Hi, Fatzoo! Firstly, where did this alias come from?
A friend called me it, making fun of me [for] being able to finish big plates of food.
So much of your work toys with the aesthetic nuances of class and race through words as well as symbolic iconography. With this in mind, did you feel conflicted entering the art world given its large, white upper-middle class population?
There’s always a conflicting feeling being a working class Black person stepping into that world – it’s inevitable. During my time in this strange world of white walls, long words, champagne, white and upper-middle class people, I make sure to bring through the right people that wouldn’t get the chance to be in these spaces. Slowly but surely we can start to reap the benefits of change on this off-key planet.
As an artist, you’re very carefully straddling different worlds. When did you start thinking you wanted to be a capital‑A artist as well as a graffiti writer?
I never set out to be an artist when I was a kid. There were no artist parents amongst the working class community in the ends, so it wasn’t necessarily something anyone thought could be a career choice. I just always enjoyed getting some paper and pens out, so my mum and stepdad encouraged it.
The graffiti choice was a bit different. My stepdad had old-school graffiti writer mates and was fully around the outside culture that came with it back then, so I was involved before I knew I was involved. This was fully encouraged, mainly on paper, until I was old enough to start noticing it out and about. Curiosity saved my life essentially – [it] could have easily [gone] another route.
When did you first find yourself dissecting the cultural and social cues around you?
From the jump, broski. Growing up with a mix of people, you soon realise – like going to school – that other people may have a lot more or a lot less than you. This was apparent through clothes, so a fresh trackie and kicks were a quick fix to not feeling poor. [For] GCSEs at secondary school, I obviously picked art as one of mine because it was the only thing I liked, and from then I was in class with predominantly white, middle-class kids. That’s when the real dissection came about.
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