The Writing On The Wall

Graffiti pioneer Darryl McCray won't let himself get forgotten.

by Emily Currier

Neal Santos TAGALONG: Darryl "Cornbread" McCray has left his mark everywhere from everyday brick walls to the Jackson 5's private jet.

[ graffiti art ]

Cornbread is a living legend in our midst, and you've probably never even heard of him. While a 2007 documentary on the artist calls Cornbread the father of modern graffiti writing, his — and Philadelphia's — role in the genre's development is frequently overlooked in the local hip-hop community. "It's a culture that [Philadelphia] started and walked away from," Cornbread laments. "When I go to New York, I am well-received, well-received, much loved. I don't get that here in Philadelphia."

Visiting Cornbread, born Darryl McCray, requires a trip through the outskirts of North Philadelphia, to a block where crumbling townhouse façades look as if they've barely survived a natural disaster. Across from the homes are projects lined in a neat row and splashed garishly with oversize murals. Cornbread proudly proclaims he was born and raised in Brewerytown — though his original tags popped up all over the city. The walls of his modest apartment are lined with framed posters and pictures that celebrate his stature among those in the graffiti know. Wearing a yellow shirt bearing his own moniker, Cornbread amiably invites me to take a seat on his coach and cracks open a fat scrapbook overflowing with newspaper clippings, film offers, photographs and e-mails from art collectors.

Admitting to a past that includes numerous arrests and problems with drugs, Cornbread says he's come full-circle: He's now a youth mentor who lectures at local universities like Drexel and Temple. He receives occasional recognition — he'll be exhibiting at this weekend's Art + Soul Food festival in Brewerytown, he's busy organizing the Bomber's Festival, a neighborhood cleanup and artist festival set for later this summer; and in 2015, he'll be part of a Smithsonian Institution exhibit on American hip-hop.

Cornbread began graffiti writing before most better-known NYC graffiti artists were even alive, he says. In 1965, Cornbread, then 11 years old, was sent to a reform school where he picked up his alias. (He'd begged the school's cook to serve cornbread like his grandmother used to make.) During that time, people were understandably wary of graffiti, which was typically used to denote gang territories. Cornbread found a way to circumvent more violent forms of gang initiation: "Gang members used to come to me because I was a poetic writer and I used to write poetic love letters to their girlfriends for them. ... And when I got out [of reform school], I made it my business to go visit every gang I was in [juvie] with and drink wine with them. And that was my pass to get around the city without getting beat up."

With the freedom to move between gang territories, Cornbread left his mark throughout entire neighborhoods. "The more [people] talked about me," he says, admitting to the siren song of celebrity, "the more I wrote." Unlike gang members or political activists, Cornbread simply wanted to garner attention with his large, scrawling tags. "It was a phase that I was going through," he says. "I eventually would've grown out of it until the media announced my death." He's referring to a 1971 newspaper article claiming that a boy nicknamed "Corn," who had been shot dead, was behind the "Cornbread" tags. "That was a prescription for disaster," says the artist, who remembers feeling even more than ever that he had something to prove. "I knew what I had to do to bring my name back from the dead."

So Cornbread began coating his name everywhere — all over brick walls, subway cars and police vehicles, on an elephant at the Philadelphia Zoo, even on the Jackson 5's private jet. Having pulled off such ridiculous tagging feats, Cornbread seemed a natural candidate for the graffiti wall of fame, or at least some recognition. Instead, an article published in '71 by The New York Times drew the country's attention to the NYC graffiti scene — and an artist called Taki 183. "I am the graffiti writer," says Cornbread, explaining the difference between himself and those who've garnered more publicity. "The graffiti artist is the one that gets money. A lot of artists are worth more in death than in life."

In a medium contested as simple vandalism, only a handful of artists — such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Shepard Fairey — have gained professional credibility making graffiti in the U.S.; Cornbread is not among them. (The 1975 film Cornbread, Earl, and Me isn't about the artist, nor did the filmmakers ask his permission to use his name.)

In 2007, he was the focus of the feature documentary Cry of the City Part 1: The Legend of Cornbread. "I thought it was important to tell his story because he's a compelling person," says director Sean McKnight. "Cornbread's tale is at the heart of the birth of hip-hop."

But the genre pioneer won't stop there: Cornbread dreams of the day when a Hollywood movie with an all-star cast will garner him the recognition he feels he deserves and the attention he has always craved. According to McKnight, that yen for celebrity is well-earned. "What Cornbread did in the '60s," he says, "was to bring graffiti into the spotlight so everyone could see it."

(editorial@citypaper.net)

Art + Soul Food, Sat., June 12, 2-6 p.m., 2500-2900 blocks of Girard Avenue, artplussoulfood.com.