Podcast #014 – Falk Schacht (German language)

For this Podcast I Love Graffiti talked to the hip hop journalist, moderator and DJ Falk Schacht for almost two hours. Why? Because there are only a few people in Germany with whom you can exchange information about the early eighties of the German hip hop and graffiti movement in this intensity. Falk was there when the first musical impulses were set in 1980 and the mainstream began to deal with the subculture from New York around 1983 and 1984. That was also the time when ZDF co-financed the production of Wild Style and thus ensured that this film got a big stage in Germany. What impressed many teenagers back then, including Loomit from Munich or Zodiak from Dortmund. Others found their way into this culture through direct contacts, such as Bando to Baer in New York around 1982/1983 or Shoe to Dondi as part of one of the first graffiti exhibitions in Amsterdam around 1983 and 1984. Curated by Yaki Kornblit. All of this is documented in detail in the first season of our series Rise Of Graffiti Writing – From New York To Europe.

Falk has been researching for over 25 years in this exciting time of the eighties, collecting records and tips on how hip hop culture slowly developed and which influences were relevant at which point. What role did graffiti and the Subway Art movement from New York play? How did the different disciplines find each other and when did it become the hip hop culture as we lived it in the nineties. How much is left of it and has it ever existed? How much hip hop can you still find in the graffiti movement today and what is culture like today if it still exists?

If we ask what role a Peter Ernst Eiffe or OZ from Hamburg played within the graffiti movement, Falk Schacht is looking for similar answers in the musical part of culture. There were and still are many interfaces to both types of game, and that’s exactly what we’re talking about with Falk in Podcast.