Speaker 1: All media. Los Angeles, California, a place that I love
Speaker 1: almost the tears, which if you know anything about who
Speaker 1: prop is propaganda in me, Jason, this is not news
Speaker 1: to you. A native born and raised lived all over
Speaker 1: the place. I've once I got a bus pass of
Speaker 1: the driver's license. I can't think of any part of
Speaker 1: town that I don't have a memory in, whether it
Speaker 1: was a homies house, a kickbag, a party, some hood
Speaker 1: rat things, checking up on some cut paths. You know,
Speaker 1: I listen. I love this town. I feel like not
Speaker 1: only the town, but the greater Los Angeles area, the SGV.
Speaker 1: You know, I got the six to six tattooed on
Speaker 1: my back. You know, I went to high school in Ie.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all noticed. My sister is still in the Ie,
Speaker 1: My aunt and m still in South Central, my daddy
Speaker 1: in Pomona, and I'm right here in East Lost like
Speaker 1: we were deep here. I married in my wife from
Speaker 1: HP what we would call like Southeast La. So like
Speaker 1: going down to seventeen, not the seventeen that's like your
Speaker 1: South Gates, your cutahee, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park, like my
Speaker 1: in laws are in Bellflower. I love this place. I
Speaker 1: got roots all over it and of course the time
Speaker 1: on or tradition that this podcast has used as a springboard,
Speaker 1: which is just la gang life. It's a part of
Speaker 1: our experience. But gang life, as in crips and bloods
Speaker 1: is a very specific experience. That of course, is what
Speaker 1: got exported across the world. You know when we did
Speaker 1: the Banging in Little Rock episode, why are there rolling
Speaker 1: sixty crypts in Kansas? You know, we talked about this before.
Speaker 1: A thing that's gotten exported all all over the world.
Speaker 1: There are things that come out of your mouth that
Speaker 1: y'all keep calling gen z or you know, hip slang
Speaker 1: that's really gang talk. Things that y'all don't know is
Speaker 1: gang talk is la. We there are Brooklyn Bloods like
Speaker 1: the it's we have exported a certain thing, and not
Speaker 1: only that as an export. As one of the things
Speaker 1: we exported the Chicano culture lowriders, you know, the smile now,
Speaker 1: cry later stuff like all that type of like drawing
Speaker 1: in handstyles and lettering that's Chicano. You look in Japan,
Speaker 1: you go through Osaka, you would think you in East La.
Speaker 1: It's the most bizarre. It's like it messes with your
Speaker 1: brain because it's like, man, y'all do Chicanos sometimes better
Speaker 1: than we do Chicano Like. It's it's the most I
Speaker 1: can't I can't explain it. This is the part of
Speaker 1: LA that I fell in love with that I grew
Speaker 1: up in. Notice I haven't mentioned anything about Hollywood. Of
Speaker 1: course y'all know about that. Of course, this is the
Speaker 1: entertainment capital of the world. Of course, the hollywod signed
Speaker 1: Griffith Park. You know, the La that the Chili Peppers
Speaker 1: talked about, the La that the Doors talked about. LA
Speaker 1: from the sixties, the flower Power, the Troubadour as a
Speaker 1: venue that launched a thousand careers, the Laurel Canyon scene
Speaker 1: I have. I'm not even talking about that. Los Angeles
Speaker 1: creates culture, and if you cut me open, I'm a
Speaker 1: bleed it. But there's one thing that I want to
Speaker 1: talk about today that has now become a tourist attraction
Speaker 1: that has been in my mind not only what saved
Speaker 1: my life. I mean this quite literally, but as a
Speaker 1: beacon of culture, shaping language, cruise, and fashion, and that
Speaker 1: is our graffiti. We blanket cities with beautiful rainbows of
Speaker 1: art that some may call vandalism. And if those that
Speaker 1: do graffiti are honest. They call it vandalism because that's
Speaker 1: what it is. But I tell you what our newest
Speaker 1: tourist attraction that I would love to talk to y'all
Speaker 1: about right now is the Los Angeles downtown Graphebee towers
Speaker 1: hook politics, y'all, all right, CALLI folk. I love this
Speaker 1: because this is this moment is such a cross section
Speaker 1: of politics, culture, you know, urban life, hip hop is
Speaker 1: a cross section in the story we about to see
Speaker 1: right now, economy, everything. So if you're driving, you know,
Speaker 1: down the ten ten Freeway, Chris crosses the entire nation.
Speaker 1: But when you're coming in, let's say you're coming in
Speaker 1: from the you're gonna go through first, You're gonna you know,
Speaker 1: cut through all the deserts, the Palm Springs, Joshua Tree.
