GANG GRAFFITI, ART & CULTURE

Compton Pirus.

2006-04-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

I've had an abundance of Compton Piru graffiti so I thought I would condense all the odds and ends into one post.

Campanella Park Piru.

Campanella Park isn't in Compton proper, their claiming Piru shows how close they really are to the Hub city.

Cedar Block Piru.

Not the best photograph, but it's kind of rare to see CBP graffiti. The Game's sucess has really shot this gang into super stardom as you will know find people claiming it all over the United States. In certain states they are as deep as a couple hundred, which is insane considering his album has only been out a couple years. Rap's influence on youth culture is more than obvious, with this being a prime example.

Tree Top Piru.

Tree Top Piru exist right south of Rosecrans. North of Rosecrans is Fruit Town Piru. I'm not 100% sure of all their recent beefs, but they seem to call out Neighborhood Piru (one of the only LA Blood on Blood rivalries), Grape Street Watts (?) and Tortilla Flats, who I would consider their main enemy.

Fruit Town Piru.

I really have no idea what this message means. I can only assume Brandon Duckett is from a rival gang. He was either killed or will be killed? It's somewhat cryptic. Anyways, this is a prime example of Fruit Town Piru graffiti. From what I've seen of them and their close allies the Fruit Town Brims, both are very artistic.

Notice the small cherries hanging from one of the letters? That's to signafy Cherry Street. Fruit Town Piru gets their name from a group of streets including Cherry and Peach, while Tree Top is Cedar, Spruce, Elm, etc.

Mob Piru.

We've touched on Mob Piru before but here is another example of their graffiti. This was taken two blocks from the Compton Fashion Center. They clearly name some of their enemies: Palm & Oak Gangster Crip, Santana Blocc Compton Crip and South Side Compton Crip. And they rep the 1800 block.

Another example, with them calling out Santana Blocc again, as well as CV3.

52 / 59 Hoover Crip/Criminal.

2006-04-11T12:18:00.000-07:00

Most Hoovers started claiming Criminal a long while back, but the Five Dueces have remained Crip and I'm not positive about the Five Nines. Still, they are all linked/connected and this is some joint graffiti most likely done by the Five Nines due to their name being first in one of the pictures.

This was crossed out by NSU, a mexican gang (I assume?) on Hoover. This is a pretty impressive piece of artwork. I think we can assume the 59's aren't Crips as they have the "C" x'd out on the finger nails. On the "W/S" they have the "S" x'd out, dissing the Rollin Sixties. Across the bottom they cross out the Rollin 60's, 90's and 30's back to back. Next to it is Six Duece Brim and to the right is East Coast Crip, Rollin 40's and Rollin 100's. Below that is a gang I cant identify, NSU and Napps aka Neighborhood Crips.

Real simple: Five Duece Hoover. The two O's are replaced with "GC" for Gangster Crip.

Santana Blocc Compton Crip.

2006-04-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

SBCC are one of the more active Crip gangs in Compton. Their neighborhood is west of Mob Piru's, north of Rosecrans Blvd.

This was taken right north of Rosecrans, and you could see it off the bridge that cuts Compton into East & West. I'm not an expert, but I'll assume that this says Eastside Santana Blocc Compton Crip, Tiny Gangsters, Piru Killers. Below it is South Side Compton Crip Killer All Day and below that they claim Elm St Piru and Mob Piru as enemies.

This got cut off because it was a fairly narrow alley. It was clearly written by YG Doe Boy.

Santana Blocc crossing out some CV70 graffiti. Even with crossing it out and CV70 claiming crip killer, they for some reason claim Tortilla Flats Killer at the bottom.

Inglewood Family Gangster Blood.

2006-03-18T00:29:00.000-08:00

The largest gang in Inglewood, IFGB have long been at war with the Rollin 60's and Eight Tray Gangster Crips, although the later recently have an unoffical truce as both are focusing on the 60's. IFGB mainly fued with the 60's and Rollin 90's, but recently have been beefing with 18th Street.

