Meet graffiti writer Tacos

Instagram name

@tacosone

Active since

As a sprayer
–
2008

Country of origin

France

Crews

TP , 3HC , ZNC , THE BULLSHITTERS

Favourite cap

Skinny Banana

Favourite letter

R… I know… I figured out too late

Why did you start
writing?

As a kid I’ve always been into drawing. I remember seeing graffitis around and being veryimpressed by the impact it had on «real life». So when I came to Shanghai, I met another french(also expatriated) guy of the same age. He was from Paris so it kinda made him very exposed totags and graffitis , while I was from the south of France. He introduced me to tagging and explainedthe basics of graffiti. There was one documentry we were wathing all the time : «Writerz» abouthow the movement started back in the days and how it came to Europe… What a punch in the face!It really motivated me when I first started. Big up to Tick with who I did my years of graffiti andlearned so much.

What is your best memory connected to graffiti?

Well I believe it was the first time that some older and confirmed graffiti artists invited us, with Tick-my mentor, to do a classic fresco with same background and matching colors on their best wall. Itfelt like we stepped up at our game a little and that we got «validated» by real artists from thescene. It was our first time doing background with paint roller, they showed us some tricks, welearned a lot. We were so stressed, super focused … It ended up really not bad and we passed anamazing day

Tell me about the first time you remember painting graffiti

First time was in Shanghai’s suburbs, between two factories using very low-quality local spraycans.The spraycans manufactured by graffiti companies were really rare and expensive in Shanghai atthat time. So we used those cheap dirty cans for few years before trying graffiti brands for the firsttime. Cans were geting stuck all the time and we had no caps to add so we always had to explosethem, this was some fun time.

How do you write your tag?

When I started graffiti it felt like tag names were mostly aggressive words with hardcore pronun-ciations, plus the top styles were pretty wild and sharp… I believe it’s one of parts that attracted meto graffiti. But I liked humor as well and self-mockery, so I decided to get a «ridiculous» name whenlinked to graffiti (with all the respect I have for the amazing food culture of Mexico). The idea wasto get a contrast between unreadable super sharp wildstyle and a non serious name. Also to methe ideal was 5 letters and I wanted to share the first letter with my real name (Tom). After meetinga new friend with spanish roots and a few jokes about mexican food (reminder : I was 13) I finallyended up with «Tacos» as a tag name.

What were the biggest challenges when starting to do graffiti?

Just daring to paint a wall, even if it’s a legal one : You are not used to proportions, you get im-pressed by the cans behavior, it’s embarassing because if what you draw is not good it feels likeeveryone sees that you suck… Also some oldschoolers are not really welcoming to newbies andmake you understand that you shouldn’t spray here or shouldn’t even spray at all for some reasons.All of this can get you discouraged plus t’s money, time and energy consuming

Three best advises for new graffiti writers?

• Don’t be intimidated by oldschoolers that draw Mickey Mouse on the walls.
• Break the code , don’t be afraid to come with something different.
• Be humble and respect other artists’s work even if it doesn’t speak to you

Graffiti is my main hobby since I’m 13 and it impacted my whole career, it made me be into typogra-phy and illustration then led me to study graphic design till I finally became a product designer.

We asked Tacos to make a GraffitiBible tag in his style

VISIT GRAFFITI WRITER Tacos ON HIS PAGE:

https://www.instagram.com/tacosone/