Speaker 1: Then you're gonna hit the Inland Empire. And then after
Speaker 1: you hit the end of the Empire, you're gonna hit
Speaker 1: the San Gabriol Valley. The middle part. You know this
Speaker 1: like Alhambra, Rosemead, San Gabriel Right before you get to
Speaker 1: the seven ten, when you hit City Terrace, you're gonna
Speaker 1: see col State, La. Once you hit cal this is
Speaker 1: going down the ten, and once you hit Colstaate La,
Speaker 1: you're officially in Los Angeles. You're about to go through
Speaker 1: City Terrace Boyle Heights and then have a chance to
Speaker 1: split and either go up the five to get you
Speaker 1: into Hollywood area or like Schefez Ravine to go to
Speaker 1: the Dodger Stadium, or you're gonna swing a little bit
Speaker 1: a few blocks south to connect to the rest of
Speaker 1: the ten alongside the La River. Now this is I'm
Speaker 1: doing this on purpose because it's it's very important for
Speaker 1: the context. Now you're going to be driving through this
Speaker 1: stretch that runs along the downtown bridges where most like
Speaker 1: movie scenes when people are driving through the you know,
Speaker 1: having the high speed chases and they're like driving through gutters,
Speaker 1: that's the La River. Now you're on your way going
Speaker 1: into through the Arts District, into downtown Flower District. You
Speaker 1: know Jeelry, the Diamond District, Jewelry, like, all of this
Speaker 1: is happening right here. Now you're about to get into
Speaker 1: La Live. This is where the Lakers play at Crypto Arena,
Speaker 1: used to be Staples, the Oscars. It all happens here
Speaker 1: a place that if you grew up here, you know
Speaker 1: that downtown was blade Runner zombie land. We used to
Speaker 1: think as kids, this was the most lackluster downtown, like
Speaker 1: it was nothing, like just nothing, because it had its glory,
Speaker 1: like there's like the super beautiful like the Belasco, the
Speaker 1: Mayan Theater, Orpheum Theater, these places downtown that you could
Speaker 1: tell in like, you know, twenties and thirties was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it must have been cracking over here. Then it died.
Speaker 1: Downtown died until the Lakers left Englewood the form and
Speaker 1: they started building La Live when they built the Staples Arena,
Speaker 1: and it brought life back to downtown and it became
Speaker 1: a place that now I mean kicking in all the time.
Speaker 1: You get beautiful high rise buildings, dope bars, and just
Speaker 1: a really dope like culture and nightlife. If you're single,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't have kids and lay down there.
Speaker 1: But it's also there's quite a serious homeless issue down there.
Speaker 1: It's back. But a few blocks from Crypto towering over
Speaker 1: are four high rises that are a little different than
Speaker 1: the other high rise builds because they're blanketed with a
Speaker 1: who's who of Los Angeles graffiti riders. And it happened
Speaker 1: this year. It is one of the dopest Okay, wait,
Speaker 1: let me not say how dope I think it is
Speaker 1: because I need to, like, I need to tell you
Speaker 1: the story behind it before we get into it. But like,
Speaker 1: it's the dope. I'm sorry. I said I wouldn't go
Speaker 1: do it, but I have to do it as sciting.
Speaker 1: It's the dopest thing the La Graffiti scene. It's four
Speaker 1: towers right that are abandoned. And I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you the whole story about this in this podcast, especially
Speaker 1: for the LA folks that are listening to this. If
Speaker 1: you ever wondered, like how this happened and why ain't
Speaker 1: nothing happening? Since I hope they leave it there. They're
Speaker 1: not going to leave it there. But here's the thing. So,
Speaker 1: it's these four towers that were supposed to be these
Speaker 1: fancy lofts, right, fancy high rise apartments overlooking Crypto, overlooking
Speaker 1: downtown luxury apartment lofts that they're supposed to be. Ain't
Speaker 1: nobody worked on them since twenty nineteen, And the La
Speaker 1: Graffiti Scene showed up and showed out every floor from
Speaker 1: the bottom all the way up to the top. Each
Speaker 1: artist took a floor all the way into the skyline,
Speaker 1: it's burners and pieces from the top all the way
Speaker 1: to the bottom, and it just kept getting bigger. It
Speaker 1: was the greatest gift we got in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: It started in January and it got filled in a month.
