All language subtitles for la originals

Um...

I'm making this movie because, uh...

Which way you want me to look?

- Right here.
- Okay.

I'm basically making this movie

because I have 25 years

of footage and photos
of me and Cartoon's...

I guess, uh, journey in life,

and all the movement that we've...

Wait, let me see.

If you ain't got tatted by Cartoon,
you ain't got no tat.

If you ain't get shot by Estevan,
you got a weak photographer.

You can't tell the story of Estevan
without telling the story of Cartoon.

You know Toons, then you know Estev.

They are LA.

Premier representatives
of that Los Angeles culture.

Like, the pioneers.

Not just pioneers,
I mean, I think they're historians.

Storytellers, they're the image-makers.
The chroniclers.

When you say LA tattoo artists,
you can't not mention Mister Cartoon.

Nobody does art like Cartoon.

When you look at a Mister Cartoon tattoo,
you know that's Mister Cartoon.

Everybody knows Mister Cartoon.

The hip-hop tattoo artist.

Man, you got tatted by Toons,
it's, like, a level of respect.

Cartoon, baby.

-My boy Cartoon.
-Cartoon.

The world-famous Cartoon.

Everything Cartoon did, Estevan was there.

Estevan brings an authenticity
that is matched by none other.

Photographing gang members.

Capturing the whole culture
and everything, man.

Lowrider culture, tattoo culture,
shots of Skid Row.

Leaving pieces of history behind.

- These vatos...
- They showed

that you can do it the right way
if you do it the right way.

They take pride in all of that.

They paved the way
for a lot of people.

Even if they don't admit it.

We couldn't have done it
without these two guys.

It's about courage.

Just be true to who you are,
and a lot of people are terrified

of being who they are.

That's one of the reasons
they're so successful.

They mean what they say
and they say what they mean.

This is our thing,
and we wanna bring this out to the world.

LA's globalized.

They've joined forces,
and they've been unstoppable ever since.

Coming from a Chicano,
Mexican family,

believing in God is standard issue.

I was formerly raised Catholic.

I was told at a young age
that I was gifted, I was blessed,

I have a gift from God.

And when you tell a kid that every day

over and over and over,

they start to believe it.

So when my mom would ask me
to clean the room,

make my bed, I'd be like,

"I've been gifted from God.
I'm not gonna make my bed. Come on."

For me, work is happiness.
Yeah, I love to work.

I love doing photography. I love filming.

You know, when you say "work,"
that means you do something

and you get paid, so, yeah,
that means my bills can get paid,

and I can keep moving forward.

- Daddy!
- I'm not the best dad

or the best husband,

but I think I'm a good worker,

a good photographer,

and a pretty good friend.

Nobody could say I'd done them wrong.
If they do, they're a lying motherfucker.

If you focus,

you could see shit off of your talent.

You could travel the world.

You could go to Europe and shit.
Like, we've been all around the world.

You can buy a home for your family.

Art was like I had to scratch an itch.

I would see shit,

I would see a movie poster,

or I would see something
that made me wanna draw,

and I would get this kind of anxiety
that I had to draw,

I had to draw every day. To let it go.

He was young, very young, like... four.

At that time, he was drawing nostrils,
fingernails, earlobes,

you know, things that kids drew
with stick figures,

he was drawing,
doing very intricate things.

He was my first child, so I just thought
I was the greatest mom

because he was so good, you know?

His mom was, "You're the best.

You're amazing.
You're the best artist in the world.

You're gonna grow up to be wonderful."

And then, at some point,
you just believe it.

When I was a kid, my father met this guy
at the line at the bank.

He says, "I'm in karate.
I have a business, a karate business."

My dad comes home and he goes,

"I got great news.
You're going to martial arts school."

I go, "I don't wanna do that."
He goes, "Yeah."

Hey, I'm paying for that...

...you're gonna go.

When he first started, he was real shy,
wouldn't talk to anybody.

But maybe about a year after karate,

I would say that he was so confident
that he'd walk straight up.

Going to the karate school introduced me

to the world of candy paint

because the grand master of the school
was also a custom car painter,

so I learned all those things,
you know, the murals, the candy paint,

respect, the flow of life.

All these things kind of went in a circle.

It's crazy.

I'm Estevan Oriol.
I'm a photographer and director.

Raised in LA.

I was born in Santa Monica
at Saint John's Hospital.

So you got Estevan.

Like, this tall cholo guy,

but then most people don't know
he's half Italian.

My mom and dad were married
up until I was about three.

And they split up,
and it was me and my mom.

To me, my mom was great.

We grew up on welfare,
food stamps and Medi-Cal,

but she did her best
to make it the best for me.

Any time you have mixed-race children,

they grow up a little bit confused though,
"Am I this race or am I this race?"

And at some point, you just gotta choose.
He chose the Latino side.

I didn't even know it until years later.

My dad,
he was kind of like a hippie.

He didn't give a shit about having
a nice car and all that shit,

so that pushed me to strive for more.

That's what gave me my drive.

So after high school,
I worked at a snack bar,

I worked on fishing boats,

supermarkets,

liquor store delivery.

I always had, like, one, two, three jobs.

At the time, in the '80s,

it was all about where do you fit in

in hip-hop.

Are you a breaker? Are you a rapper?

Are you a locker? Are you a writer?

And I was like, "I love breakdancing,

and all that shit," but I couldn't hang.

But I could draw.

Cartoon, uh, always had a marker

or a can of spray paint with him
all the time.

And wherever we were at, he'd hit up.

'Cause I was hip-hop.
I had a b-boy side of me.

It was, like, bombing, 3-Ds, fade.

You know, before the Cartoon
that he's known for today,

he was an awesome graffiti writer.

He was from this crew WCA
that was kind of legendary

and was really fucking good.

I go to probably late '80s
with Cartoon.

He was "Flame" at the time.

I thought I knew everybody.
I was like, "Who the fuck is this?"

And he had such a unique style,
and was so different.

He hit and run. Like, I'd see a wall,
and next day I was like,

"Where did this come from?
Who did it?" You know.

I basically
do graffiti everywhere I go.

It brought me a rush,
like, you can go to jail for this shit.

He put his name, "Flame,"
on the graffiti piece,

and, so, he was caught,
you know, for doing that.

There was something different
about him.

We had an idea that someday
he was gonna do something,

that he was gonna go somewhere,
he was gonna be something in life.

It's like a work of art in there.

We were all proud of this,
when he came out in the paper.

I was just searching
for my look, you know?

What felt good and what felt real to me.

I went to LA Trade-Tech
to learn Sign Graphics,

to understand letters.

Letters have a weight to them.

When I was in school,
all the kids knew where the prisons were,

and some of them would get letters
from their family members,

and I would look at the envelope

and see these crazy collaged,
pinta-style envelopes

and I would think to myself,

"Man, if I could mix that style of artwork
with bombing graffiti style,

put them together."

That's where my style was born.

When I hit 19,
I moved to Hollywood.

Sunset Boulevard was cracking.

The Whisky, The Roxy.

Hip-hop was new.

Just that scene was fucking off the chain,

and I was working nightclubs
for extra money.

And that's where I met all the LA bands.

Ice-T and the Rhyme Syndicate,

the Red Hot Chili Peppers,

Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.,

Everlast from House of Pain.

That's how I met Muggs.

And then he took me down to the block
on Cypress Ave,

and that's where I met B-Real and Sen.

So, this right here is SP 1200.

This is the drum machine that we did
um, all the House of Pain's records.

♪ Pack it up, pack it in
Let me begin ♪

The sample though--
For "Jump Around," I made it.

Horn player... came in the studio,
played the horn,

and I put it in here, then I detuned it.

When you detune it,
it gives it like a crunch.

♪ Feelin', funkin'
Amps in the trunk ♪

It spreads it out a little bit.
That's why that sounds unique.

First time I met Estevan, he was working
the door of a club on 2nd Street

in, like, Little Tokyo.

He just would always
show me love and let me in.

That's the homie Steve-O,
short for Steve Oriol.

Switched it up to Scan.
Scan was just Scandalous.

After we started
getting the music together,

and we realized we were gonna go
on the road, Muggs basically said,

"Yo, I know exactly who should be
your road manager."

Who can I get that's fucking responsible
and got they shit together?

And I was like, "Who?"

I hit up Scan and then, um...

He became our tour manager.

That was it, right there.

That was the beginning
of us having worldwide escapades.

In the beginning, people
didn't know that House of Pain was white.

People were like, "What the fuck?"

"What are these fucking white boys
walking through here?"

And then they'd hear the...

And the whole fucking club
would just go buck wild, berserk,

and they're just losing
their fucking minds.

From there, it just took off.

I was with the band in the music videos,
like "Shamrocks and Shenanigans."

When I wasn't here in LA,
I was on tour with House of Pain.

My dad, he was a photographer.

He thought I lived
kind of a cool lifestyle, so...

This is my first camera
that my dad gave me.

This is the one that I talk about
when people say,

"Oh, how did you start in photography?"

We would go on these
little really fucked-up promo tours,

and he was just always taking pictures.

I figured out
that I was gonna be an artist

when it was time to get a real job.

I think airbrushing T-shirts,
when I first did that,

about 17 years old,

is when I knew
I could do this for a living.

And I would paint
portraits of people's cars,

put it on a T-shirt
and put the name over top.

I just started working right off the bat.

Cartoon's Customs was born,

kind of like preparing me to tattoo.