This was taken inside Rollin 90's Crip hood. It reads "Westside Inglewood Family Gangster Blood, Crip Killers. Rollin 60's + Rollin 90's Crip killers." The "Nappkiller Blood", as I've stated before, is a diss on Neighborhood Crips, which includes the 60's and the 90's.

Simply IFGB with Rollin 90's Killer underneath, also taken in 90's hood.

This too was taken in 90's hood at a different date. The standout here is the "CPF" up top, which I'm assuming means "Centinela Park Families", who were formally known as Centinela Park Piru. While some beef flares up occasionally, mainly between Neighborhood Piru & Crenshaw Mafia, Bloods in Inglewood seem to get along for the most part and keep "the I" on lock. The four Crip gangs in Inglewood are very small and not considered very significant. A good sign of this is how the main enemies of most Inglewood Blood sets are located in South Central, not Inglewood.

Rollin 20's Neighborhood Blood.

2006-03-18T00:10:00.000-08:00

Quick note: for new people to this site, there are more posts than just the ones listed to the right under "previous posts". Just click the oldest one (at the bottom) and it'll have a list of the rest.

R20NHB are located in the West Adams district of South Central. They are basically the first black hood you hit on the West Side when traveling south down Vermont, Normandie, etc. Along with the Black P Stones, they are currently in a very serious war with 18th Street, who many accuse of being racially motivated in their attacks. The pictures came out well, but when uploading them to photobucket, the quality was affected greatly. We'll be registering a domain shortly and when we move everything over, the quality will be normal.

This was taken on 27th Street. The cliques are 25th Street, 27th Street, 29th Street, Avenues and Black Demon Soldiers (BDS). Within the zeros, you can see a "7" and a "5", so those are the two cliques that were involved in this graffiti. You'll also see they list 18th Street as their main enemy. "Rose" & "Stone" are most likely the names of the guys who did the art.

This was also taken on 27th Street, right across from the art above. They list out 27, 25 and 29 as well as the Avenues and list Crips in general, 18th Street and the Rollin 30's Crips as enemies. At the bottom is NHB, for Neighborhood Blood.

I have some more photographs and will be making a second post on the 20's soon.

52 Broadway Gangster Crips.

2006-03-14T14:56:00.000-08:00

The Broadway Gangster Crips have two sets: 52 and 112. The Five Dueces mainly fued with the East Coast Crips lately and have been known allies of the Hoovers.

Besides the first picture, this was all along one block off Broadway and 55th Street. From first to last: "West Town Toast Killer" proclaims their hatred for East Coast Crips, mainly the Six Pack. Moving along you see the big 52nd Street and "Broadway Gangster Crip". In the orange on the left are the names of the people responsible for the graffiti and to the left is their set name (notice the 112 inside the BGC) with their enemies below: East Coast Crips, 42/43 Gangster Crips and the Blood Stone Villians. The last picture shows them again claiming East Coast Crips and Neighborhood Crips in general enemies.

Harvard Park Brims.

2006-03-14T14:36:00.000-08:00

The Brims started in 1969 and were one of the oldest black gangs to still be in existence. They originally wore blue, but sided with gangs like the Swans, Piru Street Boys, Neighborhoods and Bounty Hunters when the blood alliance was formed. They are located in a neighborhood on the west side of South Central, almost completely surrounded by Neighborhood Crips (Rollin 60's, 67NHC & 55NHC) except on their Eastern border, where the 59 Hoover Criminals stay. The Slauson Swapmeet is directly North of their hood if I remember correctly.

This was taken on 62nd Street right as you enter HPB hood off of Western. It clearly states their main enemies: Hoover Criminals, all Neighborhood Crips and 18th Street, the "largest gang in LA". This is also a block or so from Harvard Park, their namesake. 62nd Street is the main click of Harvard Park Brims.

This was taken off of Western in the parking lot of the Slauson Swapmeet. "Nappk" means "Napp Killer", a diss on Neighborhood Crips. The graffiti to the right that's cut off is Florencia 13, who also are in this general area.

Mob Piru.

