Sheikh Amadou Bamba, over and over

Like the street artists in Senegal, street artists in New Orleans argued, “Every time you take a wall or you take a billboard or a piece of sidewalk, you’re kind of saying ‘This space does not belong to one person, this space belongs to everyone.’ Like for me, it’s not about saying this space is mine, it’s about saying this space is ours” (Ehrenfeucht 976).

Street artists are attracted to run-down urban buildings. In New Orleans, street art has been a “signifier of gentrification,” not a blight on the urban landscape that destroys its value and appeal (Ehrenfeucht 974). Street artists drew attention to the Irish Channel and the Bywater neighborhoods with their work, which made them a “distinctive, identifiable neighborhood element” (Ehrenfeucht 974). The neighborhoods now have increased incomes with a higher percentage of new White residents, increased property values and homeownership rates. The residents kept the street art and even covered some with plexiglass to protect them; thus, residents began to maintain control over the street art. Developers also protected the street art by incorporating the walls into new buildings and developments (Ehrenfeucht 974).

The N.O. Ordinanace 19,086 required New Orleans property owners to remove graffiti from buildings (Ehrenfeucht 969). According to the “broken windows theory,” graffiti created adverse effects in neighborhoods, including decreased property values, other crimes being committed, the withdrawal of businesses, as well as fear and anxiety among residents (Ehrenfeucht 970).

The photograph does not reveal individual characteristics and makes Bamba appear as both divine and human (Roberts 56). Long expanses of public walls are covered with this image, which becomes a zikr, or sacred recitation, which leads to “total spiritual awakening” (Roberts 58). Thus, Diop is “visualizing the interior zikr of his soul” (Roberts 60). In the bright sunlight of Dakar, these highly contrasted and saturated black and white shapes “produce a powerful kinesthetic and haptic effect,” sensory effects which heighten the spiritual effect of the saint’s image (Roberts 61). The spiritual power of these images created by black pigments on walls becomes an “active energy that heals, protects and helps in countless ways” for those who dwell near them or pass by them (Roberts 56).

cleanliness

Most graffiti artists use variations of wild-style, 3-D and bubble style to express their themes. Wild style with its hyper-deformed, intertwined letters is the most difficult to write and to read (Rabine 101). Diablos and Mad Zoo have creatively mastered the wild style. The word becomes a unit of expression (Rabine 103) Street artists use other materials in addition to paint such as stickers, stencils, charcoal and wheat-paste posters (Weisberg

For example, one message is “Believe in yourself for as long as it takes, and you will succeed.”

This belief stands in sharp contrast to Western graffeurs

dire lack of resources

creativity, inspiration and technical ingenuity,

Graffiti is the visual form of hip-hop so they are enmeshed

The pioneers discovered graffiti through the hip-hop movement that came to them from the U.S. when magazine covers featuring hip-hop artists such as 50 Cent or Snoop Doggy Dogg show-cased the artists with graffiti (Rabine 93).

During a period of anomie and intense urbanization in Africa when millions of people moved out of their villages, a popular sentiment was, “This street doesn’t belong to anybody.”

The exchange of people, goods and culture from Senegambia across the Atlantic Ocean during the colonial era led to the development of New Orleans’s culture.

powerful, aspirational

Ô vraiment marâtre Nature, Puis qu’une telle fleur ne dure Que du matin jusques au soir !