The Guide #237: Fab 5 Freddy, the street artist at the heart of New York’s creative zenith
In this week’s newsletter: A new memoir by Fred Brathwaite offers an insight into the city’s emerging underground scene in the 70s and 80s – and shows us the power of subcultures in difficult times Don’t get The Guide delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereHello everyone, I’m Coco Khan, covering for Gwilym Mumford, and this week, as the sun started to peep out from behind the clouds, I counted five Jean-Michel Basquiat T-shirts on passersby during a park walk.Sure, I may live in a trendy London borough – but it’s still hardly surprising, given that the name and works of the New York artist whose roots were in graffiti have been licensed to fashion brands from Next, Primark and Uniqlo to Supreme and Saint Laurent.It’s hard to imagine that the artist – who died at 27 of a drug overdose, and whose signature slogan SAMO© (Same Old Crap – a criticism of consumerism, and the commodification of art, with a playful copyright mark) – would approve of the Basquiat name being on keyrings, tote bags and clothing.But hey, what do I know – I’m just another purist bore still upset that Ramones T-shirts are worn by millions who couldn’t name a song, when the Ramones themselves did not care.Still, the hope is that such merchandise connects new audiences to the artist’s work and graffiti as an art form.
See also: Keith Haring, another street artist whose work adorns T-shirts across the land,But if the shirts don’t do it, then a new, frankly dizzying, book will – the memoir of Fred Brathwaite, AKA Fab 5 Freddy, his graffiti name: Everybody’s Fly: A Life of Art, Music, and Changing the Culture,For the Blondie fans experiencing a twinge of recognition, yes, this is the Fab 5 Freddy referenced in the seminal hit Rapture (“Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody’s fly,” raps Debbie Harry), and the book neatly follows his life, starting as a smart, plucky kid from Bed-Stuy, in Brooklyn, who became the connective tissue between the emerging Black art forms of hip-hop and graffiti and the predominantly white downtown art-world scene,Basquiat makes an appearance, as does Haring, Blondie, Andy Warhol and even the Clash, and the book is being hailed as an “all-access pass” to the creative explosion of New York in the 1970s and 80s,It is a truly rollicking tale, told with the touching wide-eyed quality of Brathwaite as a young man discovering these new worlds for the first time.
On visiting legendary punk venue CBGB: “I felt like a Black secret agent on a mission, since the crowd was blindingly white.But I’ll never forget the first time I went into the bathroom: graffiti was everywhere … Yes there is a connection here between […] punk, and hood culture.” Or on seeing the godfather of dance music, Larry Levan, at the gay club Paradise Garage: “[It] wasn’t just a club.It was a transformational experience … Gay men, it must be said, tend to have hot female friends,” Brathwaite writes.“The first time I did mescaline was at the Garage.
Later my first time with MDMA was at the Garage.And since we’re talking about the 1970s and 80s, there was always some blow.”But reading Everybody’s Fly in 2026 is also bittersweet.The story of Brathwaite is also the story of New York, and of so many other cities before they became spaces to merely consume.Where subcultures existed physically rather than just online as aesthetics, and where the professionalisation of everything hadn’t yet happened (just ask Fab 5 Freddy, who got his break when he asked to be a cameraman on a TV show, despite having never done it before).
That New York was far from perfect, of course – it was in dire straits economically: “New York was broke,” as journalist Glenn O’Brien, who features in the book, put it.As many cities face economic struggles, perhaps there is a sense of comfort in Brathwaite’s story – that from the ashes something magnificent may grow.For Fab 5 Freddy, rap and punk were a symbol of “urban youth going against the grain, inventing their own culture, creating their own fun, responding to the world as it was” – “both so wrong, they were right”.In other words: everybody’s fly.Even if you can’t name a Ramones song.
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Rising star ‘Wreck-It Will’ Sherman has roots in US rugby’s past and eyes on its future
Will Sherman may be the future of US rugby, but his roots are in the game’s American past. The 22-year-old standout second-row forward for Anthem Rugby Carolina in Major League Rugby is the son of Wade Sherman, a member of a champion Cal Berkeley team that included Mark Bingham, who on 11 September 2001 was one of the Flight 93 passengers who fought their hijackers and kept it from reaching Washington.“There was a super old photo that my dad pulled up, and the first time I heard that story was from him,” Sherman said. “He was like, ‘That guy standing to my left is an American hero.’”Sherman “loves telling the story” of how his dad found rugby – which after all is the reason he found it too
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Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley have tense postgame exchange after South Carolina shock UConn in Final Four
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County cricket: Gay makes hay on opening day to blast season’s first century
DIVISION ONESophia Gardens: Glamorgan 99-4 v YorkshireSouthampton: Hampshire v Essex 219-3Grace Road: Leicestershire 15-1 v Sussex 361Taunton: Somerset 292-6 v NottinghamshireEdgbaston: Warwickshire v Surrey 328DIVISION TWOThe County Ground: Derbyshire 391-4 v WorcestershireChester le Street: Durham 335 v Kent 50-2Lord’s: Middlesex 279-5 v GloucestershireWantage Road: Northamptonshire v Lancashire 346-7The spectre of the Ashes loomed over day one of a new Championship season, every innings, every wicket, a play in one act sent straight to the laptop of Brendon McCullum.England Lion Emilio Gay won the race to the first century of the season for Durham, a classy innings, fierce on the loose ball, and in tricky conditions at Chester-le-Street. When he was finally out, a fourth catch of the day to Kent’s Zak Crawley, he had pocketed 128 from just 140 balls.Crawley’s turn with the bat went about as well as Jamie Smith’s and Ollie Pope’s over at Edgbaston, two boundaries before falling lbw to Matthew Potts for nine.At Grace Road Tom Clark embroidered a stylish 101, as Sussex gave promoted Leicestershire a bloody nose in the morning session, racing to 155 for two by lunch
Foakes to the rescue for Surrey as County Championship makes its earliest start
The County Championship whirred back into life on Good Friday, with 3 April its earliest start in history. By extension, Rory Burns claimed the record for its earliest dismissal, with Surrey’s captain run out 10 minutes into the day’s play at Edgbaston in a scene usually reserved for the village green.Cricket really can be a sod sometimes. All that pre-season graft, all those hours dreaming big, only to plink a drive early on, think it has beaten mid-off, and set off for the run in good faith. The throw from Warwickshire’s Ed Barnard may have been wild but Kai Smith mopped up smartly at the stumps
Timeforshowcasing into Classic contention after Burradon success
Charlie Johnston picked up a decent bonus on top of the trainer’s share of the prize money after backing Timeforshowcasing for the Burradon Stakes at Newcastle on Friday at prices up to 25-1, and could now fast-track his filly into Classic company at either Newmarket or the Curragh next month.Timeforshowcasing was up against some promising colts and geldings in the Listed contest over a mile but travelled easily through the early stages before taking it up at the furlong pole and holding off the late challenge of Padraig Dawn by a neck.“All day I’ve been thinking, ‘what do people know that I don’t?’, because this filly worked last Thursday and I thought she was in phenomenal order,” Johnston said.“She was 6-1, went out to 10-1, then 16s and she’s won at 25-1. I hope my bookmaker gives best odds guaranteed
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