Scandalous got the camera.

Japan. It's how we do it.

Chicken and soup.
And I'm gonna get the spinach and butter.

When you're on the road, man,
shit can get a bit stressful.

You need somebody out there
that knows everybody's personalities

and everything,
keep everything at ease all the time.

Every day was a new adventure,
new city, new country, new shows.

It was the shit, to roll with the homie.

Hey, Steve-O.

He wasn't Estevan Oriol, the photographer.
He was the road dog.

They got the homie.

Cypress Hill, at the time, had not only...
selling crazy records or platinum records,

but a well-respected hip-hop group.

B-Real was one of the dopest emcees
in the world at the time.

Look at this view, motherfuckers.

I look fucking good.

You never have to ask me if I'm ready.
I'm always ready, motherfucker. Fuck you.

Oh, shit. That was a good hit.

Muggs had put on Estevan
to work with the House of Pain guys

and then he came to work with us,
Cypress Hill.

His first show
with us was at Woodstock 1994.

B-Real jumps off the stage
into the crowd, now I gotta pull him out,

but while I'm pulling him out,
I'm taking pictures.

That shit was fucking crazy.

♪ But I'm still comin' to get ya
Thinkin' like a peace smoke ♪

♪ Comin' on a homicide
You talkin' shit, try to take... ♪

Estevan, he had many
different roles he played.

He was tour managing,

he was our photographer and videographer.

♪ So what ya gonna do now?
Being the hunted one is no fun ♪

♪ Here I come, son ♪

Those are all mine.

♪ Better run more
And move a little faster ♪

♪ Second of thought
And I'm comin' to blast ya with my ♪

♪ Sawed off shotgun, hand on the pump
Left hand on a forty ♪

♪ Puffin' on a blunt ♪

♪ Pumped my shotgun ♪

♪ Niggas didn't jump ♪

- ♪ Lala, la la, la la, la la ♪
- Let's rock 'n' roll.

♪ Cypress Hill, Cypress Hill ♪

♪ Look at it ♪

♪ Cypress Hill, Cypress Hill ♪

♪ Cypress Hill, Cypress Hill ♪

♪ Look at it ♪

That's the way our crew was.
We all worked together very tightly.

No one ever wore one hat.

You know, everybody did multiple things
just to get whatever we needed done,

and Estevan, you know,
he covered a lot of bases,

and, at the same time,
being our family and friend

and filling every spot
that needed to be filled.

What's up, dude?
This is motherfucking Scandalous.

If you need anything,
I got what you want, baby.

Motherfuckin', big old skunk.

Come on!

Can you hear me? We're right here
in fucked-up Cleveland,

we just had Mother Nature
trip the fuck out on us.

Yeah!

♪ Olé, olé, olé, olé, Cypress, Cypress ♪

So Estevan came through and a lot
of the great footage that we have now

from Cypress Hill in those early days,
it was all Estevan Oriol footage.

♪ Cypress ♪

♪ Cypress ♪

♪ Cypress Hill ♪

♪ Cypress Hill ♪

♪ Cypress ♪

♪ Cypress ♪

♪ Cypress Hill ♪

♪ Cypress Hill ♪

I have Steve-O in my head
always saying things like,

"I'm just right here.
I'm just right here."

Him, I think, saying to me,

"Don't worry about it.
I'm doing my job. I'm right here."

Alright, we're still on our way.

The most pissed-on
fucking countryside I've seen.

- What else are we gonna do?
- We need to get there before you do.

Fucking Ireland.

- Oh, he's stuck!
- You fucking bollocks!

What the fuck did he say?

We have to go backstage,
you know?

You can't get in that way.
It's too small.

- We wanna go backstage.
- Yeah, you got a pass?

Yeah, we-- This is our pass. Cypress Hill.

- Cypress-- Oh, yeah.
- Yeah.

We made it, Engolf.

I'm on tour
with The Beastie Boys,

No Doubt, The Fugees,

Limp Bizkit, Erykah Badu,

and all these other bands,

and I'm the only one there with a camera.

You're going from nothing
to seeing thousands of people

losing their fucking minds to the song
that you guys are bringing, you know?

So, you're, like, "Fuck, man."

That's when I started, like, feeling like,

"Okay, yeah, I need
to take pictures of all this shit."

This is Southern California, motherfucker.

I started offering my photos
to the magazines,

so music magazines
started publishing my photos.

Yo, kick it off, dog.

One, two, three. Chickity boom bang.

Estevan...

The motherfucker was the man, you know?
He was a man of many hats.

When I met him,
I was about 14, 15 years old.

I was in the group The Whooliganz.
I rapped. I was a rapper.

♪ Book your silly crick
Put your hands up ♪

Me and my man Scotty.
Scotty Caan.

We had made a record with B-Real,
so they were bringing us out on tour

to pump up our record
that hadn't come out yet.

So, I'm 16 years old in that situation,

with nothing to do,
but be alive for one hour.

Otherwise, it was, like, hit on girls,

smoke weed and drink,
and hang out with your idols.

I don't like to represent an age group.
I'm representing hip-hop.

You know,
he started fucking with the camera then...

Alchemist started fucking
with beats then and...

- Can we say "fuck"?
- Yeah.

You talk about that time,
you can't not curse.

It's impossible, you know?

You gotta remember, in '93,
Soul Assassins,

Cypress Hill, House of Pain,
they were the top of rap.

You know, you had Dre and Snoop otherwise,

but other than that,
this was the biggest shit going on.

That was Soul Assassins. We were the top.

I met Estevan Oriol
25 plus years ago.

It was surreal for a 16-year-old
to go to a concert

with The Whooliganz opening up
for House of Pain and Cypress Hill

at the height of their career.

We were backstage, and they almost
shut the whole concert down

because some guy named Estevan
punched out the bootleggers.

They would get your artwork
from the newspaper and make a shirt.

Like an hour before the show,
a couple-- All the homeboys

would like, put their hoods on and, like,
go walk through the parking lot

and you'd just be sittin'
by the, you know, by the trailers,

-and you just hear, "Wham!"
-Damn!

And dudes would just get knocked out cold,
like...

I won't name any names.

- Name names.
- Muggs, Estevan.

Motherfucker said something...

So I punch him in the face.

Poor guy.

So, that's when I met Estevan Oriol.

Him beating up a bootlegger
in San Francisco

at a Soul Assassins' concert.

When I met Steve-O, he was tour manager,

the all-time funny guy...

slash photographer, slash DJ.

From their platinum album Temples of Boom,
you guys, here is Cypress Hill!

♪ All this confusion's stressing me
Out in my mind ♪

There were times I think
where he even may have filled in

as a member of Cypress Hill in interviews.

You can't blame all of us
for these few groups.

Clearly,
the controversy is going to continue.

-Thanks a lot for joining us.
-Thanks for having us.

This is Cypress Hill.
And now, back to New York.

Then fight!

I think it all changed, though,
when I did my first album cover.

There were the 1992 riots.

It's not a message of protest.

It's the brutality of a mob.

The verdict was read,
and the streets went crazy.

Shit just happened.

Blacks and Mexicans started looking
at each other, communicating

like family.

Boy, they didn't like that.
They didn't like that.

I remember that day,
driving on the 110 freeway,

going to Hollywood
and seeing the sides of the 110

with fire on each side of it.

What it did was, it spawned a relationship

from '92 to now that they can never break.

But as crazy as that shit was,

that everything was on fire

and the injustice against Rodney King,

and "fuck the police," and this and that,

I was driving,
and the Kid Frost album cover I had drawn

was blown up on a billboard

for Virgin Records.

Now I'm in the music game,
and I don't even play the guitar.

Behind me is
where me and Cartoon first met.

On that particular night,
they rented out the top floor

for The Penthouse Players
record release party.

Me and my friend Donnie Charles,
we went there together.

Right when we walked in,

he saw Cartoon, and he goes, "Hey..."

"Come over here, uh,
I want you to meet my other homie.

He's Mexican too."

"Both of you guys are in the music game.

He did The Penthouse Players' album cover.

You guys just kick it right here,
and I'm gonna go roll around."

"E" impacted my life
because I found someone

that was on the same mission I was,

artistically, friendship-wise.

I remember him telling me,
"Mommy," says,

"I met a guy that thinks
along the same lines I do."

Probably my first seeing Cartoon
was, like, early '94.

If I remember correctly,

it was at Muggs' crib
up in the Hollywood Hills.

- They were in a '64 Impala.
- It is a buddy comedy.

Abbott and Costello.
These two motherfuckers was non-stop.

They knew how to hustle.

At the beginning,
it was rough for us.

And the more we hung out,
the more we just started building on ideas

of things that we could do
to make money that weren't illegal.

The check dance.
Let's see the-- Let's see the--

The stripper check.

Back in those days, you know,
there was no Estevan without Cartoon.

Cartoon's role in Soul Assassins,
he's like the... the visuals.

We saw the talent in him.
We believed in him.

Get in there.
Get in there, fucker.

For real?

Turn the camera off!

- Where we at?
- We're in a ferry right now.

Fucking eight in the morning and shit.

I'm so tired.

All that tour life, man,
I think that's what kind of molded us

to be able to have
different relationships, you know?

Just living that life, man.

- You're high, man.
- Wow!

What do you think about that?
It looks crazy.

I'll take a little piece and taste it.

When Cartoon first started coming around,
he started doing all of our shit.

He was mad talented.

I would do the stage design.

