MY STYLE JOURNEY: PART2 – COLORS, AK CITY GANGS & BONUS KOA

Within the Auckland Hip-Hop scene there was a major shift in influence in the early 90’s. The New York attitude and aesthetic influenced by Beat Street and Style Wars faded like a passing fad. The Boom boxes disappeared, the cardboard was put in the trash, the adidas stirrup pants were retired (Thankfully) and the focus shifted from East Coast USA to the West, specifically Los Angeles.

Photos pillaged from the internet except the first one which I shot in 2006.

It’s arguable that the movie ‘Colors’ was to adolescents and teens my age group what the aforementioned movies were to the youth of the 1980’s.  In 1984 after ‘Style Wars’ screened on TV One, there were literally kids spraying and B-Boying the following day. After ‘Colors’ came to VHS here in New Zealand, it seemed there were ‘Crips and Bloods’ overnight. Some gang names I remember were MSC (Morningside Crips), TCG (Tongan Crip Gang), SOS (Sons Of Samoa), OHB (honestly can’t remember what that stood for!) and GBK (Ghetto Born Kings). It seems almost funny to say them now because they certainly don’t strike terror in my heart like they did back in those days. Writing this post has been an interesting process because it has forced me to dig a little deeper and delve into the origin of these types of gangs in Auckland and how that shaped the environment I came up in.

For the most part, it was undeniable that there was plenty of imitation at it’s worst. It seemed people chose their allegiances purely by which colour they preferred. Of course, it wasn’t all that simple and plenty of other factors contributed – some can be traced back to historic racial divides, geographical, cultural and religious factors and of course New Zealand’s rife gang history.

In New Zealand we love to pull out the old ‘Highest Per Capita’ quite frequently. Usually it’s something like ‘the highest STD rate per capita’ or ‘the highest youth suicide rate per capita’ or ‘highest teen pregnancy per capita’.  It almost never relates to something positive like ‘greatest amount of geniuses’ for example. Perhaps this all just comes with being such a small nation but apparently we boast the highest number of gangs per head out of any country in the world.  According to Wikipedia we have roughly seventy major gangs with around 4,000-patched members despite only having a current population of 4,000,000 people. This can leave a person wondering what the fixation is? How do we get to this point?

Photos all found on the internet. I would give credit if I knew who to credit… But thanks.

A selection of New Zealand gang patches

To get to the heart of this you must consider that New Zealand is a nation steeped in tribal and warrior tradition. In Auckland and Wellington particularly, the influence of the indigenous Maori and migrant Polynesian culture is paramount and woven so thoroughly through the general psyche of our population regardless of whether people are aware or not. Concepts of extended family and our approach to hospitality for example borrow greatly from Polynesian culture but extend right across the spectrum of our society. I believe over time this has become a defining Kiwi cultural trait. The other thing that I feel has been lent from Maori and Pacific Island culture is the particular type of ‘staunch’. This is very hard to explain to outsiders but Kiwi’s know what I’m talking about. It is almost inexplicable. It seems to draw its power from ancient custom and is particularly unique to this country and perhaps the pacific islands.

One possible suggestion why gang culture resonates with our youth here you must consider the parallels with Polynesian tradition. Now I enter this spiel with a lot of trepidation. I don’t want it to be perceived in the wrong way, this is not the only factor but it could be a key contributor. While European families built prestige and status with elitist and capitalist ideals, the Maori class system (for example) has forever been governed by mana. This is the concept of pride and respect, which can be inherited or earned. Financial status has little bearing, for example the young will show respect for their elders. People with presence or who achieve in their chosen path are treated with the utmost dignity regardless of what they earn. One could work a menial day job but be a great speaker, thinker, musician and be given the same respect as someone who has millions of dollars, maybe even more. The warriors in life are also bestowed this type of respect. The physically strong, imposing and fierce also have a kind of mana.

Throughout the 1840’s Maori and Pakeha fought intense battles over land and unlike most indigenous people fighting colonial rule, the Maori were a formidable opponent. Despite lacking the modern weapons and technology of the English their knowledge of the land, adaptability to a variety of terrain and skillful tactics played a major part in dictating the shape of our nations culture today. One key thing that Maori relied on tactically during battle were their fortresses or Pa. Creating a barrier against artillery shells, the English were often forced to fight hand to hand rendering weaponry advantages useless. This makes me think about what a Pa symbolises. I think to today’s fortified gang pads and some comparisons can be drawn.