Speaker 1: It became national news because of what I'm about to explain,
Speaker 1: which is the tics of it all. But before I
Speaker 1: do that, let me talk about graffiti. Graffiti's a Latin word,
Speaker 1: maybe it's Greek, one of those, it's argued, but the
Speaker 1: argument is the first graffiti that they've seen came in
Speaker 1: during like the Roman Empire. Graffiti has to do with
Speaker 1: usually or historically, by definition, is a political message. It's
Speaker 1: not necessarily vandalism because vandalism has to do with property ownership,
Speaker 1: all right, So if there is no ownership of the
Speaker 1: location of the griffit, we cannot call this vandalism because
Speaker 1: and the eyes of the law, as we know, and
Speaker 1: if you listen to anything on cool Zone, you understand
Speaker 1: that the law really only exists to protect property and
Speaker 1: protecting us. You always say you're trying to protect property. Now,
Speaker 1: like anything else, things that were seen as a nuisance,
Speaker 1: if you give it some time, becomes gallery work and
Speaker 1: celebrated right, you take somebody like Basquiat, it's a craft writer.
Speaker 1: We consider him one of the first. Now you pay
Speaker 1: millions of dollars for it. Right, I'm gonna jump around here.
Speaker 1: But like the drawings and illustrations of somebody like a
Speaker 1: mister Cartoon who essentially tattooed every rapper you've ever met.
Speaker 1: You get a mister Cartoon tattooed, right, those faces like
Speaker 1: I said earlier, the smile now cry later. The type
Speaker 1: of lettering, this type of like high calligraphy that you
Speaker 1: guys would be like, oh that's gangster writing. It's mister Cartoon.
Speaker 1: Big Sleeps, defer These people like og slick, right, these
Speaker 1: guys you know those la the la finger that Esteban
Speaker 1: took of the girl the black and white picture where
Speaker 1: she's throwing up la. So he has one. But they're
Speaker 1: like Mickey Mouse cartoon hands. So that's slick. If you've
Speaker 1: ever worn a hurly shirt that looked slightly like street wear,
Speaker 1: that's Big Sleeps. These names who when I was a preteen,
Speaker 1: these were the guys that I've said before. When I
Speaker 1: was a child and driving from this city called Melinda,
Speaker 1: right right, unincorporated area between West Covina and La Pointe,
Speaker 1: twenty minutes east of South Central. Driving there to my
Speaker 1: grandmother's house on sixty seventh to San Pedro and south
Speaker 1: on the east side of South Central Los Angeles, you
Speaker 1: have to cross over this one of these sections, depending
Speaker 1: on which way we went, you're crossing the La River.
Speaker 1: These since it's paved, it would be these ginormous to me,
Speaker 1: larger than life. I just these paintings, these letterings, this,
Speaker 1: they were these characters. And if y'all know me again,
Speaker 1: my first love, before music, before anything, was I went
Speaker 1: to school for illustration. I went to school. I was
Speaker 1: gonna be an artist. And why because of graffiti? Why
Speaker 1: I rapped graffiti? This is that was my entry to
Speaker 1: hip hop. Was whatever that is, that's I want to
Speaker 1: be a part of whatever that is. It just it
Speaker 1: was so colorful and vibrant in this area that was
Speaker 1: so invested in, you know, infested with violence and gang
Speaker 1: and just knowing that this was like ghetto art, like
Speaker 1: we were making this. There wasn't no guy went on,
Speaker 1: no T shirts. We were making this, and it just
Speaker 1: captured my imagination in a way nothing else did. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm ahead of myself. These people weren't getting paid for
Speaker 1: this stuff. These people weren't having you know, mister cartoon
Speaker 1: got a Modello commercial. This stuff does not the fifty
Speaker 1: years of of hip hop, you know, the hip hop
Speaker 1: to infinity, these like interactive like that wasn't happening. These
Speaker 1: people were criminals if we were running from the law.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite one is Chaka, who's from my hood.
Speaker 1: They did a whole, a whole like news expos say
Speaker 1: about him because he gets because he used to get
Speaker 1: up everywhere. Nobody understood how he was able to get up.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you some I need to I'm saying
Speaker 1: vocabulary before I explain it to you. Get up just
Speaker 1: means he got his name on a wall somewhere. You
Speaker 1: were able to get up somewhere. Anyway, This was the
Speaker 1: world that introduced me to everything. But at the time
Speaker 1: they were the scourge, and to the general public there
Speaker 1: was no distinction between, which made no sense to me.
Speaker 1: Sense to me because it was so easy to see
Speaker 1: a distinction between destruction of property, vandalism or like marking
Speaker 1: of territory, because all they saw was writing on the wall,
Speaker 1: and it was so obvious to me. What was the boundary, marking,
Speaker 1: markings of a neighborhood gang versus a throw up or
Speaker 1: a piece. Now these are again, let me just give
Speaker 1: you those vocabulary. A throw up is like you run up.
Speaker 1: You're scribbling as fast as you can, working on your handstyles.
Speaker 1: The way your handstyles is like the style for which
Speaker 1: you write your letters. So you throw up your handstyle,
Speaker 1: which is your throw up real quick. That's where you
Speaker 1: got up. That's your name. If for me it was props,
Speaker 1: because I've always been propaganda. So just my quicks, props,
Speaker 1: my little circle, copyright, my little arrow under the bottom.