Check, check.

Artwork that I had drawn

would get blown up
into this big giant blow-up doll

of a king sitting on a throne,

the most gangster shit I could think of.

I hadn't even started tattooing.
I didn't even have a tattoo yet.

It wasn't until later I started

hangin' around
professional tattoo shops that...

...the smell of the green soap,

the energy of the shop kind of drew me in.

My life would go another direction.

This is NFC,
stands for "No Fat Chicks."

A long, long time ago,
I made a tattoo machine...

for my partner Cartoon.

And this is what he started
tattooing me with.

Even though I was good
at drawing on paper,

and I could do graffiti, airbrush,
skin was a completely different world.

His transition
from drawing to the tattoo game

had everybody shook.

I don't remember exactly
how he transitioned,

but I remember, like, his first tattoos.
It was, like, "Oh, it's over."

Cartoon came in
and changed the game.

From spraying on a metal
to "Give me this fucking gun,"

he just, like, took to skin

like it was just second nature.

In the early days,
he'd bring me all my customers.

I'd just see all these people
and all these bands,

and I'd see their tattoos and I was like,

"Fuck, man, that tattoo looks like shit."

Just see them at a concert and be like,

"Oh, you like tattoos?
That's a nice tattoo.

You ever got tattooed by Cartoon?
He did this on me."

And I showed them mine,
and they were fresh.

Most of the guys were like,

"Oh, that's badass, you know.
Who did that?"

"My boy Cartoon. He brought his shit.
You can get tattooed with him."

That's how I got all my clients, you know?

My big ones.

There is so much going on with those guys.

They're super ambitious,
super creative.

You just want this same style,
but just a little more symmetrical.

Like this.

Super fun to be around.

Super assholes at times.

Hey, Paul,
we're ready to get Jewish, get right.

I know Toons went
on the Anger Management Tour

over to Europe.

Everybody hung out.

Anger Management Tour.

-This was the tour.
-Damn.

We're doing
these European festivals

and you get access to all these bands.

I mean, all-access pass.

Whookid is accused
of trying to bribe a prostitute

with a mixtape and two tickets.

Order in court! Order in court!

Did you or did you not pay for pussy?

I paid for entertainment.

He's a pro at that, man.

It was crazy, he was tattooing
on tour over there in Europe.

Amsterdam.

I came over here to Europe
to come with Cypress Hill.

Actually,
it's a Cartoon tour featuring 50 Cent.

He makes me want a tattoo and shit.

- Eminem.
- Cartoon, homie. Y'all can't afford it.

- Xzibit.
- Fucking ecstasy, man!

Cypress Hill.

It ain't easy, but somebody gotta do it.
Why the hell not you, right?

Basically, my tattoo customers
are getting together

and throwing some type of little concert.

That was pretty cool
'cause he was doing it sometimes

right backstage.

-You're coming with us tomorrow, right?
-We're coming at 3:00 p.m. 2:00 p--

No, 1:00 p.m.

I was Proof before it, but this really--

Wow! I'm Proof now, for real, for real,
you know what I'm saying?

Motherfuckers are bored,

so when you have a tattoo machine
going in the back...

What do you got on that shoulder?

...and you're in Germany somewhere,
you're gonna be there all day.

He's got another victim.

He shoulda did a class photo
with all his ink victims on this tour.

He did Bizarre from D12.
He did his belly, man.

I remember, I was there
just watching him do this.

He had a lot of real estate.

He had lot of real estate right there.
It was crazy.

If you're a rapper

and you ain't got a tattoo by Cartoon,
then you ain't living.

I was just that guy in the industry

and people were coming to see me
because of my work.

I surrounded myself by talent.

25 years old,
this is holding its weight.

DL, all day strong.
Know what I'm talkin' bout?

Hola.

Is there anywhere
to go get something to eat?

Terminal two.

- Huh?
- Terminal two.

- How do you get there?
- You go--

Where did she say to turn?

The green ramp.

New York City. No one's here.

- You need that?
- No.

Let's go.

Before you know it,
everybody was calling Cartoon.

He was top name, flying him in.

Well, at that point in time,
everybody started getting tatted up.

Hey, let's order a pizza pie.

Gang Starr, you know what I'm saying?

That means that's me
and my motherfucking man Preemo, okay?

-DJ Premier.
-Yeah.

Only real shit gets done
on me anyway, so the realest shit,

Mister Cartoon.

This hot, though, this hot.

He's created a masterpiece.

Busted.

I'm gonna leave my whole little
cigarette binge right here in New York,

where I found it.

I thought you found it in Tokyo.

Yeah, but...

I can't leave it there
cause I'm over here.

That nigga Cartoon be doin'.

You see, this is how we do it.

And-- And what you have with Estevan...

If I tell you to shut the fuck up,
will you shut the fuck up?

Insane drug addict, alcoholic.

He was partying his ass off.

I might've experimented
with every kind of drug you could try.

PCP, blow, mushrooms,

acid, ecstasy,

MDMA.

I'd wake up
with the craziest cramps in my legs.

And... it was just too much.

We looked at each other and we were like,

"We need to go to the next level, man."

And to go to the next level,
"E" had to leave...

the substances behind.

And he got sober

and sponsored
countless amount of people for years.

Once he got sober,
I just seen domination kick in.

And they grew that empire,

Soul Assassins Studios.

Before you know it...

I mean, should I tell you--
I can tell you the whole story now.

♪ Now here's a little something
That needs to be heard ♪

My first time going to S.A. Studios,

lowriders,

rims,

the art on the wall.

I was like a kid in a candy store.

It was like a Chicano...

like a camp, like a club.

These dudes are like cholo Da Vincis.

I never would've found them
if I hadn't become successful.

Yeah. Yeah. Check, check.

Yo. I remember walking in,
though, and being like,

"Damn, you guys made it."

'Cause it was, like, fucking incredible.

You're in downtown,

and you're in the thick of it,
Skid Row is right there,

and that spot was super jammin'.
I loved that.

It seemed like it should be
like a tour museum.

Like, people need to see that shit.

When we first moved down here,
this was an extension of Skid Row.

This is where the homeless used to live.
The people on drugs or mentally ill.

That's what this area was like before.

Can you see it? All right.
The Art Department were those two windows.

And we had like a little showroom here.

We had all of our cars
laid out behind these windows.

Inside that double doors right there

was Cartoon's Skid Row Tattoo.

S.A. Studios. That was a great time.

It was like a hideout.

You guys gave us the tour.
Like, showed us a bunch of shit.

It was kind of like a wild playground.

Come on! Let's go! Busted! Yeah!

Shalom.

Yeah, I got a good tattoo
for you guys right here.

Oh!

The Jew unit in effect,
you know what I'm saying?

We have these two guys
with shaved heads covered in tattoos,

and then you go to their office,
and they have their own Nikes,

they have their own Vans.

And Estevan's sittin' there,
and his room's a mess,

and he has like a little gun on the table.

Motorcycles.
It was the illest, illest studio ever.

It was nothing like I'd ever seen before.

I'm green with envy.

When I walked out and I saw Too $hort,
and then I saw Darlene,

Ice-T's old wife, right?

Well, I saw 50 there.

I saw Dre, Snoop.

You know, every day
was somebody else coming through.

I saw her walking in, and I'm like,

"Oh, this must be the spot."
You know what I'm saying? Like...

I saw Eminem over there.

He tatted me there.

I think one day
I saw Kim Kardashian there.

Went and done a photo shoot with her
or whatever.

You guys still got that place?

The building itself
seemed slightly dangerous.

Oh, there comes shitbox.

I'm sure it's really dangerous,
but since you planted

your spot there it became--

It was like a safe house or something.

The homeless people around it,
they took care of it.

You know, that's why no one
ever really messed with that building.

Pull your ass over.
Face the wall.

And I wanna see your ID and your bike.

There's my ID,

there's my nutsack,

and fuck you, my ass.

It seems like we were able
to exist in multiple worlds.

You know what I'm saying?

For lunch, we'd be in downtown

and bullshitting
with some crazy homeless guy in his tent.

Estevan would jump out
and take a picture of him.

And then we'd jump on the 10 freeway
and be at a five-star hotel.

It was just normal,
you know what I'm saying?

I'm Pepper, you know?

I'm Skid Row's
most highest-ranked right now.

I'm the mayor of Skid Row.

The homeless pretty much answer to me.

Factory place was dead.

When Joker, Cartoon, everyone come here.

They brought the factory to life, okay?

And then I came into the scene.

- How old you turn?
- Forty-one.

Okay, I'm 50.

Soon to be 51 in a couple of months.

I'm an ex-convict,
ex-drug dealer, ex-drug user.

I gutted his ass.

We got in an argument, so I gutted him.

This family never gave up on me.

They never gave up on me when I was
all filthy, drugged out and shit.

When I was thrown in and out
of County Jail,

they accepted me with open arms
when I come out.

I've been dealing
with homeless people

all my life, you know.

They don't wanna follow rules.

I work when I wanna work.

Sleep when I wanna sleep.

Sleep where I wanna sleep.

They have a problem
with authority.

And whoever don't like it,
fuck them in their ass and suck my dick.

For the fourth time today.
This is harassment.

Fourth time being stopped for no reason.

- See you tomorrow, Pepper!
- All right.

We could fall off
and lose all our shit.

Pepper's world.

So, any of us
could be walking the streets, you know?

Drugs will take you down there.

But that's the way life goes.
Life is about change.

