Slowly a blank, blue canvas on the side of Beggar's Banquet and Rick's American Café was transformed with aerosol paint on Thursday into an image of color and shapes to represent hip-hop and the scientific aspects behind it.
Three artists worked side by side to create the 28 foot by 12 foot graffiti-style painting called "School of Hip Hop 101." The mural near Abbott Road was intended to show a variety of images including a DJ spinning records, a break-dancer, Albert Einstein and a city's urban landscape.
Tobias France, one of the artists, said there are many elements of hip-hop involving formulas and equations, which people do not normally associate with the culture.
"What we are trying to do is combine education with hip-hop," he said. "All aspects of hip-hop have a science to it.
"How many times does a DJ have to pull a record … to get what you hear?"
France has been working as an "aerosol artist" since 1992 and currently lives in Detroit.
"Big cities have stuff like this," France said. "Smaller cities are trying to get rid of it.
"Instead of fighting it, they should embrace it."
The artists began work on the mural at about 3 p.m. and continued spraying into the night with the help of outdoor lighting, intending to keep at it until it was complete.
One of the event's coordinators, Cesare M. Danova, said before the mural is actually painted on the building, it will be presented to the East Lansing City Council and the owner of the building, 218 Abbott Road, for approval.
East Lansing Councilmember Beverly Baten said she was not aware of the project and the artists would only need approval from the building's owner.
If agreed upon, a few fundamental changes, because of the building's structure, will need to be implemented before it is painted on the wall.
"It's still in its infancy stages. As it goes along, it'll be refined," Danova said.
He said this project will be good for the city because the mural explored hip-hop culture.
"I don't think East Lansing has ever seen anything like this," he said.
France said graffiti art is a visual part of that culture.
"Graffiti is like the expressive art form of hip-hop," he said. "That group of society was generating certain things. One of those was graffiti. You can't separate it."
Another one of the artists, Brian "Sintex" Glass, is a Detroit artist who started experimenting with graffiti art as a 14-year-old, but got more into spray-paint art when he was 16 and 17. He said it is gaining popularity in the media and commercials but is breaking away from the gang stereotype.
"No matter how popular it gets, it always will remain an urban form," he said.
However, Sintex said it presents a positive message if done the right way. "It deals with a lot of social issues, how it relates to the younger generation," he said. "People need to see the basis of hip-hop — it's not just cars and naked women."
During the process, Sintex primarily worked on the illustration of bringing Einstein, the hip-hop scientist, to life.
"One thing I'm known for is characters. It's basically a newer style," he said.
Danova said the process for mural art varies between artists. He said many mural artists grid out a canvas or workspace before painting to achieve an accurate image, but the talents of these three artists lie in their ability to skip this step.
"They will be able to look at a small piece and put it in perspective on a large canvas," he said.
Students and residents stopped by the alley throughout the day, intrigued by hip-hop music blaring from a parked car. Journalism sophomore Cameron O'Neill said he thought the project was a good idea for certain areas of East Lansing.
"It'd be better than the bare, white walls," he said. "It looks like the stuff on (the wall) now has been there for awhile. Paint over, revitalize it."
O'Neill said he appreciates murals of this type.
"It used to be graffiti, but they turned it into an art form," he said.
Jacqueline WayneGuite can be reached at waynegui@msu.edu.