Speaker 1: So you just throw that up, get out of there.
Speaker 1: A lot of times you would sometimes you would go
Speaker 1: to like you would do sticks where you would go
Speaker 1: to a post office and get those like just the
Speaker 1: sticker sheets or the hello my name is. We would
Speaker 1: just give reams of those things and you just practice
Speaker 1: your handstyles and then you would throw them on stop signs,
Speaker 1: throw them on this right. So just burner is a
Speaker 1: little takes a little more time. A lot of times
Speaker 1: those are like one or two color kind of bubble letters,
Speaker 1: but they're larger your piece. That's like a mirror. A
Speaker 1: lot of times pieces are done by whole crews. But
Speaker 1: they are like the size of the building, multi colored,
Speaker 1: and they they I mean, they take a long time.
Speaker 1: I am trying to take you to a time for
Speaker 1: which we didn't have a place like the Arts District,
Speaker 1: which when you drive through the Arts District in LA
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is graffiti. Like we a lot of
Speaker 1: us have records because of this stuff and some of
Speaker 1: the dudes doing it, one of them, the homie Vile.
Speaker 1: I know Vile's work because he used to do these
Speaker 1: eyes and I'm like on fourth and a Lamita, I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's Vile like these like these and he is a
Speaker 1: legend now. But they were criminals. Okay, the culture is
Speaker 1: so strange, but like this thing that became what it
Speaker 1: became in Los Angeles of course, or just as far
Speaker 1: as hip hop's concern comes out of New York, let's
Speaker 1: let's be real comes out of New York. The subway train,
Speaker 1: things that like if you ever see you know, Beach
Speaker 1: Street or Wild Style, which of course it's like it
Speaker 1: is really dated, but if you can, just if you
Speaker 1: could suspend reality, please go see these two movies, like
Speaker 1: to understand the New York of it all. As far
Speaker 1: as like him is concerned. Where a lot of this
Speaker 1: stuff came from. There was a lot that had to do,
Speaker 1: especially with the subway trains, because you only had like
Speaker 1: a few inches to work with in between in between
Speaker 1: these tunnels. And that was part of the game. Was
Speaker 1: you'd go in there in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: though your burner up, all your peace up on the train,
Speaker 1: and then would like wait for the morning for that
Speaker 1: train to come out. You go up to your little
Speaker 1: to your project building and look down and it was
Speaker 1: nothing more glorious than seeing that train come out of
Speaker 1: the train tunnel and the sunlight hits your piece that
Speaker 1: you didn't that you only saw in the dark, like
Speaker 1: you didn't even really get to see it, you haven't
Speaker 1: seen it from far away. That was part of you know,
Speaker 1: And those props were like now all the ghetto saw
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, your work. That was part
Speaker 1: of it. Part of it was the anonymity of like
Speaker 1: like kind of like the vigilanti, like fast as fast
Speaker 1: can be. You can't catch me like you. You can't
Speaker 1: catch these guys like you. You know the mystery of it,
Speaker 1: but like we knew, you knew who that was but
Speaker 1: like that mystery of like you know, hide your face
Speaker 1: and you just see my work Like that was part
Speaker 1: of the adrenaline. Part of the adrenaline of that it
Speaker 1: is illegal and you could get caught, Like that's part
Speaker 1: of that was part of the allure. It gets to
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. You know, we have our train bombing, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying and stuff like that. Of course
Speaker 1: we have that, but like that wasn't our culture. Our
Speaker 1: culture again was flowered by gang life. That was always
Speaker 1: a part of our culture. So we created Cruise right now,
Speaker 1: Tagging crews had a very different history because a lot
Speaker 1: of times tagging crews were there as alternatives to gang life,
Speaker 1: which is how I got into tag. It was like,
Speaker 1: well I don't I like art, but you still get
Speaker 1: the adrenaline, right, And there's still, of course territorial stuff
Speaker 1: to where it's like, you know, you have different things
Speaker 1: like consafas, which means like with safety. So like if
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tag and I put consavas, that basically means
Speaker 1: that like the neighborhood gang said, you can't touch this one,
Speaker 1: right if you cross out a khonsafas or if you
Speaker 1: cross out somebody that means we fight, and that's disrespectful anyway.