And change is what it's about.

Look,
if y'all gonna keep telling me

which way to move,
we can't do no interview. Damn!

Look, are you good, cameraman? All right.

Listen, I'm Big Lepke,
Westside Rebels, gangster locos.

Yeah, I'm an ex-gang member.

We up on Skid Row. We keep it real.

Today we ain't trippin'.
Ain't no heroin in the veins.

Ain't no rock in the mouth.

Skid Row was my home.

Some people call it "hell."
I call it "home."

The city I roam.

So, right here Lepke
would get the boxes

from when we'd throw them out,

and he'd make
like a little bed right here.

I remember one time
we were coming to have a meeting here

and Lepke, he'd been shooting heroin.

We were like,
"Great, fucking Lepke's passed out.

The clients are coming,
and we're gonna have this big meeting,

and there's our, you know,
dopefiend friend

passed out from shooting too much heroin.

You know, he didn't OD, so we didn't
have to stick an ice cube up his ass.

But he was knocked out,
so we had to spray him with some water...

so he could come to.

Hey.

Come back.

Get him later.

I'm over here, kickin' it.

- Don't threaten me, man.
- Hey, motherfucker.

No, no, we told him, "You gotta go.
We're gonna have a meeting."

Oh, suck a dick.

Yeah, he squirted some water in my nose,
and it was a cool wake-up call.

I always think about stuff like that.

You're gonna get kicked.

So, downtown has always been
a Soul Assassins' headquarters.

It was kind of like a home base.
Kind of reminds me of Grand Theft Auto.

Estevan was upstairs,

Cartoon was tattooing.

There was eyes on it.
It was protected, man, yeah.

There's like a shield around it
or something.

But you take pictures, you do cars,
all that stuff in that space.

You tattoo there.

There's only one guy
that I let do my tattoos,

and my kids' tattoos.

The great Cartoon.

How does the car look?

Great.

Tattoos used to be a stigma.

I mean, a bad one.

When I got out of the pen,

the first girl I saw with a tattoo, I--
I thought she was a hooker.

Before him, tattooing hip-hop guys,

I don't think there was
a prominent position in hip-hop

where guys were getting tatted like that.

Nobody was--
Like, in hip-hop, was about that.

I mean--

Fuck, I mean, I feel like Cartoon
gave Eminem one of his first tattoos,

Didn't he? He gave Snoop
one of his first tattoos.

Look at this, man.
I really look like my old boy Nate Dogg.

It looks like my lovely wife.

He captured that, man.

I mean, I don't even have
a Cartoon tattoo, believe it or not.

That's, you know what I mean,
I'd love one.

But, you know, I'm not paying 50 Gs.
I'm just not doing it.

This guy is the best in the world,
but he costs an arm and a leg.

He'll tattoo your arm
and he'll take it with you.

Hey, man, it's worth it.

- Talk about your new tattoo.
- Cartoon is the greatest tattoo artist

to ever live.

This should be enough for this,
because, my man--

He's the greatest, the quickest, uh...

- With the biggest truck.
- With the biggest truck.

It's getting expensive, man.

With the biggest truck...

in the world, probably.

I mean, his clientele, you know,
it's like, you know, Travis,

and Eminem, Redman,

Method Man, you know,

Justin Timberlake,

Beyoncé from Destiny's Child...

Don't show me.

It's appointment only

and not every deek off the street
can just come in and get something.

I knew If I was gonna get
my fucking head done,

for what I wanted and stuff,
and the style,

I knew it was gonna be Cartoon, you know.

That was an experience.

I would hear his name in songs.
The Game,

there's a couple of rap songs
where he drops Cartoon's name.

♪ I'm to hip-hop
What Cartoon is to Mexicans ♪

You know, I'm a hip-hop fan,
and, so, I would see Cartoon

pop up in music videos.

♪ From the reign of the tec
I break 'em off ♪

♪ I even got a tattoo
With your name across the chest ♪

In the waiting room,

I remember looking
at the pictures on the wall,

pictures Estevan probably took.

Cartoon was tatting up all those,
50 Cent, Eminem and Dr. Dre.

If Xzibit was getting tattooed,

Estevan was photographing him,
and you'd see that photo everywhere.

I knew pretty early on
that he had done the Xs on Xzibit,

that he did 50 Cent's back,

You know, 50 got that shit
on his back, man.

That shit is crazy.

♪ One, two, three, let's go! ♪

♪ Lil' mama, show me how you move it ♪

♪ Go ahead, put your back into it ♪

More people were coming down,
more people were willing to come downtown.

I mean, back then, people used to complain
about having to drive to downtown.

"Oh, all the way downtown?"

They wouldn't go east of La Brea.

50 Cent, my boy Cartoon.

We out here in LA, boy.

Cartoon
was tattooing 50 Cent in there,

and he said he had to go have a meeting.

He was going to sign
with Jimmy Iovine at Interscope.

Huh? Huh?

So he had to leave
for an hour or two.

So me and Cartoon left
in his brand-new white Escalade

on, like, 22-inch rims.

About six police officers
followed us down that street.

They pulled us both out of the car.

They threw me on the ground,
put the handcuffs behind my back,

put his shotgun
in the back of my head right here,

and he was shaking.

What happened was...

Some motorcycle cop
was put in the hospital

by a young gentleman with a shaved head
looking a lot like me,

driving a truck like this.

We have customers here
from out of town.

And they go, "Hey,
you guys gotta go," then 50 Cent said...

I ain't did it. Cartoon ain't did it.
Leave us the fuck alone.

If you go on a talk show,
you have a big story to tell.

I get my tattoo done...

-That tattoo artist got-
-Yeah, on my back. And they're harassing.

We ain't going nowhere.

He's a friend of mine from Virginia,

but he's going to see this shit
and that's gonna be it.

♪ To flip dough
To get more for sho' ♪

♪ Get my drink on
Then get on the dance floor ♪

Did you ever get anybody, like, right
at this point, "Wait, I wanna change it"?

All you need now is, uh,
Mister Cartoon's signature.

What's up, y'all? It's Nas.

Chillin' up here with my man Cartoon.

Hey, yo, this is Meth right here.

I just got a tattoo done
by the world-famous Cartoon.

-Cartoon.
-Cartoon, baby.

What?

Cartoon is...

just an OG.

He's one of the illest.

Cartoon really made
black and gray popular again.

I'd sit down with Cartoon,
and we really wouldn't even have a plan.

I would trust him to just go freehand.

I had an appointment with Cartoon.
We all came to my spot in Corona.

We had just met,
but it felt, like, you know,

we had all been homies for a long time.

We got the kids with us,

we're taking the whole families,
Fourth of July.

The first tattoo
Cartoon did on me was

praying hands on the side of my head.

It said, "Barker," like my family name.

It was like therapy or something,
you know.

Just sitting with Toons, you don't even
realize you're getting tattooed.

I think the next tattoos he did

was he started filling in
my ghetto blaster.

He also did this Marilyn piece

right on my Adam's apple,
that one's a hard one.

Look at that shit.

My son was born,
and we were recording the new record,

and I'd decided that I wanted to get

my wife and son's name tattooed,
and Travis said...

"Then you gotta go to Cartoon,
he's the best."

And we were literally set up
on a road case in the living room

with all my bass equipment in it.

And I was nervous
about getting my first tattoos.

I remember just as he was
about to start, he said,

"Hey, man, I wanna give you props."

Being the first-class guy
you are, you picked

one of the more painful spots
to get tattooed.

And he started tattooing "Jack."

And about halfway through "Jack,"

I didn't know that the wife
was gonna happen at all.

These are still the only
tattoos that I have.

I don't know, being tattooed by Cartoon

kind of feels like you're
in an exclusive club?

Anybody who has Cartoon tats,

of any significance,
he's like... your brothers.

Now I'm brothers with 50 Cent,

Eminem, Beyoncé, and everybody else.

Cartoon is instrumental
in bringing his tattoo style

into the mainstream
for a really simple reason.

He's tattooing celebrities,

he's tattooing athletes.

Those people are photographed.

You see those tattoos.
Those people are everywhere.

I was lucky enough to go
to my first World Series and win it.

I wanted that to stay with me
for the rest of my life.

So I wanted Toons.

Being a tattoo artist,
our heroes were working out their kitchen

or their garage at their mom's house.

They hadn't been to really
a red-carpet level at that point.

There was some tattooers
that was higher than others

that we looked up to...

but it wasn't set up that that was
the jewelry of an NBA player.

- Kobe!
- Attacking. All the way!

Kobe did it!

Tattoos are a big thing in NBA.

I mean, not just in NBA,
but just in sports culture in general.

You know, I always said--

'Cause I had guys on the team
that had tattoos,

but they didn't go to Mister Cartoon,
and it becomes pretty apparent

because I can't read
what the fuck's on their arm anyway.

A lot of it is not
how good of a tattooer you are.

It's your timing

and who you surround yourself by.

You could be
the dopest motherfucker in the world,

but if no one sees your shit 'cause you're
in some small town somewhere,

that's not Hollywood.

We're right here in the mix of the shit.

I was in China.
We were staying at a hotel.

I went down to the weight room.

There was a young woman
working behind the desk, right?

They have a policy.

If you have tattoos on your arms,
you have to wear long sleeves.

I'm like, "What?"

She says, "I'm sorry,
you have to put on long sleeves."

And she goes,

"But that's Mister Cartoon, right?
He did the artwork."