2006-03-12T16:17:00.000-08:00

Compton's Mob Piru are one of the more well-known gangs due to their affiliation with Suge Knight, owner of Death Row Records. Obvious Tupac/Biggie stories aside, Mob Piru is infamous for being known ryders, beefing on and off with Crip, Sureno and occasionally Piru/Blood gangs. Their closest allies, and sometimes enemies when things flare up, are the Lueders Park Piru. I'd say their main enemies are Compton Varrio 3 (CV3), Compton Varrio 70 (CV70, although this isn't as severe as the war with CV3, it's off and on all the time) and the Palm & Oak Gangster Crips. They also beef consistently with the Santana Blocc Compton Crips. It also must be noted that the majority of Mob hood lies in Lynwood, right north of Compton.

This was just a quick out-of-the-window shot taken along Rosecrans in Compton. It was about a block east of Long Beach Blvd. There are some apartments across from the Compton Fashion Center that are a known Mob Piru hangout. This tag is simple: Eastside MOB, which stands for Money Over Bitches.

This was taken in an alleyway by a gas station on Rosecrans. I had been to this gas station before, where I took a photograph of Compton Varrio Limas Street graffiti. Here is Mob Piru crossing out CVLS. I wasn't even aware Mob Piru was that far over East.

Another Mob throw-up in the same alley. This one means "Insane Mob Gang", one of their nicknames. Right next to is some CV70 graffiti which they didn't cross out, so maybe they aren't beefing right now?

Five Duece Broadway Gangster Crips up next. Thanks for the support thus far.

Updates Soon...

2006-03-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

We might be putting the money down sooner than we thought for an actual server and domain (www.hoodart.com?) because when uploading photographs, we've noticed the quality can get severely distorted and that is far from okay.

Soon (photos taken)...
South Central's BROADWAY GANGSTER CRIPS.
Compton/Lynwood's MOB PIRU.

Later (some photos taken or expect to soon)...
Inglewood's AVENUE PIRU.
South Central's ROLLIN 60'S CRIP/EIGHT TRAY GANGSTER CRIP war.
South Central's DENVER LANE BLOODS.
Watts' PJ WATTS CRIP.

Family Swan Blood.

2006-02-19T19:03:00.000-08:00

In the Eastside of South Central, there is a neighborhood known as Florence. There are two Blood gangs that have linked up to create Family Swan Blood: the Mad Swans, who are located from 77th Street North to 84th Street South and the 89/92 Families, who are from 89th Street North to 92nd Street South. They pretty much claim 77th to 92nd, but there are a few latino gangs that coexist within. One of the biggest, is Florencia 13, who haven't followed the trend of claiming "Blood Killer" like 18th Street lately and coexist quite well. They share a couple enemies too, the most well known being the East Coast Crips (Six Pack mainly) who robbed a member of the Mexican Mafia during a drug deal and got a green light turned on them.

The photograph that was here for some reason isn't working. I will have it fixed and re-up'd later. Sorry about that.

One thing I've noticed about the Swans is a lot of instances, they don't write FSB or anything related to Swans. Sometimes they just write the street that particular member claims or in a lot of instances, they just write "CK". Here is one of those instances, where they also call out the Main Street Crips and Avalon Gangster Crips.

Eastside Mexican Gangs

2006-02-19T18:08:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles County is nearly completely occupied by Mexican gangs. A lot of these barrios/varrios date back to the early 1900's and the men and women who claim these sets have a lot of pride for the history they continue to contribute to. A large number of these gangs have waged war, for racial reasons or not, on the predominately black gangs throughout Los Angeles County. While some Mexican gangs are known to have white and black membership, it's hard to ignore the fact that a race war is taking place right now.

The politics of Mexican gangs is almost more complicated than that of the Bloods and Crips. I'd like to touch on that in the future. Most (but not all) Mexican gangs start their graffiti with the letter "V" for 'varrio" and a lot of the sets claim "13" at the end. No Blood or Crip sets claim 13, as it's only a Mexican thing.