Speaker 1: What also must be mentioned was the development of what
Speaker 1: we would call tag which was in some areas, like
Speaker 1: the tagging crew was almost like a recruiting ground or
Speaker 1: entry point into joining the set. So some of them
Speaker 1: dudes were like just talented thugs. There were crews that
Speaker 1: were like, like, this dude's like a tag banger, so
Speaker 1: he's a tagger, but he's also a gangster and like
Speaker 1: the way that he moved was much more gangway than
Speaker 1: some of the other dudes that were like, we're just
Speaker 1: in this for the art. Because again LA has been
Speaker 1: like colored with gang life. That's just a part of
Speaker 1: the way colored. So yeah, there was like some dudes
Speaker 1: that were like that was their cover or places where
Speaker 1: like the big homies were recruit you know. So that's
Speaker 1: that's been a part of the culture too. All of
Speaker 1: that's there. The point is what we were able to
Speaker 1: develop as a style, as a community, and as a
Speaker 1: way for which we were able to celebrate our culture,
Speaker 1: our art, our rest in Peace murals, just like in
Speaker 1: New York, you know, are honoring our fallen stars. All
Speaker 1: of that is kind of a part of graffiti and
Speaker 1: this was our art programs. Why I understand color theory,
Speaker 1: how I was able to get into my ap art
Speaker 1: program in high school was because I came from graffiti.
Speaker 1: I already knew how to paint, already knew my primary
Speaker 1: and secondary colors, already knew perspective, already knew all that
Speaker 1: stuff because you had to do it for graf already
Speaker 1: knew how to take a drawing from my black book,
Speaker 1: my sketch book, and blow it up bigger. All that
Speaker 1: to say, this has been a historical part of all
Speaker 1: that is California. We used to call it a victimless crime,
Speaker 1: although we were lying to ourselves. Like I said before,
Speaker 1: we know there's victims here right now. There was also
Speaker 1: a place in Venice Beach that was one of the
Speaker 1: first that I know of legal yards. There's a skate
Speaker 1: park at the end of Venice Beach, right of course,
Speaker 1: y'all y'all know Muscle Beach, y'all know, the basketball court
Speaker 1: was very important. But next to that was a skate
Speaker 1: park that that was a legal yard, and a lot
Speaker 1: of graffiti writers would go over there because again it
Speaker 1: was legal. You practice your work, get your skills up,
Speaker 1: get your bars up. We would find abandoned places to
Speaker 1: go to this anyway, we would find a band in
Speaker 1: places again, go practice your handstyles, like I remember sneaking
Speaker 1: in the tunnels and abandoned storm drains that like you know,
Speaker 1: they they re routed the stuff. So we would sneak
Speaker 1: in there and work on our our skills, get you know,
Speaker 1: get our fades together, figure out how to have better
Speaker 1: can control. Why we would do it there is because
Speaker 1: it's not just about how good your art is. The
Speaker 1: location is important. That's part of the props. We would
Speaker 1: use a lot of times. That's what we would say.
Speaker 1: We say, look our our our our currency is props,
Speaker 1: you know, because there wasn't any money to be made,
Speaker 1: so it's it's the props. It's the clout. And part
Speaker 1: of the clout was location. Why we would dangle on
Speaker 1: the side of freeways. I know dudes that died because
Speaker 1: they just fell from freeway signs. It was a part
Speaker 1: of it. The adrenaline, the degree of difficulty to get
Speaker 1: the spot, for us to be like, dang, how'd you
Speaker 1: catch the spot? How you figure that out was even
Speaker 1: a part of and the quality for which you know,
Speaker 1: your reputation as you know, adult writer would be right.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about toys, like we'd be here all
Speaker 1: night talking about you know what we would consider a
Speaker 1: toy and all that good stuff. But all that leads
Speaker 1: into why this graffiti tower, Because what a spot to
Speaker 1: catch It's perfect, it's abandoned, it's downtown. Every floor is
Speaker 1: completely empty, it's not trashed. It's actually super nice. It's
Speaker 1: hiding in plain sight. It's been empty since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: No one's touching it. And then one guy gets the
Speaker 1: idea people were like doing their like base jumping and
Speaker 1: stuff off of it because it's just sitting there. And
Speaker 1: even it just sitting there is absurd in a city
Speaker 1: that has such a problem with houseless community. It's just
Speaker 1: it's just sitting here and them boys all the way
Speaker 1: to the top the lope. You gotta remember, that's why
Speaker 1: I want to give you this context. The location of
Speaker 1: your spot is also a part of it. This is
Speaker 1: why it reached legendary status. Twenty twenty four has given us.
Speaker 1: Now I can count two legendary hipop moments, this graffiti
Speaker 1: Tower and the Kindrick and Drake thing. Now the politics
Speaker 1: of it all all right, we're back. Now it's not
Speaker 1: so much. This politics I'm gonna give you is something
Speaker 1: that these adult like writers had consciously on their mind.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you this as something for us to consider
Speaker 1: as a city, how to run a budget, how all
Speaker 1: of these things work. Now, flashback to when I said,
Speaker 1: you know, downtown died. Downtown died from what I can
Speaker 1: gather after the Olympics. The Olympics happened in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: That's when we built the coliseum, you know, which was
Speaker 1: condemned for a while. USC used to play there, but
Speaker 1: they just don't work on it lappen. What happened to
Speaker 1: La in a lot of ways is what happens to
Speaker 1: all these other major cities. People get grossly misplayed or displaced. Right.
