Klever Kills

Klever Kills sticker.

Interesting juxtaposition in the pic between the cross on Klever's coffin and the Orthodox Jew in the background.

Graffiti on Old VW VAn

Graffiti getting tagged up on an old VW van.  Notice how the tags only end up on the VW, and not the other two crashed cars next to it.

Hits from Gase, Bach, Zel, Jew, Ouch, SGK, Roms, Rye and more.

Best Graffiti Writer of the Year 2012

For most people, graffiti is a phase.  Many young hungry artists come charging out hard at first, only to eventually burn out, get bored, or get busted.  Getting up is a hard job with very little direct payoff, and even the most hardcore writers generally don't last longer than a few years on the streets.  Even then, the few brave graffiti artists who get up over a long period of time seem to switch back and forth between periods of getting up, and then down time, and then getting back up again.  But M&F has never met a graffiti artist who has a stronger passion to get up than 2012's Best Graffiti of the Year, Jaber.  To Jaber, getting up is a lifestyle.  Jaber gets up worldwide and smashes hard everywhere.  And his game is complete.  Jaber is perhaps most known for his graffiti pieces on trains.  But he also holds it down on the streets, even inventing new crazy fat tags, and Jaber stickers are everywhere.

The first time M&F ever saw Jaber's graffiti was way back in 2005.  We were living in Boulder, Colorado at the time and Jaber caught a hot spot right along the freeway with one of his signature White Ninja graffiti heads.  M&F did not know this was Jaber's work at the time.  In fact, as we saw this head repeatedly over time during the years preceding and following, for the longest time we thought it was a general kind of iconic graffiti character, kind of like how many different artists will paint variations of Bode's wizard animations.  But that isn't the case.  Sometimes biters will copy his characters, but Jaber is the only one painting his heads all over.  He is just so prolific that it seemed like an army of artists painting the emblem that has now become iconic.  

Jaber started painting graffiti in 1991 and he hasn't stopped since.  With the current state of online graffiti videos and Youtube hustlers, sometimes young bucks appear to be seasoned graffiti veterans when really they are just better promoters.  Jaber has been going at this hard for longer than some young writers have been alive.  He has scored some incredible gigs like going on tour with Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Pharcyde, LL Cool J and many more.  Jaber is a legend within the graffiti community, but he has never gotten that pot of gold that some street artists hope for.  Still, Jaber keeps getting up and keeps painting.  Jaber has never left the streets.  He has never taken a break off for down time.  Why does he do it?  He does it for all the right reasons.  When M&F asked Jaber what drives his insatiable hunger to get up, Jaber replied that he does it because its fun, and if its ever not, then that's when he'll quit.  Hope that time never comes. Jaber has more than earned the award for Graffiti Artist of the Year.  Stay up!

Special shout outs to other graffiti artists and writers killing it this year including Agod, Fishe KOG, Hamok, Sand One, Glaboe, CBS Crew, MSK Crew, Grime Crew, Movie, Avery, KYC, SYB Crew, Love Krew, RTH Crew, Jew, LOK Crew, J4F Crew, Merch, Lukas, and Hanos.

Bad Jew

Jewish Marilyn Monroe

Knows What's Up

Jesus Was Jewish

Orthodox Jews and Street Art

MF'n Graffiti Artist of 2011

MelroseandFairfax's Top Graffiti Artist for 2011~

More Writers 'Say Tag Here'

Broken Street Art Skateboard - Riding For Years!

Get Up, Stay Up

Sur Le Trone

You Will Never Be Famous

You Will Never Be Famous stencil reminding everyone in Los Angeles the true reality of things.


Up next to a stencil and tag from Fim, SmogCity 'Public Notice', 'I Love Sluts' from Bankrupt Slut, and Jew graffiti.

Befor Eder Erie

Befor MTA CIA, Eder and Erie hit up this truck.

Can't tell if its a hater or buff job with the red going over Befor.

Also tagged by Jew.


***Thanks***

Drive By

Qtip cruising by stickers and tags from Slump, Bankrupt Slut, Dump, Insurgency Inc, Love, Punk Bunny, The Loyal Subjects, The Uprising, Manek, Phylo, Jew, TSF, New York Cosmos

Patriotic Zombie

Zombie slams up this postal box with Uncle Sam wheat pastes on 3 sides.

The Zombie character is dressed up in patriotic colors, fitting for the 4th of July.

Also tagged up by Jew.

Hot Spot

This hot spot on La Brea gets a lot of traffic.

Wheat pastes from Euth, Septerhed, KH no. 7,

And tags from Dves, Theo, Lust, Uncle, Jew, Awor69 and Basz?

Get Dumped

Corn, Erie Reva, Sosoe, Sekoe, Jew, Domino, Expensive Taste, Obey, and a cool hand drawn turtle by TT? and a cool shape sticker on bottom right

Dog Byte - Tycoon

Fresh new Auto Tycoon from Dog Byte on Beverly.

Great placement next to an auto body shop.

For what its worth, we at MelroseandFairfax feel that Dog Byte is LA's Banksy.

Obviously, Banksy is such a big name, and comparisons are always fraught with inconsistencies, that we tread lightly. But what we are really trying to say is that Dog Byte's impressive and detailed stencils, superb placement, and powerful imagery place LA's own art guru at the top of the street art hierarchy, right up there with Banksy.

Stay up~