Interview with YO BRC by Dani Bretaña
Dani Bretaña: It is May 6th 2024 I’m here with YO BRC from Medellín,Colombia. . Hey how’s it going ?
YO:All good , I’m here.
DB:I want to start off with some questions about BRC … What do the letters BRC stand for ?
YO:So BRC its like the abbreviation of Bowl Ratt Crew..and that’s the most simple way of answering the question.. or maybe Bowl Ratt Colombian .. its become sort of a flow of things.. just doing letters and they just flow together and blend together, the B the R the C. Hahaha So, its like making a way to put together all the stuff that BowlRatt represents in the streets.. Because (the word) BowlRatt is really long and sometimes we do the BOWLRATT whole thing but BRC was a way of doing a more quick flow. Lately I’ve been writing a lot BowlRatt completely , the whole BowlRatt... A lot of it was LOW started writing first. Then everyone..the crew started more with guys doing murals , art from college started doing art and Bowl Ratt was like a skate gang from the bowl in Medellin. And then Low started writing more and he stopped thinking about logos and branding and like drawings or murals and he started writing more. So he realized that just taking those 3 first letters it would become like grittier and flow better and become more recognizable and also it does not have to be in English , just has to be the letters. And tnen it means other stuff .. Buenos Recursos Colombia .. I sometimes write ——Spanish—— Baliamos Ritmos Caliente.. It became more like a graffiti coded way of recognizing each other and developing a style. That’s what the letters do for us..They motivate us to keep doing graffiti and to train the mind with those 3 letters.and the body…and the soul.hahahah
DB:When it transitioned to the letters,it was around what year ?
YO:I think it was 2016- 2017 that it started to be for real. Before that 2012 sometime like that there was the logo with the 2 stripes and the smiley face and the cross.
DB:The two T’s.
YO:Esso, Yes the two T’s That was BowlRatt really old, 2010 - 2011 and with spray paint you could see the logo around and then other members 2012,13,14 were doing arts with Bowl Ratt concepts , you know.. like skating , streets, the night, hanging around .. and then after a trip Low did around Latin America he started writing so he started developing that shit and in 2017 we became more close.. we used to not be much of friends because the crew everyone is from the south and I am not , I’m from another part of the city .. the east of the city.
DB:What’s the place ?
YO:Communa 13, I always lived there so it was the other pole like opposite poles so It was kind of hard for me to move that way.. in 2017 Low and me became closer because of a place we used to be together at the university. I remember those days. “Oh BRC I just want to write those three letters too.. I’m gonna write it too..” So we started doing it more, then Birol, Garra…. Garra took the next year 2018 Garra took that shit like a virus.. he became crazy with that .. he started spraying all around. So those 3 guys Birol, Garra, Low they showed the way of doing that and also the graffiti was starting to become bigger in Medellin… there is more graffiti now than those years..So we are learning the way too. There were people before us doing it big so we are still learning from them and all that but now we are creating our own lane and using all of the stuff we see around and know..
DB:So you guys have the more active graffiti people within the crew but also its just a lot of other friends , skaters ?
YO:
I think BowlRatt, that thing represents something that is way beyond control … When graffiti started there were like 20 people doing BowlRatt tags and alot of people doing BRC too because they felt they were represented by that kind of relationship with skating, and with the city , and the nights, with excesses. It’s kind of like a lot of things that BowlRatt represents like excess and keep going hard at life . So there were many people that became friends … we have the graffiti skating guys , the streets guys , it just happens people become identified with the concept .. BowlRatt is this group who used to share skating .. and there’s a core group and they know who they are but I couldn’t even say a number hahaha it’s a lot of people .. but within graffiti we are just a few . The other people have their names from skating mostly or just being in Medellin city .. Bowl Ratt is more a thing in Medellin with skating , with the night .... with the excess.
DB:Okay … so but the Bowl Ratt headquarters is from Cuatro Sur ?
