangerous graffiti artwork?
i fucked up some small towns before, drunk. i guess like regular spots but just during the day is pretty stupid, in japan i had some grimy shit go down.

FC:What kind of reaction do you want to evoke from your art?
i am not too concerned but i like when people hate it when i think its good, i am disappointed when people like work that i don’t. For a while i thought i wanted people to be pissed off, you know like ehh the reaction any graffiti gets, but then put some cherrys on top,

FC:Did you get men/women easier with your art skillz?
yeah i got some gay dudes that like my stuff i guess, which it cool, uhh i donno if its not the kind of work that initially says to people, “yo i am cool, i am a cool artist that has skills and wants to be progressive”, isn’t that the kind of work that gets you ladies, unless there is so much hype about you that its all about the fame or whatever, i gotta start doing more mainstream tats cru, tennessee, msk shit before that could happen. rip BIGGie

FC: Ever have any serious graffiti beef?
serious… haha not really i stay cool with most people but right now i have a lot of toyed up pieces upstate, which is super wack. The mainstreamness breeds an unprecedented amount of toys that never stay in the game.

FC: Describe a typical day for Cahbasm:
wake, interneting & drawings, mailing shit, riding a bike, painting, maybe some skating somewhere in there. Hopefully more and more painting out.

FC:What do you think about hype?
don’t believe it, it’s quicksand, PAY DUES

FC:Name an artist (or many) whose work you respect and admire.
Relative to my work; other, elicser, huma, mediah, delta, derm, bibifoc, yaner, raisin, royal, os gemeos, joulu, mute, ekta,remed, dais, tele, zaha hadid, corbusier, cabin, dr sex, dondi, akira yamaguchi, tom ward III, joke, nomes, cap…. anyone who is up and that i can’t avoid seeing their name.

FC:How do you feel about the commercialization of street art in recent years?
It means there is money to be had, but the popularity makes the scene less hardcore, wack, etc, postering is so played out i mean have you seen Street art Blows thats my feelings most of the time, i love swoon gaia types but not into the graphic design stuff as much it ages like shit and should be on some search engine advertisement.

FC:What’s coming up in the next few months?
shit, right now not that much, maybe some stuff in SF, i should be doing a collaboration zine wit Liam Devowski, my original associate, some collaborative works wit a huge list of people all over the world and here in NY, hopefully more getting up, i have a assload of hand done characters ready to be pasted up somewhere, i need to get my inwardheel flips down, i am looking to get more involved with skateboard; as i get older i want to maintain my tricks and be associated with younger people, oldies are lame and slow. i have a secret new series of skeleton character drawings and soon to be prints with my lady friend.

FC:What’s your real goal?
create a canon a cahbasm canon, divert excess money i have to direct action, donate a car, some fertilizer.. maybe educate some people about something… burn shit

FC:Any words of wisdom?
Stay out of school, use protection when you think you should, learn shit, think about how rich some people are

Thanks Cahbasm!

For more stuff check the Cahbasm flickr