52 Pueblo Bishops. The 52 Pueblo Bishops live in a housing project located at 52nd Street and Long Beach Blvd on the East Side of South Central Los Angeles. They flag red (wear red bandanas) and identify as Bloods. Lately though, a lot of Bloods have chosen to sever ties with the Five Dueces when they declared war on their neighbors to the West, the Blood Stone Villians, enemies. Blood on Blood wars are few and far between and while Crips have been killing Crips for years, the general Blood rule is no red on red beefs. Personal disputes arise, but are usually squashed without any fatalities and it's usually handled between the opposing gang members who had the dispute in the first place. Another example of a serious Blood on Blood war is Compton's Tree Top Piru and Neighborhood Piru.
This example of graffiti is on the wall of the project housing unit the Five Dueces call home. ""ES" stands for "Eastside", "Pueblos" is the gang's name, the "1" I can only assume is for their claim of being "#1" and "CK" means "Crip Killers". They also clearly state their enemies: "38" is refering to 38th Street, a mexican gang from the same general area, "ECC" is "East Coast Crips" as a whole (most likely the 59's and Six Pack, which is the four subsets from the 60's: 62, 66, 68 and 69) and the Blood Stone Villians.
This was sprayed on a wall across the street from the project houses on Long Beach Blvd. This area is mostly warehouses and it was basically a free for all of gang tags, mostly done by the Pueblos.
The Pueblo's are mostly black, but have latino members and a latino clique (not sure of the name) that lives within the area that they are cool with. There is also an all Asian Blood gang known as the E/S OBz, which stands for Oriental Boyz. They used to be part of one large gang, but split up into three groups: the E/S OBz which live in East South Central, the W/S OLBz (Oriental Lazy Boyz) who flag red but arent bloods and call Chinatown home and the W/S OBz who live in North Hollywood and are Crips.
FRUIT TOWN BRIMS.
The Fruit Town Brims get a lot of press coverage due to the fact that they basically border the University of Southern California. Anytime you mix poverty with anything that falls into white media coverage, it's gonna get airtime. They are one of three gangs known for possibly causing trouble with USC students, alongside the Rollin 20's Neighborhood Bloods (allies) and the Rollin 30's OHM (Original Harlem Mafia) Crips (enemies). These two photographs we're taken at the corner of Vermont & King, which is technically R30's Crip hood.
One of the most common practices in gang/wallbanging is crossing out enemy tags. Here, the Harlem 30's had tagged a wall and the Fruit Town Brims crossed it out. The 30's wrote "W" over "S", which stands for "Westside" and shows their location, a small "R" for "Rollin" and a large "T" with a "C" through it for "Thirties Crip". "MHC" means "Mafia Harlem Crip", and gangs will commonly write their initials in different orders to mix things up. They've also listed this clique of 30's main enemies: Fruit Town Brims and the Rollin 40's Crips, who are located south of them. The FTB's have crossed out the tag, added a "K" at the end of "MHC" and highlighted their name in the enemy list. They also wrote "36" to signify the street they claim and wrote & crossed out "39", which is the clique of the 30's that wrote the original graffiti.
Here is a general disclaimer for all posts to come: some photographs are taken while walking and others are from a car window because a lot of photo opportunities creep up out of nowhere so it's a quick snap and we're on our way. Excuse some of the quality.
62 EAST COAST NHC.
The "62" stands for the particular street this East Coast Crip clique claims, the "NHC" is for "Neighborhood Crip", which allies them with other NHC Crip gangs such as the Rollin 60's. "Bubblegumsk" means "Bubblegum Killers", which is a derogatory term for Broadway Gangster Crips.
In this photo you can see that they have crossed out the initials of the Broadway Gangster Crips, which is the most common way of stating one's enemies. "K" at the end of song gang's initials means they are _____ Killers, another way of naming enemies. "Flower Killer" more than likely refers to the street by the name of Flower that BGC include in their turf.
The purpose of this blog is to use it as a stepping stone to our main goal: publishing a book dedicated to the art & culture that goes hand in hand with the gangs of Los Angeles. So much is considered taboo by the media and it forces far too many people to discredit the culture and tradition that thousands of people practice and make such an important part of their lives each and every day.
The main focus of this project is to create a general understanding of gang graffiti. Gang's use spray paint to mark their territories, call out enemies and even warn people of things that will be going down in the future, but most importantly they also use it to express themselves artistically. From the shottiest of street tags to huge wall-covering murals, this is art and there are messages trying to be conveyed. We hope to give people a better understanding of what these messages mean.
Crips, Bloods & Surenos (mexican gang members) are everywhere in Los Angeles, and so is their art. Some of us are from these hoods, others are just fascinated with it, but we all respect and understand (or hope to achieve a better understanding) the culture that goes hand in hand with being in a street gang in Los Angeles, which is commonly refered to as the "home of the bodybags". We are currently putting in many hours in cars and on foot taking photographs of gang art and cataloging it for display on this website and in our upcoming book.
Any questions, comments or concerns can be sent our via the e-mail address below. Inquire about submitting contributions too, such as photographs you yourself took. Also, it must be noted that because we respect the "hood", we wont be revealing any information about contributors or anyone involved with gang life, as we know the LAPD like to use websites as a way to trap and imprison known gang members. We are here to contribute knowledge and the spreading of just that, not to help fill up their prisons.
Also, "Hood Art" is not the name of our organization, company, etc. It's just a monikor. It might change.
A first batch of photographs will be up tonight, as we took a trip to the East Side of South Central to visit a friend/contributor from an anonymous gang. We got some photographs of East Coast 62nd Neighborhood Crip graffiti, so expect that this evening.
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