Born in Staten Island, New York, in 1976, SEMZ first started to look at graffiti in 1983. “I was in second grade,” he recalls. “I rarely paid attention in class because I was constantly sketching graffiti in my notebook. During that time, when I was seven years old, I traveled to my grandparents house in Brooklyn every Sunday for family dinner. On the way there, the Belt Parkway had a stretch of thousands of feet of graffiti covered walls. Some of the names I remember were FIB, JIS, DC, SPIN BUST, and JENZ. I saw these names as a book I would read, telling a story of a soldier trooping though the city, leaving his name on everything in his path until there was no more ground to conquer. I conquered my ground and I am happy. I am SEMZ, the only one.

“I really started writing, or got good at my lettering, around 1990. Every school night, I stormed my neighborhood with markers I would steal from the local pharmacy. In the mid-90s, my name was a diseased plague all throughout the borough of Staten Island. I was obsessed and I knew I was good at what I did. My heart and mind were there, so I took it All City in 1997. Little did I know, at some point around the year 2000, every writer in New York knew my name. …Read more at PowerHouse Books.

Joey Semz memorial:
Today, Mon. 7-9pm.
Tomorrow 2-4 and 7-9.
Caseys Funeral Home 350 slosson ave. Staten Island, NY
http://semz.spent2000.com/