“…The letters are weapons. Instead of Orson Welles stating that the books will be burnt, the books will stay there. The letters have left the page, and once it went up then they had better be ready to fly. It was our competition, called the burners, that made those letters get so bad, so dope, so illuminating them bastards actually ended up with wings…”

The flamboyant and mysterious sculptor, graffiti writer, art theorist and MC, Rammellzee, passed away in Queens, New York on 27 June. Like many, he began his career by writing his name on the trains and walls of New York in the 70s. He went onto become an MC, and is featured on the microphone here at the grand finale of Charlie Ahearn’s film Wild Style. Rammellzee progressed to sculpture and performance art, taking on a complex and intriguing persona who camouflaged himself just as the graffiti writers camouflaged their work. Read his New York Times obituary here.

Here he describes the evolution of graffiti in an outake from Style Wars by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant:

Vigário Geral meets Northern Ireland via northeast England in a project called Together Apart, that brings together breakdancing/bboying and live percussion in an exchange project devised by People’s Palace Projects in conjunction with AfroReggae . The Bad Taste Cru, a collective that originates from Omagh in Northern Ireland (now based in Newcastle) provide the moves while the guys from Vigário provide the beats. This project, presented yesterday at Rio’s João Caetano Theatre, has loads of potential. Congrats to all involved, it would be great to see more. The Bad Taste Cru describe themselves as “one big family of Bboys, skaters, writers, MCs, friends, film makers, outcasts, geeks and weirdos” who “share a common bond through a love of hip hop culture and being misfits and outcasts from our peer groups”. Fairplay to you BTC!

Vigário Geral will be celebrating the opening of an entirely state of the art building on 26 May. Named after the great poet and inspiration for AfroReggae, Waly Salomão, this Cultural Centre offers state of the art facilities in dance, theatre, and music and is a great testament to the work of AfroReggae in the community over the past 17 years. Parabens!