butts off to get these scholarships, on some real shit, tattooing is the same
way. It helped me get completely out of the projects. I don’t have to struggle.
I don’t have to worry about my bills and everything right now. When I was
still tattooing it took me across the world. I’m a country boy raised in Atlanta
I ain’t know shit about city life at all. But tattooing got me where I needed to
be so nobody can use any excuses. If you do it right, follow the steps and
study the artists before you like I studied the artists before me and follow the
blueprint and improve on the blueprint; you can’t lose but you can’t reinvent
the wheel. Everybody tries to reinvent the wheel and they fall on their face.
What advice would you give to any up-and-coming artists; tattoo artists, sculptors, etc of any color?
Always be original. Study the artists before you. You can study their blueprint without copying it. You can always improve on a blueprint; it’s already
set before you. Again, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel but you may
make it a little smoother so it runs better. So the whole entire thing is to
study the craft, study the artists before you, study the history of it and be
original. Also, just study the business of it because it’s common sense. Everything is right in front of you. The way Picasso was so successful was because he created a whole bunch of different styles, he was consistent and
his personality. All his stuff flowed together. You gotta come hard and you
gotta sell yourself. Don’t let nobody waste your time. If they don’t respect
you as an artist, get the hell on. Always give your energy to the people who
support you one hundred percent. Don’t try to win everybody over, that’s
when you lose; that’s when you’re selling out. If you got ten people who
like your stuff then focus on those ten. Those ten people will turn to twenty,
those twenty will turn to forty and those forty will turn to eighty. You‘ll be sitting there with a little bit more money than when you started. Only focus on
the people who like your stuff. Don’t try to mass appeal everybody. That’s
when your art gets diluted. You’re changing your stuff because you’re trying to please everybody. Let everybody else come to you. The masses always cross over to the hot shit in the underground; it’s never the other way
around. Look at tattoo culture, look at hip hop, look at jazz music.... Control
your stuff and do business. If you’re not good with business get someone
around you who you can trust to do your business so you can be the artist.
I’m forty and I’m just now getting my first personal assistant this year. I did
my own PR work, my own managing, my own accounting, my own every158