Some of the major ethnic gangs of New Zealand wear their patches and related tattoo’s on their faces. This obviously borrows in part or greatly from the tradition of Ta Moko (traditional Maori tattooing, often on the face). Moko was generally reserved for high-ranking people or those with a high social status. In a way, the aesthetic of these gangs is like some Mad Max type urban warrior. Interestingly some of the major gangs were born from the feeling of displacement Maori youth felt during the urbanisation of New Zealand.

Paintings of Maori dignitary’s with Moko by Charles Frederick Goldie.

Displacement also played its role in the origins of the Pacific Island gangs of Auckland city. The ‘King Cobras’ the first major inner city gang in Auckland, mainly consisting of Samoan members although not strictly. The 1950’s was a time of prosperity and rapid urban growth, this promoted an influx of Polynesian migration, the opportunity for gainful employment was alluring and it often enabled Pacific Island people to support family back home as well. Like all recent migrants to any society, Pacific Islanders fell prey to racial prejudice from the more established racial groups, Maori and Pakeha alike. The King Cobras were most likely spawned from a reaction to this but fast became one of Ponsonby’s most notorious gangs.

Incredible image from ‘Polynesian Panthers’ book of activists rolling a Police car on Onslow Road, Kingsland during the 1981 anti Springbok tour protests

Image of King Cobras and associates outside Ponsonby’s Gluepot in 1990. This is from the book ‘Urban Village’.

If I could recommend any additional reading I would suggest you get these two books, ‘Polynesian Panthers’ by Melani Anae with Lautofa Iuli and Leilani Burgoyne from Raupo (Reed) publishing and ‘Urban Village’ by Jenny Carlyon and Diana Morrow from Random House. Incredible books and explain things a lot better than I have here.

Through the 1980’s there was a general shift in social influence in New Zealand society from one that was inherently British to something much more Americanised. Eventually the majority of popular media and entertainment became American dominated and this impacted our society greatly. The demographic of Auckland was possibly not too dissimilar to a lot of major US cities in appearance. As youth looked to television and popular music for their role models it makes perfect sense that the Pacific Island and Maori kids mostly identified with the African American and Latin American figures they saw. When considering the impact of the American street gang culture and how that came to be, you must also recognise that Eastern Samoan has been an American territory since the turn of last century. Samoan people from that region fought for the US in WWII. 60% of the American Samoan population live in the US, particularly in the West Coast, including Hawaii. Look also at one interesting religious factor, the popularity of the Mormon religion in Samoan society. Western and American Samoans alike, travel to do their ‘mission’ in the US and also inhabit Mormon strongholds like Utah. This meant that a lot of Samoan kids I knew were culture-bearers of sorts, bringing back knowledge of music, dance, fashion and graffiti. One such example is Mangere writer ‘Finer FDKNS’ lived in Los Angeles during his teens and was one such culture-bearer. On his return to New Zealand he brought photos and knowledge of tag styles from LA and is subsequently considered the godfather of the ‘Straights’ tag style now synonymous with Auckland graffiti.

Despite the popular perception that the adoption of the ‘Crips and Bloods’ was solely from ‘Colors’ there was also a fair amount of direct influence from kids having observed things first hand. The SOS or ‘Sons Of Samoa’ were a Blood gang that originated in Carson, California.

Historically the Tongan people have maintained the legends of early expansionism and it is common belief that they once governed the entire of the Pacific Islands as their empire. This notion is still considered controversial as it relies greatly on oral history, as this was the only documentation method of Polynesian people prior to European colonisation. Regardless though, there have been racial divides between Tongan and Samoan people referred to in the folklore of both cultures. These tensions have flared up in different ways through history and recent New Zealand society presents no exception to this. Like Samoans, Tongan people also migrated to Los Angeles throughout the 1970’s. Some Tongan youth aligned themselves with the predominantly black gangs like the ‘Raymond Avenue Crips’. Eventually they sought their own independence though and so you find the origins of gangs like TCG or ‘Tongan Crip Gang’. I couldn’t explain the exact mechanics of how SOS and TCG established themselves in Auckland in the 1990’s the emergence of this style of youth gang became the catalyst for a lot of violence between these two communities.