36 Street.

This is a nice example of Mexican gang art. The Old English style is very popular amongst all gangs, but especially those of Latino background. I know nothing about this gang, only that they are located on the Northeast side of South Central. If anyone has any info, feel free to share it with us.

38 Street.
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This gang is located in the same general area as 36 Street, but are very well known for fueding with black gangs. Many Crip and Blood sets are sworn enemies of 38 Street and you'll notice in a previous post we did about the 52 Pueblos that they have "38K" in their graffiti. This is a very simple tag, but they had their set written everywhere. Definately a gang that plans on trying to take over as much turf as they can in the coming years.

Watts Varrio Grape Street

Watts is one of the most infamous areas in Los Angeles, and probably the United States. It's not a very large area, located north of Compton, West of Paramount and South of Florence. It's literally jam-packed with gangs of all shapes and sizes. This Varrio claims Grape Street which is a street that goes vertically through Watts, North & South.

There will be more detailed info on Mexican gangs coming soon. These are just small examples.

We're Still Alive...

2006-02-16T15:15:00.000-08:00

Just stopping in to say we're still at it. I'm not sure how many people view this thing but we will have a new post on Sunday evening with some more photographs covering gangs we haven't mentioned yet. Feel free to e-mail us with any questions or leave a comment.

Westside Crip Gangs.

2006-02-06T08:51:00.000-08:00

This is by no means a definitive listing of Westside (west of 110 Freeway) Crips, but we rolled through a lot neighborhoods yesterday and got some good photographs and rather than make four posts, I've chosen to lump them all together. We will be touching on some of these gangs again, but I thought some explanation was due. We focused on gangs between Vermont & Western from the Harlem 30's hood all the way down to Eight Tray Gangster, with a couple exceptions.

55 Neighborhood Crips.

The hood with the most wallbanging done when we rolled through yesterday was 55NHC. This gang had literally every wall and even some houses hit up with their name. The part of LA we were in has been the battlegrounds for a 20+ year war it seems between gangs that identify with Bloods (Bloods & Brims), Neighborhood Crips and Gangster Crips. These were the same neighborhoods where the Rollin 60's Neighborhood Crips & Eight Tray Gangster Crips waged war on one another, forcing Crip gangs to not only take sides but it also paved the way for numerous Crip on Crip beefs and wars, which is as common today and sometimes even more common than Crip on Blood beefs. 55NHC sides with the Rollin 60's and claims the "N" card, which stands for Neighborhood. As far as I know, they claim a smallish neighborhood between 54th Street and Slauson, between Western and Normandie (maybe Vermont?). I'd love for someone to write in and give me the exact info, so feel free. The "H" in their name is crossed out because of their beef with the Hoover Crips/Criminals (they dont claim Crip anymore apparently) which I'm sure was inherited from being alligned with the 60's. They also claim "VNG & 62 Killers", which stands for Van Ness Gangster Brims and the Six Duece Harvard Park Brims.

From the same wall as the other picture, with the "BK" meaning "Blood/Brim Killer". They also fued with the 51 Nothing But Trouble Crips who have apparently been causing them a lot of problems as of late, but street talk is rarely unbiased so I dont know if this is a fact.

Rollin 40's Crip.

First off, the Rollin 40's are a pretty confusing gang. No disrespect intended, but it's really hard to follow their affiliations, beefs, etc, not that they should be going out of their way to make it easier for non-40's to know whats going on, but you know where I'm coming from. The 40's are split up into a few subsets: Avenues, NHC's (or Original West Sides), Park Sides (aka VSP = Vermon Square Park) and the Darksides. The graffiti above might be confused as 46NHC but it's not. 46NHC are a subset of the Rollin 60's, hence the "6" in their name. Little things like this are deadgiveaways in learning gang alliances and who they beef with. The side of this transformer box had "40's" written across it. The 40's are linked with most all Neighborhood Crips, although at least one of their subsets doesnt claim NHC and the Darksides in particular have beefed it pretty hard with the 60's on and off. Recently, as far as I know the 40's and Harlem 30's have (at least temporarily) squashed their beef but I dont know how long that will last.