I'm like, "Dude, how did you know
that's Mister Cartoon

but you know, I can't--?" You know.

But she knew that was
Mister Cartoon's artwork.

This is a young woman in Beijing.
It's so far removed from LA.

That's big.

Waiting on Paul Rosenberg...

manager of the stars,

Eminem.

Paul, being the person he is,

recognized Estevan
and his photography skills,

and Cartoon
with his art skills and packaging.

I certainly figured out

ways to maximize having access to them.

You know, everything,
from working with Eminem...

You see Big Lepke?

...and designing the Shady Records' logo.

When I was doing
the portrait of Eminem's daughter,

I knew it was big, but I didn't know how.

You know what I'm saying?

You know,
I wasn't looking at the major impact

that it would have later.

I was just doing what was in front of me.

♪ Or even worse, they can teach hate ♪

♪ It's like these kids ♪

Eminem video shoot.

Waiting on doing some tattoos
on the homie.

They came to Detroit,
and he said, "We should do a mushroom."

He said-- He was like,
"I can do a big-ass mushroom."

He did all-- my whole sleeves.

I don't know, I got them removed
since then. I'm kidding.

I wanna get something like this over here,

but just-- I wanna make sure
that it's the right shit

'cause tattoos are for life.

You know,
We could bust something out like your--

Your daughter's portrait.

Right here, I would probably
put something around this

to beefen it up a little bit.

Right.

And maybe put another ribbon
and kind of tie it into the other side.

It's so crazy.

One of the things was Hailie.
I wanted to put her on my arm.

You should just outline...

My favorite rappers
were getting tattooed.

Like, that shit trips you out.

Let me put some bullet holes.

I remember being in the bathroom

and I was tripping out
that I was the only person there

documenting Cartoon tattooing

the biggest artist in the world
at that time.

- ♪ That's why ♪
- ♪ They call me Slim Shady ♪

I remember, man,
I'm getting those shots

of the greatest of all times
in our lifetime,

like the number one celebrity, artist,

anything in the world.

And I was there documenting it,

I wished, I remember, like,

kind of like smiling in the mirror,
like I was happy.

I got a question I wanna ask you.

How many people are sick...

of motherfuckers talking shit about me?

And it was a cool feeling,
you know?

It made me, like, think of all the times
when there was, like,

a picture of Elvis Presley
getting his hair cut

and it's just him and the barber.

Damn, that photographer
had some crazy-ass access, you know?

Oh, yeah, get one of those too.

You have to put that shit on your back.

Cartoon. Big Cartoon.

Call him Big Cartoon now.

Guy's good, man.

He's pretty decent.

Estevan's eye for seeing
what angle to shoot something...

how to bring someone's best look
out of them.

A lot of other photographers,
that's what they don't understand.

They don't know
how to make someone look good.

George Lopez!

When I got my star
in the Walk of Fame, Estevan came over

and took
this fucking amazing picture of me

surrounded by the fans,

and thousands of people,
maybe a couple thousand people.

And to get that,

of me and my suit, of me with the flag,

of me surrounded by, you know,

other Latinos right there
on Hollywood Boulevard was-- It was great.

Same thing, that's why
he gets a lot of jobs in hip-hop.

'Cause he knows hip-hop.

Grew up in that shit.

So it's better for someone from the inside

to shoot the outside, you know?

On my Ego Trippin' cover, me and Estevan,

we went back to my old high school,
Poly High School,

got an old B210
like I used to have in high school,

had on my Letterman jacket,

and it just felt like
I was in high school.

That shit was hard.

But only he could capture what I wanted.

This is an era
when Dogg didn't have money.

He understood that.

Shoot Snoop Doggy Dogg.
Snoop Doggy fizzle fizzle.

If Estevan did your album cover,
Cartoon was doing the artwork.

Some people try to do
everything by themselves.

We just did different ends of the table.

He covered photography

while I would do the logo,
I would draw the concept.

I've seen this, when they're snapping
400 pictures to get some shit,

and I've seen this guy walk out...

Bam.

Stand against that wall. Click.

And then you see it,
it could be an album cover

or, like, the cover of a magazine.

You feel like you're being directed,
like you're in the hands of the director.

I love it when a director
knows exactly what he wants

and he says, "Look, this is what I want."

Okay, cool. You got hired to direct me,
I got hired to act.

I was around lowriders and gangsters,
and I was around hip-hop.

With both of those comes girls.

LA culture.

Like, I get Estevan's book. Wow.

I always thought my dad's work
was very inspiring.

For girls, like, he just captures beauty,
like, so perfectly.

A lot of the art too
comes from jail,

where guys are sitting in a cell

and fantasizing about their girl.

I always looked at it

as really uplifting women.

They may not have any clothes on,
or they'd be topless.

I think as an artist,
I always looked at the beauty of it,

but knowing who to shoot,

where to shoot, when to shoot,

you look at that, you're like,
"That shit's real."

If I wasn't shooting LA culture,

I was going on tour
with bands like Blink-182,

only I wasn't a road manager anymore.

Right about the time we went
on that tour to Iraq and Europe,

touring was, like, more fun
when you brought friends.

Having Estevan out there was so fun.

It is freezing like a motherfucker
in Paris.

The tour
that Estevan came with us in Europe

was a very difficult time

in Blink's history.

We were arguing...

the entire tour.

Leave me fucking be! I'm fucking tired!

- How was that?
- It was the shit.

- That was fun, right?
- Hell, yeah.

The last show that we played
before the band broke up the first time,

we finished the last note,
and I thought to myself,

"This is probably gonna be the last show.
This feels like the end of something."

And Estevan came on stage and said,

"Hey, I wanna get
a shot of the three of you guys."

And it's actually
on our Greatest Hits album

that came out after that.

It goes back to Estevan's ethos

of putting himself in these situations

where he is able to document things
that are happening with other people.

The United States and our allies
have prevailed.

Estevan came with us
when we went overseas

to the Middle East
to meet and perform for the troops.

When we got to Iraq, everyone
was kind of shook about going there

'cause the war had just started.

I don't have any idea what to expect.

I'm just going in, having this adventure.

It's really cool.

It was scary,

it was hot, it was dusty.

It was like five or six days

of being transported
to an entirely different world.

It's like a movie.

We were on a nuclear submarine

literally crawling in the torpedo tubes.

So that whole trip was fireworks.
It was scary as fuck.

It was definitely
an eye-opening experience.

Travis, what's your job, Travis?

-I play the drums.
-Drummer, all right. How are you?

Don't hit the torpedo buttons.

You fire torpedoes? You shot one?

- I shot one.
- Cool.

We were in a marine forward base
on the border of Iraq.

We got Blink-182 in the house!

- Don't turn the key on.
- I won't.

I guess things were getting heated,

so we took a COD plane

that boomeranged us

off of the aircraft carrier.

But it was insane.
I was really glad that he was there

to get those photos.

As a lot of photographers
were breaking into digital photography,

Estevan stuck to film

and the development process.

Because it's grainy
and it looks like film,

it's a document of one specific moment.

Before you know it, you know,
Estevan was doing more directing.

Started to do mad videos for everybody.

♪ Hold you down ♪

Estevan did
the first D12 video we ever shot.

It was supposed to be
a gritty, grimy-looking video,

and Estevan captured that perfectly.

I know we shot the outside of the house,
the Dresden house,

but I'm pretty sure we shot
the inside of it too.

I'm like, "Yeah, that's the bathroom."

It wasn't really a lot of fun
dressing up...

like Richard Simmons.

But, hey, man, at that point in time,

I was doing whatever it took.

He directed a couple of Cypress videos.

♪ Hello, my name is Dr. Greenthumb ♪

♪ Hello, my name is Dr. Greenthumb ♪

♪ I'd like to tell you... ♪

You know, we had the same ideas,
we grew up in the same part of the planet,

so it wasn't hard for him to know
what we were gonna like

and what we wanted to see in our videos.

♪ Hello, my name is Dr. Greenthumb ♪

And then, when we went down
to Mexico City, in DF,

we had thousands and thousands
of kids following us

on the street that day,

and in the midst of it all,

Estevan was on point
the whole time with the camera, you know.

♪ Here is something you can't understand ♪

He understood
what made a good story

and he understood what was authentic.

I like that.

I'll tell you when,
just keep the light on him

so when I sweep back around--

With this video, it was an idea

that was thought out by the director,
Estevan Oriol.

He directed this video
that really shook everything up.

It was really like, "What in the world?"

Like it's the real deal.

Having him come in
and direct a video for us

just, I don't know,
brought a really element of cool

that I think was really ahead of its time.

That shit was, like, really amazing.
Just the way he-- His style.

The "Down" video was fun.
It was the first time I ever met Trigz.

It was I think the first time
we ever brought Mark and Tom to the hood.

I think they were tripping a little bit.

He put me in the Blink-182 video.

As a cop.

What I loved was the authenticity.

Here was an example of the culture

needing another voice.

Here I was this cop after this guy,

he's on the run,
and there was a helicopter.

You know, shot in the LA Basin and...

There were people in the video

that looked like for real LA.

But that was fun, man,
that video came out so cool and it had...

just a different energy
than anything we ever did and...

Estevan just really killed the visual.

You ready?
Let's set up the shot.

Are you gonna sit on the chair?

- Can I direct?
- Yes, sir.

Don't follow me.
You're gonna be on the shot.

