Colt.45 Interview in Clout #8 | Click here to purchase this issue!

DO YOU THINK YOUR BEEF HAS HAD A POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE EFFECT ON YOUR GRAFF CAREER?
Well I didn’t exactly get involved in no beef on a self serving analysis of whether it would be better for me or not. If motherfuckers got beef with my homies then they got beef with me. Period. That principle alone is enough reason for me to ride on fools. But stupid crack heads from New York think they can go to my city, rag me and my homies, have beef with my crews in NYC, and I’m gonna sit on the sidelines? Not likely. People act like it’s my beef that I’m riding but it’s not. It’s my boys’ beef. I just put in so much work for it that people think it’s mine. I’m just riding out of loyalty for my friends, but as for if it is negative or positive, frankly I think it’s a big boost to my visibility in New York. If I wasn’t down with DMS and BS and I wasn’t involved in this beef I’d just be another out of towner rocking pieces on rooftops that no one looks at. But everything I do out here gets jocked so hard and I gotta attribute it in large part to the beef hype. In New York a good run is a week; I get a week out of all my shit. I get a few months out of some shit and I’ve gotten a year or so out of others so I ain’t trippin.

BEING IN NEW YORK, ARE YOU STILL KEEPING UP ON THE FREIGHTS?
No I’m not painting as many freights as I used to. I mean my slow years are still better than most people’s best years, but I’m not pushing 500+ full color pieces a year anymore by any means. I’d say I did a couple hundred in each of the last two years, plus throw ups and tags and shit, but I still have a lot of shit running and I’m still consistent so I ain’t trippin’. I’m still running through every yard in North America. You can tell if you’re still up ’cause kids that bench be posting what comes in their yards on the Internet and I see my shit getting caught all the time. It’s just like bombing; life has its ups and downs, sometimes you’re really crushing shit and sometimes you’re on the slow boat, but I’m pretty consistent. I’ll have my 500+ years again in the future. I’m just busy with real life right now is all.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, WHAT MADE YOU GO AT THE FREIGHTS SO HARD?
I guess because when I started painting no one was doing freights. Fools that used to do freights in LA would tell me, naw freights are dead. Forget about that shit. But I didn’t listen to them and I was never into that real choppy spaghetti wildstyle shit that was going around at the time, so I was painting traditional and retro shit on trains on the weekends. Plus when I got out of school I did a lot of bombing too, so it just gave me something to do on the weekends. I hooked up with my WH FS network homies out in Miami around that time and they really opened my eyes to the whole freight scene and how hard I was really running. So I learned a lot from them and from my homie KENER, who had a bunch of spots in LA I used to tax too. It sucks, right when I was coming out hard, KEN kept getting busted for stupid shit and we couldn’t be the partners in crime for too long that we were meant to be.

BEING UP IN SUCH A CRAZY MIX, DO YOU EVER FEEL BURNED OUT WITH GRAFF, AND WHAT KEEPS YOU MOTIVATED?
You know, painting graffiti doesn’t burn me out at all. I love graffiti. It keeps me alive and is what I spend all my spare time doing, when I have spare time that is. If it wasn’t for graffiti I’d just be another nobody idiot going to school, going to work, going to a club on the weekend, wasting my life away. What burns me out to graffiti is all the bitches and snitches and art fags and fake thugs and paper chasers and sell outs and just all the gay drama and politics that are involved with graffiti. Graffiti writers make me not want to write graffiti anymore.

HOW DID YOU GET YOUR NAME? ARE YOU AN ALCOHOLIC OR JUST A BIG BILLY DEE WILLIAMS FAN?
I love my name. The letters suck but it’s a really great sounding name. I got it ’cause when I was a kid we were all little tagbanger gangbanger fucks and everyone was always drinking 40s. Mickeys was the best shit but I only had five dollars allowance a week and five dollars can buy two Mickeys or three Colt 45’s, so I drank Colt 45. This is like in middle school, and where I grew up was like a mostly Mexican neighborhood and most of my friends were Mexicans, or were close enough. And Mexicans hate Black people, and since Colt 45 was a beer favored by Blacks all the homies would clown me for drinking it and say, "aww here comes Colt .45 with his mayate beer." So after going through about 20 different toy names I was like fuck it I’ll write COLT .45. Everyone calls me that already anyways.

WHEN YOU REACH A POPULARITY LIKE YOU HAVE, HATE COMES NATURALLY. WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR YOUR FANS?
For the enemies…Give up. You’ll never get rid of me, and the harder anyone tries, the worse the consequences will be for them. Me and my crews don’t fuck around. You motherfuckers caught it before, and you’ll catch it again and again and again. Forever… for the haters, top being bitches slinking around in the shadows talking shit behind my back and woofing shit on the Internet without putting your name. I know why you don’t never say shit to my face, ’cause you’re scared of me. It shows. And for all the people who give me the respect I deserve…at least some people still know what quality fuckin’ vandalism is all about. Keeping all the toys, bitches and snitches in check.