YO:It became like that but it used to be.. way even before I became friends with them, because I became friends with them more from graffiti than skate. I know when I started to hang out with them more at the bowl in Ciudad de Rio, that’s where the name comes from, cause that was the only bowl in Medellin the only skatepark that was shaped like that.. Cuatro Sur came way after… that place (Ciudad de Rio) used to be and still is kind of weird cause its like this skatepark with all of this excess in the night which is like in the middle of this really privileged neighborhood , Poblado , Industriales in the middle of buildings and rich people there was this group .. this cult hahaha to the bowl, this cult of rats to the bowl.. and it became like that .. that’s where the name comes from - Bowl Ratt.. Cuatro Sur came more possible to skate because its under the bridge and then there was more rats.. but yeah the main place was Ciudad de Rio bowl..
There were guys that were extremely talented skating there. They spent all day and night there because they studied in a place near there, so they came out of school and skated all day and night. If it’s the weekend stay up, go to the park, drink, sleep at the bowl. Wake up skate. That was the lifestyle they were living those days. It didn’t even matter, guys from everywhere , mostly from the south but from every social place.. every like ..how do I say that English… social strata ?
DB: Socio economic …social stratification ?
YO:Yeah whatever, they were just there sharing and skating. You know that is the whole philosophy behind it, skating, sharing , and skating .
DB:And you’ve seen Wittoto recently?
YO:Yeah hmmm.. at the moment Wittoto , the situation.. its difficult to talk about for this interview .
DB:So what are your thoughts of Medellin , with the gentrification , with the money , with opportunity ?
YO: Yea yea, there’s this complex process here. I mean like so wide to talk about that it becomes hard to start. The city has increased its tourist income the last ten years really heavily . In 2010 ,14 or 15 years ago, the city made a really big change. There was this South American games, sports. A bunch of countries were invited in with sports and disciplines and that became a main priority for the city. “We need to create this hospitality system in the city for the tourists.” Because the public policies, especially with public space, became really heavy.So they built the stadium and the complex .. They completely renewed the space they created these big structures you know. In the whole metropolitan area they constructed a lot of sports areas and changed the areas surrounding them so it was a big tourism attraction and it was a whole different pace for Medellin.
You know the other stories ,it was known the narcos and this used to be a really dangerous city . In any neighborhood in the city you could be sitting at a restaurant or at your house and boom! a car explodes. Way back in the 80s and the 90s there was a really heavy war between the state and the cartels. So when they did that in 2010, that thing like changed heavily because of those sport complexes. Those sports complexes also showed that tourism like ..how do I say.. they are not just tourists who come here and party .. they are working but they want to know the city too and party too after … the whole places around sports complexes became more friendly .. easy to access, things were cheap. Most of the tourists were Latin American so the money wasn’t so different.. one Mexican peso is not as much as dollar in Colombian pesos you know what I mean .
DB: The conversion ?
YO:Yes the conversion yea it was less , so everything was more balanced during those years and the city took a big improvement but it was an improvement that was done with this purpose of sports like public use and those places are public and the skateparks are kind of the same. It created this policy of public space, of use of public space. So eventually people will have more respect over the city properties and between foreigners, tourists, and locals there wasn’t as much of a gap. But in maybe 2016 or so the policies around the things I was saying they got stuck. So what went ahead was a greater tourist based policy so it was more like we need people to come and enjoy the city like a joy ride like an attraction park , amusement park. So they go to the metro and you can to Comuna 13 and go to the stairs and take the cable and take the metro back and take it to Centro and then take it to Poblado. So the Metro is a tourist and local land markof the city that works really good both ways. It works as an amusement attraction , amusement park transport and also works as a worker commute. It does both things , that because its design has been redone multiple times.. the metro has 28-29 years now and it’s constantly doing that. It’s the main reason why the city changed , the Metro in the 90s. So when they stopped doing everything with the sports installations ..venues the city just became this weird vestige of private investments and hotels like with weird cash grab restaurants like a “Spanish “ gringo catcher venues. That became the norm for the city , so the locals started like taking advantage of that and becoming more mmmm like the word I said earlier Osmosis hmmm like in the same cell of those spaces there was no real process behind , just like lets get money and see what happens from there.