- Tell me what you're gonna do.
- I'm gonna make a documentary

and talk about the Sixth Street Bridge.

- Ready?
- Yes.

Okay, so, we're sitting right here

at what was formerly known
as the Sixth Street Bridge.

So you see these pieces right here?

There was two arches.
They were part of the bridge.

That's them now.

I have 20 years of photos

of this street

and where this bridge was,
and that bridge.

And they're gonna redo it.

They're gonna have a poodle park here,

a cappuccino bar, a juice bar.

This whole area is changing.

This was the access way
to the LA River.

And this was like our playground,
our stomping ground.

I had a lot of good photo shoots here,
a lot of good times.

Get it out of the street.

I was shooting a lot of women,
gangsters, and lowriders,

'cause, you know,
that's what I was around.

♪ Aye, baby, aye, baby ♪

♪ Aye, baby, get some bubblegum
In this motherfucker or somethin'... ♪

I don't know what it is
about California, man.

Don't let the palm trees
and the white picket fences fool you.

There's wrought iron on the windows

and the murder rate
is through the roof, you know.

Perrito,
don't worry about nothing. I got this.

Are we keeping score?

Hey, man.

Pass already, dog.

I was shooting this girl
that was a gang member.

She just threw up LA.

LA, baby.

And I went in and just took
two frames of the LA.

♪ I got bitches in the living room
Gettin' it on... ♪

He caught it first.
A lot of the photographers

didn't know some of that type
of finger lingo, if you will, you know,

when you throw up the West Coast

or you throw up LA,
whatever clique you're from.

A lot of people
didn't wanna use that photo.

They said it was too gang-related.

At that time,

if the wrong person saw you doing that,

you'd get beat up,
or shot at or fucking stabbed.

Throwing up the L and the A like that,

that was something that we did
back in the day.

And that was
the first representation of it.

Now it's a global thing
where kids in other countries

send me pictures of them
throwing up that sign.

That's pretty cool, man.
You know what I mean?

His LA hands photo?

That's Estevan.

That shit's been copied so much.

So many times. Ripped off.

Many have tried to bite it.

I see the LA hands,
and I know it's a bootleg.

Starbucks is ripping him off. Gosh!

The H&M thing?

To steal from artists like that,
their images.

They have it on T-shirts.

The LA symbol's notorious.

Everybody, you know,
and their mom, was doing it.

- The Mayor's throwing it up.
- Boom!

People gonna copy it, people gonna try it,
but we all know where it came from.

I advise everybody to dig into the roots
of anything they do

and see where it came from
and pay homage to the person before them.

It was iconic.
It's an iconic picture.

One of the things
that is there with Chicano art

is violence,

is poverty,

is addiction,

alcoholism.

When I met Estevan, I was
struggling through a lot of relapses.

We were in a motel, and I called Estevan.
I go, "Hey, I'm on a good one, man.

You wanna film some footage?
So why don't you come on through,

because we got it going on
real good right here."

I had every drug in my system,
'cause I don't discriminate.

I just went on a binge.

A simple binge.
Everybody does it once in a while.

You know, some people binge on donuts.
Some people binge on heroin.

This is some new shit I came across.

These are five-dollar bolsas.

I love it. There's no excuse.

I love to get high on this.
I love the feeling I get from it.

If you don't cook it right,
it fucks your stomach good.

This is the picture they took
of the heroin

that wasn't getting me high no more
with the syringe, the crack pipe,

and I don't know
why I had the nail clipper there.

God only knows, right?

Estevan could take me into the lab

and pull out all these pictures
and I'll go,

"What the fuck? Are you serious, bro?"

I looked like
an Ethiopian research monkey.

I don't even know why I'm alive today.

For some good reason,
the good Lord didn't drop me

and put me on my back.

Sometimes, I sell real shit. Sometimes--

And I was in a bad stage right here.

And those are balloons of heroin
in my mouth.

I sell fake shit. All this is fake.

This is all fake.

Either way, this is getting sold,
all right?

Because, see,
you can't buy drugs on the street.

That's illegal.
You can't sell them. It's illegal.

There's no drugs in here.
So it's a bungle case.

So the proof is in the pudding,
ladies and gentlemen.

If you wanna know
the real street culture

and that street life,
open one of Estevan's books.

And this is where it leads to.
Everything leads to this picture.

This is 2003,

July 9th or 8th, I believe.

I got shot
in front of the Econo Lodge hotel.

From where you're at, from where
the camera's at, they shot me six times.

I took five bullets there.

And they came and told me
I didn't have insurance,

so five days after that, I walked out,
caught walking pneumonia, almost died,

and then went back and had to stay
another additional 30 days.

See? Karma hits, 'cause I was supposed
to be doing Estevan a favor

and moving somebody.

See how that works?

The '90s were very, very violent.

You saw the peak of gang violence.

You saw people that were there
that seen enemies they didn't like,

they just took off on them right there.

You could hear the bullets going by.

They were trying to stop here, homie.
They were coming too fast.

So they stopped right here.
And they went just like, "Hey, homie."

Man!

I hit the floor quick, eh.

Why were they shooting at you?

See, this is a black neighborhood, right?

I guess they're going at it
with a Hispanic gang over there.

You know what I mean? Look at me, dog.

- Look right here, homie.
- Yeah.

♪ Word up, son, word ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ To all the killers
And the hundred-dollar billers ♪

♪ Yo, I got the phone thing
Know I'm sayin' ♪

♪ For real niggas
Who ain't got no feelings, feelings... ♪

You like that.

♪ Just watch my back
I got the front, yo ♪

♪ Check it out now ♪

Right there, West Los.

School of hard knocks.

Sometimes hard rocks.

Hard knocks and cooked rocks.

From stealin' and dealin'
to rollin' and chillin'.

Smack. Oh, ready.

♪ Queensbridge murderers ♪

♪ The Mobb comes equipped for warfare
Beware ♪

♪ Of my crime family who got... ♪

My eagle right here,
'cause I'm Mexican-American.

I'm American-made, Mexican descent.

♪ Your brain with your nose bone ♪

♪ You all alone in these streets, cousin
Every man... ♪

They call me Speedy,
one of my fans gave me the name.

In there,
the tattoo shop is your cell.

Just a couple of cases of soups
and coffee, man, from prison.

That's what they charge you in there
to do this type of thing.

Nowadays I guess that's just
a way to look cool, but...

All these tattoos right here?

They were basically earned,

they were basically put on me
for a reason.

All my tattoos
were done in prison, single needle.

Never got tattooed in a shop.

They were kind of like the old black
and gray feel to the ink.

♪ Don't make me
Have to call your name out... ♪

Some tattoos that some people have,
they put them on

because maybe they were in a lifestyle
where a life was lost.

Not to say that they took the life,

because we're not gonna say that
'cause we're on camera.

When I sleeve somebody,
they can't go into regular society,

but little by little,
those people will be business owners.

You know, over the next 10, 20 years,
those people that are getting sleeves

will be business owners
and shit will change up for them.

That's okay. It's a trend now.
We got the soccer moms putting tattoos on.

They're doing shit
that we were looked down on.

We were putting these tattoos
'cause we were outcasts,

because society rejected us.

Now they're putting them on
because now society accepts it?

So now I might just start
taking them all off.

We're interested
in the darkest shit in life.

Ghetto bird in the sky...

homeless shit and drug addicts.

Watching and observing those cultures,
you know what I mean?

What happened to your hand?
You got arthritis?

No, I-- My ex-boyfriend broke it.

Oh, okay.

Okay, look, if you go out this way,
and go on the side,

go straight all the way down,
there's a little alley right there.

I'll go check it out.

- Take it easy.
- Bye, thank you.

When you're in the streets
in LA, in the bad neighborhoods,

it's like your blood is flowing,

the adrenaline is there.

When you know that it's an active area
and some shit might happen,

it's kind of like, okay, cool, you know,
you gotta be on point, you know.

Open the eyes on the back of your head,

'cause if you're just walking around
all "ladi da, da,"

you know, like an idiot,
you could lose that way.

They're just looking
for someone to fuck with, so...

Right here, you know what I'm saying?

Just gotta make sure you're strapped.

A lot of people we've known have died.

Can't even think of how that would be

if Cartoon passed away.

We've had to make out wills before,

and it was, like,
the will went to, like, each other.

We would look out for each other's family.

Let's see what we have here
in this little box.

This is my friend Mono. He passed away.

He's the guy that introduced me
and my wife to each other.

Oh, yeah?

And he introduced Cartoon to his wife.

Right here, this is one
of my favorite pictures of all times.

His name was Chato.

Rest in peace. He died.

Trigz got shot.

He got murdered
'cause he got into a fight with somebody.

Rest in peace.

This was another guy that was shot.
His name was Nene.

I think he got shot 33 times.

- What happened to him?
- He died.

You know, I think they're living
the life they wanted to

and they died doing what they loved doing.

Those guys were gangsters
and they died doing some gangster shit.

So you think they kind
of dig being a gangster.

They'd rather do that--

Yeah, they loved it, or else
they wouldn't have been a gangster.