Speaker 1: You build up this infrastructure and then it just sits there.
Speaker 1: We talked, we did a you could rewind way back.
Speaker 1: I want to say it was like episode like eighteen
Speaker 1: nineteen something during the was it twenty twenty Olympics, During
Speaker 1: the Olympics, when we talked about like should we really
Speaker 1: have these right like liking stuff you know you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to like, you know, I obviously I become a
Speaker 1: complete flag waving patriot when it comes to the Olympics.
Speaker 1: But the Olympics always has had devastating, decimating effects on
Speaker 1: the city. It just bankrupts it and it displaces hundreds
Speaker 1: of people. Downtown died. Okay, now I'm bringing a care
Speaker 1: you never thought i'd bring in. Who bought up a
Speaker 1: lot of these buildings was the guy who owned the Clippers,
Speaker 1: Donald Sterrole, and the Clippers, as we could tell because
Speaker 1: they were so trash, was really just I don't know,
Speaker 1: laundering a pet project of Donald Sterling, because he would
Speaker 1: just sit there. We would say, man, he just sit
Speaker 1: there at the Clipper games looking at his investments. He
Speaker 1: would just look outside at the buildings he owned that
Speaker 1: he wasn't doing nothing in and just making money off of.
Speaker 1: Eventually Downtown got sold to China. We wasn't like they
Speaker 1: wasn't doing nothing with it. The city said they ain't
Speaker 1: had a bread to fix it up. Who came in
Speaker 1: first was La Live to build Staples Arena. Now, once
Speaker 1: you build Staples Arena, all we need investors. China, as
Speaker 1: we all know, ain't stupid. They got sense and they
Speaker 1: got bread. Now, all this talk about China becoming the
Speaker 1: new World power and all this stuff that like that's
Speaker 1: where we as a nation can call because Inas much
Speaker 1: as you talking about local grown invest in USA, you
Speaker 1: done sold Downtown LA to China. And you think we
Speaker 1: don't know this, everybody out here new that's who owned
Speaker 1: these buildings. China bought them, So don't so don't you know,
Speaker 1: piss on my back and tell me it's raining. Y'all
Speaker 1: sold down down to China. Didn't got the nerve to
Speaker 1: talk about tariffs anyway. This particular building or this plaza
Speaker 1: was called Ocean Wide Plaza, and it's bankrupt. It was
Speaker 1: development in downtown LA owned by this Chinese company called
Speaker 1: ocean Wide Holdings, which clearly sound made up, right like obviously,
Speaker 1: come on, y'all, y'all know out that's y'all made that up.
Speaker 1: That's just that's that's a dva. You done stood up
Speaker 1: so you can invest this money in. Now check this out. Okay.
Speaker 1: They started building this thing, ran out of money, and
Speaker 1: they stopped working in twenty nineteen. Right now, since then,
Speaker 1: they've been trying to get bidders right to invest in
Speaker 1: this and the people who they've been trying to invest in. Now,
Speaker 1: keep in mind, we are in the middle of one
Speaker 1: of the largest housing crises. I mean, like, are we
Speaker 1: lying like ain't enough houses and y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all,
Speaker 1: y'all selling our real estate to other people? Okay, So
Speaker 1: so here go to bidders Blackstone, black Rock, right, and
Speaker 1: some cash rich overseas like sovereign wealth funds like from
Speaker 1: the Middle East, like in Asia and Europe. Right, Like, so, y'all,
Speaker 1: can you hear this cat, this building just sitting here,
Speaker 1: you like, knock it down? It would cost too much
Speaker 1: to knock it down? Is they argument? It would cost
Speaker 1: too much to knock it down, right, But you're finna
Speaker 1: sell it to all these other countries while telling us
Speaker 1: we need to invest logo while telling us that the
Speaker 1: problem is these illegal immigrants coming into our city. Can
Speaker 1: you just what are you talking about now? In a
Speaker 1: bankruptcy report? Right, because you had to eventually file bankruptcy, Like, yo,
Speaker 1: this thing's okay before I get specifically, like listen, this
Speaker 1: thing is about two thirds done and with about it's
Speaker 1: one point two billion already invested in it. Like that's
Speaker 1: what A guy that's part of the brokerage team, his
Speaker 1: name's Mark Tarzinski. He was like, why would anyone I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a like, why would anyone knock it? There's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with the building. It's actually good bread and look
Speaker 1: if it works. He fit a ball out, like cash out,
Speaker 1: cuz like, let me not argue with this, the fact
Speaker 1: that like there is bread to be made on this,
Speaker 1: And I don't blame him for being like, who wont what?