What I’m trying to get to is that the public policy became really sloppy when it comes to that sort of circuit. And it became really attractive to people with money from USA, Europe, and Asia and it became attractive because they could use the conversion and have lots of money and treat the Colombian peso like tokens. So they just being using tokens to get on attractions, to get prostitutes and how do you say… penthouse for really cheap and they couldn’t do that in their own countries because it was too expensive. So that kind of became the underground policy for the administration because it also helped the organized crime of the city … when those sports venues … upgrades happened there was like this pact So the gangs wouldn’t kill each other during the game. So the city had these fake peace treaties and that kind of stuff happens all the time with the local administrations because they just can’t handle the organized crime they just can’t fight against them. The state doesn’t have the way of doing that thing in a safe way because Colombia ,Medellin well Colombia in general is in this limit of the narco wars… going back to what was happening in the 80s and 90s there were these shootouts like happening in Mexico because its a bigger land, and here it’s always this close to happening but it doesn’t because there are a lot of underground agreements and things with gangs and the governments..” keep selling drugs here for 2 months and we won’t doing anything … and in two months we are gonna be here raiding so you can be ready when we come”… Shit like that .. These kind of political grounds are really good for sex tourism and exploitation and drug abuse and narco tours and it works really good because when people come and do that shit they think they are really living the city they are really knowing what is going on in the city. But the real identity and the real like “Linfa” lymphatic system of the city is within the hustle the grind. Thats what makes Medellin people , bonds Medellin people . Like going to the street like Wittoto used to do , having this little box with candy … “like candy candy candy ..buy a little a sweet. “ That’s what bonds people together. You go to the street now you are gonna run into maybe like 5 people selling you with bags of candy in every street, they are from Venezuela , from Casanare From some Antioquia place and they buy a bag of candy to sell you cause that’s how they can blend into the whole real people system because that’s how you find ways to get respect and get to know people that are hospitable that aren’t interested in your status or your money or your networking stuff. You are living in this raw life experience so that’s what is mostly happening and it has been a really heavy process of making the living of locals really difficult and really disconnected. LIke here we don’t have this real , i don’t know like generational ..dreams or inheritance, como hereditary, like we don’t that, we are really disappointed of it and we are want to find something new and create from those places towards another underground structure so that’s how things are here.
And when the tourists come here they dont have the time to see that thing develop ,it’s just this amusement park… giving out tokens .. they’re not even giving out money they are using tokens. Just spending for spending .. or when they do invest it’s within the same system. Those types of gears for me they are wrong… at the same time I used to be more pessimistic because I’ve also met cool people.. I’m saying a lot of people come here and they just don’t look.. They just don’t want to see local people in the eyes.. That’s really weird to me .. they don’t look at the eyes.. They just say how much is this? They know how it works for them and they take advantage of it for their own sake. So locals we have it rough, we have to hustle, we have to do that but it’s always been that way and its gonna be that way all the time. This is a city in a constant dispute.It is a strategic place everyone wants to do things here and things from here. I got neighbors that really have to husle and across the street there is this place where they just hire hookers all day and night and have a jacuzzi and gringos . The city has its own cosmopolitan process that’s happening now in a heavy way. In the last three years the city became the most touristic in the country, more than Cartenhega more than Bogota. I think it’s mainly because of the weather but also because the kind of controlled chaos that is the city because of its mountains, the limits it has, geographic limits, a corral perspective … But to go back to answer your question in a simple way .. I think that this process we are living , I kind of took from 2010 to now is not going to change, it’s going to keep being this way for a lot of time. This is what the national government pushes in a really strange way , this whole tourism infection.. Tourism is a way of fighting against crime but in the cultural artistic aspect of it there is a really big gap, a really huge gap. There are alot of people who come to Colombia and they don’t know , they don’t get to meet the real Colombian art and culture codes. They just take these whole wrong ideas and write it all around the world, create these stupid networks around tourist stuff. I think that’s where we ,as like an underground group Bowl Ratt those lymphatic highways or canals, we help to get to know people like you or Goog, the graffiti guys, the skate guys. It’s a way of joining them, meeting them and letting them know the city in a more complex and difficult way of knowing it , not just the easy token way which is going to prostitutes or good hotels or going to Poblado. The perspective of underground culture like graffiti , skating, rap, even like the crime a lot of times helps in viewing the city or creating a different bond or connections that are more important for us, for the locals. Because we want to look each other in the eye and to not be ashamed of being here, which happens, you become ashamed because you know what’s happening and you cant do shit.. You just consume and blend in..