♪ I spend my time in the hood ♪

♪ That old Florencia district ♪

♪ I don't play games ♪

♪ And if you ask for it ♪

♪ I carry an AK-47 ♪

♪ I was shot five times ♪

♪ And almost lost my life ♪

♪ At the gates of hell ♪

♪ A smiling Devil awaits ♪

♪ These are facts of life ♪

♪ Consequences of this life ♪

♪ Because everything
Must be paid for in this world ♪

♪ I spend my time smoking
With my homies in the hood ♪

♪ I come from that gangster clique ♪

♪ Don't you dare betray us ♪

♪ I am a man of respect ♪

♪ And my word is worth a lot ♪

♪ Around Converse and Miramonte ♪

♪ I patrol through the night ♪

♪ Oh, darling ♪

♪ I'm so blue and lonely ♪

♪ Want your love here only ♪

♪ Please... ♪

That violence, that poverty,

that madness,

spawned a beautiful art form

of music, and tattoos,

and wall murals,

pinstripe, and gold leaf.

Those guys sitting in cells
that will never get out

helped shape an art form,

this rose out of a crack in the concrete.

Now you have a new wave of Chicano artists

that can focus on Chicano pride.

To be Chicano
means identifying with your roots.

The number one thing
is family.

It's all about family.

♪ I want to hold you ♪

♪ Squeeze you... ♪

You don't really hear
about the heart of a Chicano,

but you can see it in a lowrider.

The way we build our cars,

they're old Benny's thrown away
that we pick up and we shine.

It's almost like watching
a Chicano's heart

being poured out onto paint

and coating a vehicle with love, you know?

Those people that threw them away
wish they had them back

after they see them all fixed up
and clean and shined up.

You don't own a lowrider.
You are a lowrider.

Promoting a great culture in America.

There are people
that are incredibly wealthy

that actually know the culture

and are admirers of the culture.

The culture grew to places

like Japan, Europe,

South America.

They introduced
the whole rest of the world basically

to the East LA esthetic.

You go to Japan
and you see some of the Japanese kids

dressing like cholos.

To the T.

You would think, they could put on glasses

and have the whole thing
and they could look all "Chicanoed-out"

until they started to speak.

Sheeba city ghetto family.

Asian culture has become obsessed

with East LA and lowriding.

There's a big lowrider scene
that's gone around the world.

Because of what Cartoon
and Estevan did with Chicano culture

and made it so pervasive
and popular in Japanese subculture,

it made it even extra cool
back here in the States.

And I think a lot of it comes
from how pioneering these two gentlemen

have been to the culture.

We listen to oldies,
we listen to Motown-style, classic soul.

Due to the weather on the West Coast,
we wear T-shirts all year long.

We invented the white tee,

khakis and Dickies,

that whole look.

The West Coast grew up
wearing Cortez shoes.

This is the staple for the West Coast.

In the '80s, though,
it was like a gang-banging shoe.

Like, you wearing that shoe,
people asked you, "Where are you from?"

I had meditated why it was relevant,

and why it had to be done.

My own Nike, period.

And once I got them in,

it was time to drop,

"I have to do a Cortez,"

paying homage to that era,

to the NWA era.

When that happened,

I was like, "Man, this is fucking amazing.

I'm gonna design the shoe
I grew up wearing."

It'd be like McDonald's calling you,
and be like,

"You're gonna do
your own signature Big Mac.

Get ready."

Nike is doing a Mister Cartoon shoe?

They're giving you a shoe?

And letting you design it?

It's-- It's crazy.

There's not a lot of artists out here
to have their own Nike shoe.

I walk into a business meeting
with confidence.

I walk in like, "I'm-- The boss is here."

And you convince the client

that you know what's poppin'.

This is inspiring to me.

I can apply that same philosophy
to what I'm doing.

My homie did it, I can do it.

Oh, wow.

Whoa, Mister Cartoon is completely
crossing over to a different level,

you know?

I did the LA edition,
which was putting the "LA"

and having the Nike check go through it.

The next one I did was the Aztec.

This was crazy
because here I'm doing an Aztec

on a Cortez.

So you have the Spaniards
coming to New Spain, which was Mexico,

to bring disease,

great war between the Spaniards
and the Aztecs

to create Mexican people.

So, I had that on a shoe,
which is a little heavy,

you know what I'm saying?
For a shoe design.

And then on the Aztec warrior,
I put a brush mustache,

which is representative of the homies now.

When it finally went through,

I was blown away.

I'm surprised every time
one of these huge deals goes through.

So, to balance that,

it was important that I did outreach.

Talking to youngsters, explaining to them,

"Look, I went to LA Unified School,

and I designed my own shoe.

What would your shoe look like?"

And I would ask these kids,
and they'd get all shy.

It's beautiful to see
that Cartoon can set an example

for these young kids,

giving kids hope in art.

My goal was to motivate them
and get them to think,

"Man, if this knucklehead can do it,
man, I can design my own shoe."

What?

Motherfucking premiere of Machete.

Yeah, that was sweet, with the lowriders.

Seeing these big Hollywood events.

In the back on my mind, I was like,

"We can get a team together and do it."

We had the budgets.

And we were able to have some power

to do some of those events,
and it came out dope.

And it was beautiful, man.

People in the street,
happy that somebody's representing.

This is a historical moment right here.

We're taking our culture

and trying to lift it up.

It would be hard
to be downtown that day

and not feel our presence.

We here.

Damn, man,
we're bringing Chicano art

into places that it's never been before.

Shout-out to S.A. Studios.
Grand Theft Auto, good looking.

GTA is the iconic video game that ended up
becoming because of the Estev and Toon.

I played Cesar Vialpando.

We did
all the tattoos, graffiti,

murals,

liquor store,

and the Virgen de Guadalupe
would be on the side.

Estevan would take them around

to all the sick shit

and fucking recreate that.

You've been on a trajectory

from the bottom-bottom,

and I guess prison, possibly.

You got out of that, survived that,

and you're on this uphill trajectory
of perfecting this art form.

It was a great time.
Record businesses were still going.

And magazines were popping

and commercials were getting
anywhere from 100,000 into the millions.

Then the digital age came.

It's over, and the Internet has allowed

global communication
with a lot of people...

Twenty million people
get their music this way.

-They worst offender is Napster.
-Metallica filed a...

At that point, S.A. Studios,
it was kind of like a barber shop.

People came by afterward and bullshitted.

That's what S.A. Studios felt like.
A bunch of big-ass kids having fun.

"What's up, homie?

What you doing, man?
What you've been up to?"

It'd be like showing up
at a doctor's office.

You're like, "What's up, fool?

Yay, man. Wow, you're doing
some surgery. What's up?"

Working on the ice-cream truck.

I'm gonna stay here
until five, six in the morning.

I'll probably just go crash upstairs.

A little bit overwhelming for me.

I don't need a lot of people around
to do what I do.

They're changing.

Life's about change.

After a rare week of gains--

Worst one-day losses since 911.

The stock market fell hard--

533,000--

Two point six million people--

In 2008 there was the depression.

The country just fell apart.

Spinning the economy
in a vicious cycle,

people losing their jobs,

then falling behind on their mortgages.

Magazines shut down,
record labels shut down.

President Obama facing increasing pressure

for a new stimulus package.

All the budgets went away.

Eleven point three trillion dollars.

...to stabilize the housing market,

and help responsible home-owners
stay in their homes.

That cut at least 75% of my work
that was coming in.

S.A. Studios was a certain time.

Everything evolves,
and everything is a moment in time.

That whole place of downtown LA
got over-gentrified in my opinion.

It became uncool.

It became very corporate.

If everything always
stays the same, how special is it?

It's about moments.

Five years, ten years.
However long that moment was.

The vibe. Something happened.

You have one guy
who's in the profession of tattoos,

which has gone from, like, this fringe,

and now I don't know one fucking person
who doesn't have a tattoo.

And then on this side of the spectrum,

you have photography, which was
like this, and now it's, like, nothing.

Both things are symbiotic
and feeding off each other.

But one of those things
brings in a ton of cash,

and the other one,
the cash is disappearing.

The tension that must bring
between brothers...

Eventually...

it was gone.

The last time I'll ever be here.

We were here for 13 years.

We used to call our little thing here
"Skid Row's finest"

because we were surrounded
by the people of Skid Row.

And that's it. It's a wrap.

S.A. Studios.

We're out of downtown.

Gone.

That was probably one
of the most challenging times in my life.

And...

I made it, 'cause I'm a fighter.

That was it.

You got it?

♪ Microphone checker
Swinging sword lecture ♪

♪ Closing down the sector
Supreme neck protector ♪

♪ Better warn 'em kid
Mr. Method boiling pot ♪

♪ About to blow his lid
From the pressure ♪

♪ Too hot for TV for sheezy ♪

♪ Too many wanna be hard be easy ♪

♪ It's all in together
Going all out together ♪

♪ It don't take much to please me ♪

-Congratulations.
-Thank you.

♪ We don't condone biting
See them selling crossbones ♪

♪ Protecting what am writing
Don't clash with the Titan ♪

♪ Who blast with a license... ♪

To me,
LA's the blood pumping through my veins.

I love everything about it.

♪ Put your lights out ♪

♪ Get the shit to the cracking
Got you feelin' with your... out ♪

I mean, look at it.
How fucking cool is that shit?

♪ Where I used to battle crews
Back when Antoinette had that attitude ♪

♪ Cover me, I'm going in
Walls closing in ♪

♪ Got us busting off these... ♪

♪ My... got issues again ♪

♪ Same song, armed with the mega bomb ♪

♪ Blow you out the frame
And then I'm gone ♪

♪ Look up in the sky
It's a bird, it's a plane ♪

♪ It's the funk Doctor Spock
Get on a train ♪

♪ How high? ♪

♪ So high that I can kiss the sky ♪

♪ So sick than you can suck my... ♪

♪ I was gone too, but we roam
Cellular phones ♪

♪ Doc-Meth back in the flesh... ♪

This is where I come
and get all my film done right here.