Eight Tray Gangster Crip.

Probably the most infamous gang in Los Angeles, mostly due to OG "Monster" Kody Scott's book about growing up and banging ETG prior to and well into the infamous war with the 60's, Eight Tray Gangster maintains the largest turf of any gang in LA, but not the biggest membership. I'm going to have a full post dedicated to ETG's in the near future, so stay tuned.

Florencia 13.

2006-02-05T10:05:00.000-08:00

One of the more well known Latino gangs in South Los Angeles, Florencia 13 is named after the Southeast area of LA known as Florence. While that remains their namesake, you can find F13 spread out onto the westside of South Central, making them east and west of the 110 Harbor Freeway. One interesting fact is that they dont fued with any Blood sets, which has always been a big target for Latino gangs. I'm not positive why, but Bloods have always been stereotyped as more vicious and drug-oriented than Crips. Regardless of whether or not there is truth to this, it can be assumed that a lot of these beefs are drug based as money, more times than not, fuels the hood.

This was actually taken on the side of a huge dumpster (as you can see) in Silverlake, which is 50+ blocks North of their hood. This picture is interesting because it adds truth to two theories: 1) that gangs get a lot of exposure due to tagging on dumpsters and trucks that travel through other hoods and 2) that gang graffiti is such a common thing in LA that a lot of people don't even bother painting over it. This was panted by F13's 57MDS clique, which stands for Malditos. They are the northern-most F13 clique (54th St. being their north border) and fued mainly with other mexican gangs, but also the 59 East Coast Crips. This puts them close to the 62 East Coast Crips as well, who we covered in an earlier post.

This was taken in Mad Swan Blood hood, which is also located in Florence. Mad Swan Blood, who we will cover later, operate between the 70's all the way up to the 90's, which is held down by Family Swan Blood, which could be considered their sister set. Next to the "MSB" on the wall, you can an F13 tag and both are crossed out by Carnales 13, another Latino gang.

52 Pueblo Bishops.

2006-01-29T15:34:00.000-08:00

The 52 Pueblo Bishops live in a housing project located at 52nd Street and Long Beach Blvd on the East Side of South Central Los Angeles. They flag red (wear red bandanas) and identify as Bloods. Lately though, a lot of Bloods have chosen to sever ties with the Five Dueces when they declared war on their neighbors to the West, the Blood Stone Villians, enemies. Blood on Blood wars are few and far between and while Crips have been killing Crips for years, the general Blood rule is no red on red beefs. Personal disputes arise, but are usually squashed without any fatalities and it's usually handled between the opposing gang members who had the dispute in the first place. Another example of a serious Blood on Blood war is Compton's Tree Top Piru and Neighborhood Piru.

This example of graffiti is on the wall of the project housing unit the Five Dueces call home. ""ES" stands for "Eastside", "Pueblos" is the gang's name, the "1" I can only assume is for their claim of being "#1" and "CK" means "Crip Killers". They also clearly state their enemies: "38" is refering to 38th Street, a mexican gang from the same general area, "ECC" is "East Coast Crips" as a whole (most likely the 59's and Six Pack, which is the four subsets from the 60's: 62, 66, 68 and 69) and the Blood Stone Villians.

This was sprayed on a wall across the street from the project houses on Long Beach Blvd. This area is mostly warehouses and it was basically a free for all of gang tags, mostly done by the Pueblos.

The Pueblo's are mostly black, but have latino members and a latino clique (not sure of the name) that lives within the area that they are cool with. There is also an all Asian Blood gang known as the E/S OBz, which stands for Oriental Boyz. They used to be part of one large gang, but split up into three groups: the E/S OBz which live in East South Central, the W/S OLBz (Oriental Lazy Boyz) who flag red but arent bloods and call Chinatown home and the W/S OBz who live in North Hollywood and are Crips.

FRUIT TOWN BRIMS.