Some examples of TCG Flat Top style tags from around 1991. Photos by Ikon RTR

Outside of the major cities, the adoption of Red and Blue by the Mongrel Mob (red) and Black Power (blue) has often meant youth gangs identifying themselves as either Crip or Blood have served as their feeder gangs. It is not uncommon to encounter entire towns that wear one or the other colour to show allegiance or avoid conflict.

When I was 11 years old and in my first year of Intermediate school, I was immediately struck with the types of pressures you would expect.  These years are so important in the formation of the person you become. You become exposed to social hierarchy’s that don’t exist earlier in life, you discover niche sub-cultures for the first time and start to explore music and fashion tastes that come to define you through your teen years. For me, only one type of music spoke to me at this age: Hip-Hop. It’s hard to fathom how much of a minority that made me, being one of the only white kids in my neighbourhood to be visibly ‘into’ this music. It may have been the combination of my extremely naïve idea of what constituted Hip-Hop fashion, the fact I was far less ‘gangsta’ than the Pacific Island and Maori kids or possibly that only a year or two prior I could be seen walking around the same streets in full makeshift superhero outfits – but some days it felt like I had a giant target on my back and a neon sign above my head saying “bully me”. It may have read “Stock me for my shoes and cap” but I never owned anything even close to cool enough to warrant that.

I liked Hip-Hop because I saw the creative side of it. I saw art, dance and music. I think the other kids in my area saw that too but mostly they saw ‘Gangsta’. For some of them, legendary reputations were built off rolling people or fighting well. For a guy like me, although I had plenty of fights out of necessity I was never particularly skilled with my ‘knuckle game’. I had to find other ways to survive and participating in the creative aspect of Hip-Hop came to function like a defence measure once I started exploiting it right. I can’t take full credit for this realisation either, I have to acknowledge someone else for planting those seeds of thought for me: Bonus KOA, who I met in 1991 at Kowhai Intermediate.

Bonus was a year older than me and possibly the only other white kid from around the same area that was into Rap music and graffiti. Back then he was a reasonably short and scrawny kid, quick witted and street smart. He had a way tougher upbringing than me always tended to gravitate to mischief. I don’t think he tagged Bonus back then but he was tagging. I remember him putting in requests with me for to draw gangster looking characters and he would give me instructions like “oh put this label on his overalls” or “give him shades like Eazy-E”. One time he was like “man, you should get into graffiti, you’re good at drawing, imagine how bad you’d be at graffiti!” and I was like, “Yeah man, that’s a good idea!” I could totally see already what he was getting at because in the context of the conversation we had been having, he was telling me it was my ticket to get some street-cred with the other kids we knew. I said to him “You should like draw me up a tag alphabet so I can see how all the letters are done.” And he did. The next day he gave me a piece of lined refill with all the tag letters done in TCG flat top style. I was really stoked but almost immediately started having grand plans of how I could improve on the letters and went home and started drawing pieces based on his tag shapes. I chose the name ‘Krewl” as my first tag.

Auckland KOA roll call at Mt. Eden station from 1993. Photo by Ikon RTR

New Market cinema carpark stairwell in all it’s former glory circa 1994. Photo by Ikon RTR.

Being that I was only 11 at the time I never made a serious commitment to doing graffiti after that short stint. Jump forward to 1993 and I was starting High School, attending Western Springs College. On my first few days of school I was reintroduced to a handful of 4^th formers who had been the 2^nd formers at Kowhai when I was in 1^st form. With their one-year head start at high school life, a lot had happened and I learned pretty quickly I had a lot of catching up to do. For starters, most of them now had tag names and Bonus alongside his friend and partner in crime Bart (R.I.P.) were amongst some of the more prolific writers in the school.  The originally had their own crew IGz or Immature Gonerz but by the time I was reintroduced they were representing the now infamous KOA (Kiss Our Ass) crew. KOA was also a well-respected Sydney crew and I’ve always been a bit vague as to whether there was a direct correlation between the New Zealand and Australian chapters or if it was looser than that. Either way, members of the Australian KOA and the KOA that Bonus represented both played major roles in 90’s Auckland graffiti culture.

To be continued…