♪ Suckers break like Turbo and Ozone... ♪

Oh, wow.

Wow, I got some good ones.

♪ Three nines in the glove with Masu... ♪

So, after 13 years, we've now relocated,

and I'm gonna show you
the new S.A. Studios.

Well, my part of it.
Cartoon has a different part.

So... here we are.

S.A. Studios.

You can barely fit in here.

These are the new S.A. Studios.

These are all bills
that haven't been paid.

You know, just so everybody knows

what it's like to be
a world-famous photographer.

Where am I today?
I'm in a good place.

I'm an optimist.

I'm always gonna look
at what's the solution,

what do I got to be grateful for,

how can I make this pop.

I haven't stopped one day
since S.A. Studios.

I have a private studio right here.

I own this property. Can't kick me out.

And it's all dialed into my needs,

I airbrush the cars in here.

I've been here for five years now and...

I love it.

Attention! Attention!

There's our lovely Sixth Street Bridge.

No more.

So crazy to see all this shit.

Fucking changing so fast.

This is a mural by my friend Risky.

Everybody knows Risk.

This was a parking lot before.

Some metal rinky-dink buildings,

and now it's like...

the biggest fucking most...

apartments, fuck it,
whatever you could get in there.

I don't feel like a victim.
I feel like I'm on top of everything.

I'm on top of social media,

I know how to use Photoshop,
I know how to use a computer.

I taught myself all that.

The guys that didn't do that,
they probably feel overwhelmed.

And then I was trying to keep up
with the Joneses, and, you know,

trying to post--

I tried all that shit.

I tried to post hot girls,

big celebrities, gangster stuff.

I tried to post everything

at certain times a day
on certain days and I'm like,

"How the fuck does this guy
have a million followers

and I got 115,000 or whatever?" You know?

Every time I'd think
I was doing some big shit, good shit,

and I go, "Oh,
I'm gonna show Instagram right now.

Fuck everybody."

You know. "All my haters
are gonna come out on this one."

I would post something and it'd be like,
"wah, wah, wah."

And I was like, "Man."

I got more likes just from taking
a picture of my dog

with my iPhone or something, you know.

All the algorithms and the analytics
and all that, and I was like,

"Man, this shit is,
like, so time-consuming

and overwhelming."

It's tiring to try
and keep up with the Joneses, so...

Sometimes I just say,
"Fuck it, who am I doing all this shit--?"

And I go and, you know, do work

that I need to be doing, to...

To keep the-- keep the...

the checks coming in,

to keep up with the bills
that are coming in.

♪ Money's growing
Like grass with the mass appeal ♪

♪ Money, money, money... ♪

People on the other side
of the world looking at our shit,

we don't realize a lot of times
'cause it's in front of us.

We're from Berlin.

We're driving lowriders.

We wear that clothing stuff and...

listen to the music.

Latino life.

I think that this art form
embraces everybody.

People are affected,
and we don't know about it.

Inside I always looked like a cholo.

I'm a trans man and I'm tattooed.
I love tattoos.

- Yeah? Good?
- Danke schön.

♪ And with my unique skills, nah
You can't compare... ♪

All good, bro bro!

Oh, I've been arrested
over 20 times for graffiti.

And I've been chased with things
and attacked by dogs

and my leg--

ripped my leg open over jumping fences.

But I love it.

Watching Estevan's photos

and Cartoon's tattoos

put me into an understanding
about a lot of things out here.

- Oh!
- That was perfect timing.

Between Estevan and Cartoon,
they have really brought

the culture of downtown Los Angeles

to a place of respect and high art.

For this show, we wanted
to be true to the spirit of the artform.

Vandalism, ambition,

rebellion, being out in the streets.

Beyond The Streets show
that's out now,

you have Banksy, Basquiat,

Murakami, Shepard Fairey.

And then you also have Cartoon's church,

and you have
the iconic Estevan LA hand sign.

People might dismiss graffiti
as only being vandalism.

And I'm not saying
that it isn't vandalism.

It is vandalism.

This is vandal art.

Carving your name in a toilet

and shit. That's how people look at it.

We're not even supposed
to be there in the first place

or have our cars in there,

photography.

♪ The building, Trinity Ave
Ten years... ♪

To come from nothing...

They ain't got no degrees.
They learned this from the streets.

♪ Why you think... ♪

Are they responsible
for bringing that style

and that culture to the forefront
of the movement? Definitely.

♪ I did it all, I put the pieces... ♪

Hip-hop culture owes so much
to Toons and Estevan.

Them being so prominent in the culture

helped shape that wave

that even the generation after us,
coming up...

Where do Cartoon and Estevan lie

in the greater scheme of art itself?

I think pretty high.

They're out there.
They're approachable.

They're shooting for magazines.
They're friends with people on Skid Row.

You've done a lot for me, brother.

They're friends with graffiti writers.

I'll show you what I think
about H&M, you know?

They're friends with musicians,
celebrities.

♪ In the gutter one, ghetto running 'em
Troublesome, extra double dumb... ♪

They're still doing it.

They're doing it better
than they ever have, and that's pride.

That's heart. That's Chicano.

With all the racism, xenophobia

that's going on right now in the US,

for Chicano art to just be pushed
as hard as possible,

whether it's a direct a political message
or just as a style, is a great thing.

These ICE agents and these raids

and the racism,

it's only gonna speak to our cultures.

The culture has to be
a little louder than the hate.

♪ Cause they say I rhyme
They say I look like a gremlin... ♪

We're gonna keep moving forward,
keep creating

and stay true to this culture.

Thank you for coming!
Thank you for coming.

Ah!

♪ Slam ♪

♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪

♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪

♪ It's my city ♪

♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪

♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪

♪ It's my city ♪

♪ Wake up in the morning and I thank God ♪

♪ Pray for enemies and haters
That's the meaning of a gang star ♪

♪ I'm into everything
Hustle I get that money ♪

♪ I know I'm gonna make it
I chase it, I come and run it down ♪

♪ We out here chilled, it's Sunday
We got the pretty women ♪

♪ Barbecues popping, no stoppin'
We're drinking beer with lemon ♪

♪ Los Angeles, baby
We own the South side ♪

♪ Cruising down Pacific
The sickest, that's how the South ride ♪

♪ Lowriders and OG's with tattoos ♪

♪ Bouncing down the boulevard
Watching as they pass you ♪

♪ Hella smoke from this Charlie Brown
It's in the sky ♪

♪ Tacos de carnitas with salsita
Boy, I'm feeling fly ♪

♪ Mexicano by nature
I'm living out a zone ♪

♪ I just think with that alone
Really that I'm not alone ♪

♪ My city, my dreams, my lifestyle ♪

♪ I love LA and this is my style ♪

♪ I love cruisin' through my city ♪

♪ I love LA ♪

♪ We'll be chillin'
On a South Side Sunday ♪

♪ It's my favorite kind of day ♪

-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
-♪ Out here chillin' with the homies ♪

-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
-♪ Barbecues and family ♪

-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
-♪ Ain't no place I'd rather be ♪

-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
-♪ I love LA ♪

♪ Dude, man, I love LA ♪

♪ Another sunny day in California
This is Los Angeles ♪

♪ Beast Baldacci
Not to worry, let me handle this ♪

♪ Palm trees
It's the home of a real life ♪

♪ Battlefield, a war zone
But this is where I feel right ♪

♪ No hatin', we just livin'
Like we're supposed to ♪

♪ Stand for who you are, yep
It's what we've been exposed to ♪

♪ I love my city, my people
I love my family ♪

♪ I love my haters, my rivals
And people mad at me ♪

♪ I'm on the grind
I can't stop, I'm all lit ♪

♪ And every second I thank Pops
This all him ♪

♪ Mini-bikes in the street going
The feedback ♪

♪ Prostitutes and the weed sacks
Believe that ♪

♪ Broken lights so it's dark out
The kids playin' ♪

♪ Yellow tape on the next block
I'm just sayin' ♪

♪ It ain't never gonna change
Boy, I love my city ♪

♪ LA to my day come and rep it with me ♪

-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
-♪ I love cruisin' through my city ♪

♪ Cruisin' through my city, boy ♪

-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
-♪ I love LA ♪

-♪ Man, how I love LA ♪
-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪

♪ We'll be chillin'
On a South Side Sunday ♪

-♪ Just chillin' on a South Side Sunday ♪
-♪ It's my favorite kind of day ♪

-♪ Yeah ♪
-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪

♪ Out here chillin' with the homies ♪

-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
-♪ Barbecues and family ♪

-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
-♪ Ain't no place I'd rather be ♪

-♪ Ain't no place I'd rather be ♪
-♪ I love LA ♪

♪ Uh-huh, I love LA, yeah ♪

♪ Family is everything
Tattoos represent mine ♪

♪ Everything ahead of me
I hope you try and test mine ♪

♪ Southern champion
California weed smoke ♪

♪ The real moonrock on the top
When the beast toke ♪

♪ Los Angeles, shout-out to my hometown ♪

♪ Fabuloso Geez, HP, how it goes down ♪

♪ Chikoe, Blazer
The Speedy's Estevan Oriol ♪

♪ Free my brothers that's put away
Now let them go ♪

♪ I love LA ♪