writers connection

Rammellzee, aka The Ramm:Ell:Zee, aka RAMMΣLLZΣΣ, aka Hytestyr, aka EG (Evolution Griller The Master Killer), aka Sharissk Boo, aka Razz, è scomparso da qualche giorno a Queens, New York City.

Senza ombra di dubbio Rammellzee è stato uno dei più grandi writers di tutti i tempi (il primo ad aver esposto le sue opere hip hop alla biennale dell’arte di Venezia nel 1979) pioniere della cultura hip hop e dell’hardcore rap. Riposa in pace.

Tellus-3_10_Isaac_Jackson-Excerpts_from_Messages.mp3 — featuring The Rammellzee

source: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/rammellzee-graffiti-artist-dies-at-49/ 

June 30, 2010, 4:12 pm
Rammellzee, Graffiti Artist, Dies at 49
By RANDY KENNEDY

Rammellzee,
an early graffiti writer, hip-hop pioneer and performance artist whose
style influenced the Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill, died Sunday in Far
Rockaway, Queens, where he was raised. He lived in Battery Park City in
Manhattan.

He was 49 and died after a long illness, said his wife, Carmela Zagari Rammellzee.

He
became known in graffiti circles in the late 1970s and early 1980s for
hitting the A train and other subway lines around Queens with his
spiky-lettered work. He appeared in one of the most important graffiti
and hip-hop films, Charlie Ahearn’s “Wild Style.” In 1983 his
on-again-off-again friend, the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, helped
produce and illustrated the record cover for “Beat Bop,” a 12-inch
single by Rammellzee and K-Rob that became one of Rammellzee’s
best-known performances and a hip-hop touchstone. It became the
unofficial theme song for Henry Chalfant and Tony Silver’s graffiti
documentary “Style Wars.”

He was an eccentric, outsize figure
almost never photographed without wearing one of the elaborate
science-fiction inspired masks and costumes that he made along with the
sculpture and paintings that became the mainstays of his career in
later years. He fashioned himself as an urban philosopher, whose
overarching theory, which he called Gothic Futurism, posited that
graffiti writers were trying to liberate the mystical power of letters
from the structures of modern alphabetical standardization, and had
inherited this mission in part from medieval monks.

“He didn’t
separate his fantastic work from his life,” Mr. Ahearn said. “So when
he spoke to you, he often spoke in character and that could sometimes
be upsetting.” He legally changed his name to Rammellzee when he was
younger, Mr. Ahearn said. As for the name he was born with, Mr. Ahearn
said that he knew it, but would keep it to himself, in keeping with his
friend’s wishes.

A full obituary will appear in The New York Times.

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Rammellzee intervistato da Frigidaire (1984) — http://writers-connection.noblogs.org/post/2007/04/24/ramm-ell-zee-intervista-1984

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Rammellzee explains "the equation"

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links:

Ramm:Ell:Zee official website — http://www.gothicfuturism.com/

Ionic Treatise Gothic Futurism Assassin Knowledges Of The Rimanipulated Square Point’s — http://www.gothicfuturism.com/rammellzee/01.html

Rammellzee NY Times obituary — http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/arts/02rammellzee.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=rammellzee&st=cse 

wikipedia info — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rammellzee

Ramm:Ell:Zee video collection — http://writers-connection.noblogs.org/post/2010/01/28/the-ramm-llz-video-collection