2006-01-27T09:20:00.000-08:00

FRUIT TOWN BRIMS.
The Fruit Town Brims get a lot of press coverage due to the fact that they basically border the University of Southern California. Anytime you mix poverty with anything that falls into white media coverage, it's gonna get airtime. They are one of three gangs known for possibly causing trouble with USC students, alongside the Rollin 20's Neighborhood Bloods (allies) and the Rollin 30's OHM (Original Harlem Mafia) Crips (enemies). These two photographs we're taken at the corner of Vermont & King, which is technically R30's Crip hood.

One of the most common practices in gang/wallbanging is crossing out enemy tags. Here, the Harlem 30's had tagged a wall and the Fruit Town Brims crossed it out. The 30's wrote "W" over "S", which stands for "Westside" and shows their location, a small "R" for "Rollin" and a large "T" with a "C" through it for "Thirties Crip". "MHC" means "Mafia Harlem Crip", and gangs will commonly write their initials in different orders to mix things up. They've also listed this clique of 30's main enemies: Fruit Town Brims and the Rollin 40's Crips, who are located south of them. The FTB's have crossed out the tag, added a "K" at the end of "MHC" and highlighted their name in the enemy list. They also wrote "36" to signify the street they claim and wrote & crossed out "39", which is the clique of the 30's that wrote the original graffiti.

"30's Brim", which is a subset of Fruit Town.

62 East Coast NHC.

2006-01-27T09:13:00.000-08:00

Here is a general disclaimer for all posts to come: some photographs are taken while walking and others are from a car window because a lot of photo opportunities creep up out of nowhere so it's a quick snap and we're on our way. Excuse some of the quality.

62 EAST COAST NHC.

The "62" stands for the particular street this East Coast Crip clique claims, the "NHC" is for "Neighborhood Crip", which allies them with other NHC Crip gangs such as the Rollin 60's. "Bubblegumsk" means "Bubblegum Killers", which is a derogatory term for Broadway Gangster Crips.

In this photo you can see that they have crossed out the initials of the Broadway Gangster Crips, which is the most common way of stating one's enemies. "K" at the end of song gang's initials means they are _____ Killers, another way of naming enemies. "Flower Killer" more than likely refers to the street by the name of Flower that BGC include in their turf.

What's Up & Welcome...

2006-01-26T13:45:00.000-08:00

The purpose of this blog is to use it as a stepping stone to our main goal: publishing a book dedicated to the art & culture that goes hand in hand with the gangs of Los Angeles. So much is considered taboo by the media and it forces far too many people to discredit the culture and tradition that thousands of people practice and make such an important part of their lives each and every day.

The main focus of this project is to create a general understanding of gang graffiti. Gang's use spray paint to mark their territories, call out enemies and even warn people of things that will be going down in the future, but most importantly they also use it to express themselves artistically. From the shottiest of street tags to huge wall-covering murals, this is art and there are messages trying to be conveyed. We hope to give people a better understanding of what these messages mean.

Crips, Bloods & Surenos (mexican gang members) are everywhere in Los Angeles, and so is their art. Some of us are from these hoods, others are just fascinated with it, but we all respect and understand (or hope to achieve a better understanding) the culture that goes hand in hand with being in a street gang in Los Angeles, which is commonly refered to as the "home of the bodybags". We are currently putting in many hours in cars and on foot taking photographs of gang art and cataloging it for display on this website and in our upcoming book.

Any questions, comments or concerns can be sent our via the e-mail address below. Inquire about submitting contributions too, such as photographs you yourself took. Also, it must be noted that because we respect the "hood", we wont be revealing any information about contributors or anyone involved with gang life, as we know the LAPD like to use websites as a way to trap and imprison known gang members. We are here to contribute knowledge and the spreading of just that, not to help fill up their prisons.

Also, "Hood Art" is not the name of our organization, company, etc. It's just a monikor. It might change.

A first batch of photographs will be up tonight, as we took a trip to the East Side of South Central to visit a friend/contributor from an anonymous gang. We got some photographs of East Coast 62nd Neighborhood Crip graffiti, so expect that this evening.