Cuba Graffiti

My name is Clarence "Cuba" Robbs. I was born and raised on the East Coast of the United States in a blue collar, working class city called Baltimore in the state of Maryland.
I first began writing graffitti when I was 15 years old in 1979. I would tag, scrawl, or write my name almost city wide in strategic locations where seeing my name written appealed to me visually and aesthetically. I was influenced and inspired to write graffitti from an older writer from New York City who called himself The Revolt. Seein his tags in extremely key locations around Baltimore gave me a burning desire to write also.
Back in the early days of bombing, there were no other people practicing this art form. Your tags really stood out. At one point I had so many tags around the town that mine were more visible than The Revolt. I began to inspire other local writers to get their names up as well. This is another form of hip hop culture that was imported into Baltimore from NYC in 1978. A graf scene began emerging.
Grafitti art is against the law in most, if not all parts of the United States. Therefore, one must duck and hide to express one's self. I must admit that this can be down right exhilirating when you successfully place a tag. Clandestino.
By 1982 I began slowly advancing to another level creatively. I began to do what is known as piecing. Creating your name, but in a more macrocosmic and more cartoonistic form. In other words, focusing more on being a painter than just a writer.
I left home when I was 18, promising never to cross the Mississippi river again. I moved to the West Coast and San Francisco. From 1983 - 1985, I would piece and tag San Francisco, but not nearly as relentlessly as when I was a teenager. As I became older, my motivation altered. My desire to do art was more emotionally and politically driven while in high school it was more for rebelious reasons. I had a burning desire for public expression.
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