Speaker 1: Now the bankruptcy They said that this thing's market value
Speaker 1: is almost three hundred and thirty four million dollars, right,
Speaker 1: but costs to finish it and to fix it is
Speaker 1: eight hundred and sixty five million, right, And it's only
Speaker 1: an it and they're sixty percent finished. But you obviously
Speaker 1: got set back because you got to fix all these pieces. Now,
Speaker 1: if it were me, I would leave the pieces in
Speaker 1: charge double like I feel like you got a piece
Speaker 1: of history. But they don't think like me. Now the developers, right,
Speaker 1: which is normal. Developers sometimes stall time from time because
Speaker 1: you run out of money, but rarely do they just
Speaker 1: give up and walk away and just leave something have done.
Speaker 1: And part of why they could do that is because
Speaker 1: they don't live here. But it's actually more sinister than that,
Speaker 1: and I'm explaining it to you in a second. Now,
Speaker 1: this same company, Ocean Wide Holdings. They bought this parking
Speaker 1: lot across the street from the arena back in twenty fourteen, right,
Speaker 1: and then that's when they started working on the tower.
Speaker 1: So they've been working on this for a while. Right.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to have apartments, five star hotel right,
Speaker 1: up market stores, restaurants. Right. They were trying to make
Speaker 1: this look like some time square out this mug. They
Speaker 1: was like, we out of money. We good now how
Speaker 1: they ran out of money again? And listen to the politics.
Speaker 1: Why they couldn't finish this mug wasn't just the natural
Speaker 1: like oh we overspent man, you know, we underestimated the costs.
Speaker 1: It's because the Chinese government said, we don't like money
Speaker 1: flowing out bound. Y'all need to leave y'all money here.
Speaker 1: FAM's it was politics. They said, you you spend it
Speaker 1: too much money other places. You need to spend your
Speaker 1: money here. And since they don't have a free market
Speaker 1: economy like we do, at least they don't lie to
Speaker 1: themselves to say they got a free market economy, they
Speaker 1: just they just mask off with it. They was like,
Speaker 1: y'all need to stop spending your money over there. Sometimes
Speaker 1: shutting stuff down just works. That's the type stuff Trump
Speaker 1: be on. So then you had to stop because the
Speaker 1: contract builders stopped being paid. Now, if you're a general contractor,
Speaker 1: you like and the people that paid you filing Chapter
Speaker 1: eleven bankruptcy, you like, okay, cool, I need my money.
Speaker 1: Though I did my part, I need my money. So
Speaker 1: ocean wide, they owe back taxes to LA and they
Speaker 1: read to repay the money the city of Los Angeles
Speaker 1: for all the security they tried to put in place
Speaker 1: in response to the graffiti stuff. The city allotted four
Speaker 1: million dollars. Now on one hand, in the city's defense
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna drag them later in the city's defense.
Speaker 1: You get a building like that, it's like, oh, dope,
Speaker 1: y'all gonna pay for it. Y'all gonna build it. We
Speaker 1: just get to collect taxes on it, run it. That's
Speaker 1: quite a play in the defense. If I get to
Speaker 1: just collect taxes on some mind spend spin to build
Speaker 1: and you gotta get all the permits and you gotta
Speaker 1: hire niggas here, I'm creating jobs, I'm collecting tax bread
Speaker 1: and I ain't gotta invest that. Oh that's a lick
Speaker 1: in they defense. I get it. That's a lick. They
Speaker 1: obviously graffiti the furthest thing from their mind also the
Speaker 1: furthest thing from their minds. What JJ in king was Finna?
Speaker 1: Do you? Was Finna? Just like you mess it up
Speaker 1: the play? And they like, we done ran this play before.
Speaker 1: It's an easy play. And we get to get on
Speaker 1: the camera and say we're doing good for the city.
Speaker 1: Were providing homes. We build it off, like is you
Speaker 1: providing homes? Because even if you finished, as you're talking
Speaker 1: about these four thousand and five thousand dollars a month
Speaker 1: lofts in downtown, who these homes for? But I'll see
Speaker 1: the play you running. It just makes sense. We'll make
Speaker 1: the bread off the taxas. However, y'all thought y'all was
Speaker 1: gonna get y'all money. Wait hey, so back to my thought.
