Words Jiroe

Kak One is dope – ask anyone in the UK. Watch him paint and you see that age-old confidence of a writer that's out there non-stop. One of those guys that gets around and knows folks, but ducks under the big radar. He isn't seeking internet super stardom, just to be known for doing dope graf. He has been a big influence on his local Cambridge scene and raises the bar high for the south of England. Here's his story…

What do you write and where are you from?

I write Kak and I'm from a town called St Neots just outside Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

What is your graffiti history?

I started back in around 1990, with no understanding of graffiti at all, or only what I had seen in the books that we now refer to as the holy bibles of graf, 'Subway Art' and 'Spraycan Art'. I was only a youngster running around and making a mess, under the tag Dets. I was trying to write Dest but, by the time my mind had spelt it out, my hand was writing the 'T'. Due to my dyslexia it always came out as Dets, so my friends said you might as well write that.

Around 1991 me, Hope and Soul formed PWS. We were sitting round Soul’s one night waiting to go out, deciding on a crew name, when someone said, we’re gonna go and waste some paint, and that was it, Paint Wasters were born. After a time, being out all night with older lads didn't go down too well with the folks, which of course led to me being grounded. The crew grew during this time from strength to strength and still exists today.

How is the graffiti scene in and around Cambridge?
If anyone came to our town they would say the scene is pretty poor. We don’t have a massive bombing scene and all the walls are out of the way. I paint our few spots and travel as much as possible. It's always good to get out of the countryside and travel to meet people and paint different towns and cities, to see what's going on, especially Brighton. I'm always looking to there as the frontrunner in the UK scene since HA hooked up with the MSK guys. We see ourselves as country bumpkins without too much going on, but we do make the best of what we have got. Cambridge has a zero tolerance attitude to graffiti which hinders things a lot. But where I am has the bonus of a hall of fame and is brilliantly located for getting to other cities like Peterborough, Norwich, Leicester, Birmingham and even London. It is good for getting around and painting a lot of different places. 

The FULL interview with KAK appears in issue 55 of Graphoism magazine - click here to purchase your copy www.graphotism.com/Subscribe-Graphotism-or-MyNameIs-Magazine.74.0.html