DB:So you talked about the “Linfa” … I guess the tourists and their systems aren’t really related to that but it has to respond to that and keep an identity with these changes… Like maybe the everyday people of the centro they aren’t really being affected by the tourists for good or bad.. Because i think the identity does not come from Poblado .. the real culture is the little details, the slang, the music , the food, the life that happens in December for example.
YO:The hustle..the “Guerriarla “thats the main identity for people . that’s why I was talking about the candy in the bag.. There is this thing there’s a tourist and an immigrant… here in Medellin the migrants on the surface have it harder because people will reject them at first but in the long run they get to know the hussle systems so they will move better but the tourists comes here with the token bag and thinks “oh its so easy, everyone is so good to me.. “But everyone is trying to hustle them , to play them, to trick them most of the time.. So the real identity of the city if there is one is in there ,the hustle, the ways of the hustle.. Cause you are gonna learn how it works and be part of it to really feel like you are really getting to feel the city, the body of the city, the people of the city. When you just come here with a bunch of cash and just throw it away you will end differently . That’s the network developed with the tokens, it’s a system made for tokens so the city just gets tokens. What those tokens translates into is fake investments, fake improvement in the quality of living , fake communities, fake places… so when you engage in that token environment your codes, your system of codes is fake.. Only filled with masks, no real thought no real… I don’t know.. pain . Thats a big issue here the comfort industries taking over hustle. And I really don’t think hustle is the greatest thing ever , I’m not romanticizing hustle.. It kind of looks like it but i think that through hustle you get to know life more, through comfort you just become nihilistic alienated, a constant user .
Everyone knows what a token is what money is. I want to try to say some [more] things in English to end the idea. I had friends and people I know in both of those spectrums who really hustle and people who are comfortable and I really like the fact that we can look each other in the eyes and help untangle this whole shit. For me it’s like, there is this whole narrative and we have been all part of it . Like hating tourists, xenophobia, poor phobia too and phobia of migrants and i think that all those things are really bad and wrong actually really wrong cause those things will always end up in a community hate and I don’t think that’s good because you need to direct hate towards creations towards I don’t know like community creation… You might have more voices, more perspective and sometimes when you don’t agree with perspectives you can’t create dialogue between those things and create new communities. It doesn’t have to be like famous communities like everyone knows.. The thing is underground communities are what saves lives and saves the planet from its inevitable doom. The weather crisis and the way we handle things so i think thats the main conclusion. Your senses open and exercise them all the time so you can be really active and connected part of a city. If it’s Medellin it’s Medellin or whatever city even little towns or whole countries. So learn how to argue or even to fight people but don’t cancel them just because they come from ignorance or they are learning, do it if they just keep insisting on being imbeciles that abuse their power and their commodities.
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Our first fair ! Thank You to Brooklyn Art Book Fair Staff, Volunteers, and Visitors !!!!
9/20-9/22/2004