Speaker 1: The city allotted four million dollars to erect the fence
Speaker 1: to protect you from the painters. Yo. On our local news,
Speaker 1: I loved it. They were doing these like these little
Speaker 1: expos a pieces where these people was like, well, we're
Speaker 1: not trying to condone vandalism, but let's interview our l
Speaker 1: a graffiti scene and they had like the little Latina
Speaker 1: newsperson come inner view these dudes, and I could see
Speaker 1: her trying to like humanize it. I'm looking at this
Speaker 1: lady and I'm like, okay, you look at you around
Speaker 1: our as. I was like, oh, you used to tag
Speaker 1: when you were younger. I could totally tell anyway. In February,
Speaker 1: listen to me, four million dollars to put a fence
Speaker 1: up to protect the building that they don't own and
Speaker 1: ain't gonna get they money for to protect it from painters.
Speaker 1: Y'all this listen. You have you ever have a friend
Speaker 1: that you going out to eat with and they all
Speaker 1: of a sudden being like, oh man, I ain't got
Speaker 1: it this week, I get it next week. And you
Speaker 1: look at their feet, they wearing a pan new pair
Speaker 1: of JS. Oh you got it. You just don't. You
Speaker 1: just spend it in on stuff that don't matter. Let
Speaker 1: me get this straight. City in Los Angeles, you you
Speaker 1: gonna spend full million dollars to protect the building that
Speaker 1: ain't yours, that ain't gonna be done that you're finna
Speaker 1: sell to another country? You who you gonna get your
Speaker 1: money back? Let me ask you something. You think they
Speaker 1: gonna pay you back? I thought you was from the hood.
Speaker 1: I thought you was from La. You ain't gonna get
Speaker 1: you who you gonna get your money back? Y'all really
Speaker 1: think you gonna get your money back? You think the
Speaker 1: people they're selling this too after the brokers done got
Speaker 1: their commission. Come here, come here, come here. Do you
Speaker 1: know how much trash we talked to China? You think
Speaker 1: Beijing ain't gonna get you your money? Here's my suggestion.
Speaker 1: Leave it there, Let it be an art installation, buy
Speaker 1: it yourself, because you know what The Olympics is coming,
Speaker 1: and yo, little sorry tal still need to figure out
Speaker 1: where to put the one hundred and fifty thousand population
Speaker 1: of a houseless You also got a housing shortage in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I don't understand why your math ain't mathing,
Speaker 1: but I get it. You ain't got it, though, but
Speaker 1: I get it. The graffiti is the nuisance, and like
Speaker 1: we said, your job is not to protect us but property.
Speaker 1: So on behalf of Los Angeles. I want to say
Speaker 1: thank you to the La graffiti scene for giving us
Speaker 1: something beautiful. And I hope every time our local government
Speaker 1: looks at that that they think we really got it
Speaker 1: all backwards, don't we. I'm definitely not saying just shove
Speaker 1: the homeless into a building, because that's not that's not
Speaker 1: loving at all. There's organizations like Path Partners, which I
Speaker 1: will link into this show notes, who are doing amazing,
Speaker 1: amazing things to help transition our houseless population. At least
Speaker 1: that I can tell. I'm not one of the ours. Listen,
Speaker 1: maybe they got some skeletons in their closet that I
Speaker 1: don't know of, if so correct me, But from what
Speaker 1: I've seen, prey dope er, I just think there's a
Speaker 1: better use of your money than four million dollars to
Speaker 1: put up a fence to protect something that ain't even yours.
Speaker 1: But you know what, don't listen to me. What do
Speaker 1: I know? All right? Now, don't you hit stop on
Speaker 1: this pod? You better listen to these credits. I need
Speaker 1: you to finish this thing so I can get the
Speaker 1: download numbers. Okay, so don't stop it yet, but listen.
Speaker 1: This was recorded in East Lost Boyle Heights by your
Speaker 1: boy Propaganda. Tap in with me at prop hip hop
Speaker 1: dot com. If you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got
Speaker 1: terraform Coldbrew. You can go there dot com and use
Speaker 1: promo code hood get to twenty percent off get yourself
Speaker 1: some coffee. This was mixed, edited, and mastered by your
Speaker 1: boy Matt Alsowski Killing the Beat Softly. Check out his
Speaker 1: website Mattowsowski dot com. I'm a speller for you because
Speaker 1: I know M A T. T O S O W
Speaker 1: s ki dot com Matthowsowski dot com. He got more
Speaker 1: music and stuff like that on there, so gonna check out.
Speaker 1: The Heat Politics is a member of cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia podcast network.
Speaker 1: Your theme music and scoring is also by the one
Speaker 1: and nobly Matt Awsowski. Still killing the beat softly, So listen.
Speaker 1: Don't let nobody lie to you. If you understand urban living,
Speaker 1: you understand politics. These people is not smarter than you.
Speaker 1: We'll see y'all next week. The