ChosenFew vs. Write4Gold

..some words from the members..

Done: “HipHop has been competition ever since…For years, you can find B-boy-,MC-, DJ- battles allover the HipHop-landscape, and of course, there has always been competition within the writing-scene…who is all city with his tags, writes the most trains, has the dopest style, does the best productions or even is better in sketching. But in contrast to all other elements, the competition always “happened off the road”, i.e. only a small number of those in the know were aware of it, it was not that comprehensive…so why not shed some light on this “darker side” of HipHop’s competition? And honestly, that’s what people want to see! "

Nose: ”Graffiti has always been a feature at HipHop-parties, so why don’t push it to the centre of perception?” Now that there is such an event, the question rises why someone should participate? "

FredOne: “First of all, we all love graffiti! And that’s the reason we participate in this event. The german members of our crew are placed in different cities throughout the country. We do not often get the chance to hang out and paint together. So we use the Write4Gold contest to meet our homies, spend some nice days on a muddy camping site together and besides do nice concept walls. That’s almost the one and only reason. And of course, we want to represent…every crew-member lives his own competition…the crew was formed to do unanimously concept walls, so why not get up and represent the crew in such events! Besides this reasons, such an event is a good opportunity to meet and connect other people. On the national events for example, you can meet writers who live quite close to your city, whose names you already knew, whose styles you liked and arrange to do something together. The worldwide/European competition gives you the chance to meet people from allover and for example get some contacts for your next interrail-tour. What I like about Write4Gold is the nice atmosphere and all the people you can meet. It’s always a big party and not this serious battle shit, where everybody is an enemy. But still all the crews try to do their best (almost)”.

Nose: "Write4Gold gives people the opportunity to leave their home country for the first time in their life, get to know different cultures and meet people from allover…I think that’s one of the best things about it”.

Stereo: ”All Battles we took part were nice this year. In Chemnitz the weather fucked us up every night, but we made the best out of it. The European Finals were very interesting because of the many crews participating from various countries. It was cool to see, how the people differently worked out their ideas on the walls. While watching the concept-paintings taking shape I couldn’t really figure out whose would be the best in the end… it’s always a question of taste / jury (see FredOne)“ We were missing a bit the message behind the thing. Lots of people painted nice walls, but we didn’t get the message! We think, on such big events, where you can reach a big crowd with what you represent, everybody should try to tell the kids what’s important in the game…and the topics chosen by the jury encourage to do so! The jury and the jury results are a big topic. "

FredOne: “..you just can make your decision with your own mind, and if you don’t like original wildstyle, you don’t like it. Therefore it can happen, that you paint a burnerwall and don’t get props you deserve because of a different taste. That’s life! But as I said, we paint for the love of it and not for the jury or the event!” We think that the jury was really competent and mostly very patient in discussing the decision when asking! We are participating at Write4Gold since the beginning in 2003. At this point, the idea was to have an event where the writer is the centre of attention. We got lots of things promised…and not many were kept…a big fuck up! But after this bad start, with time the organisers learned out of their mistakes and do their job better and better! Overall, we think this year was definitely the best concerning the organisation! (And the website this year is really good, much information, very fast updates… – but please, improve the English!).

somethings in addition?...critical points!

We had a really good time in Stuttgart and in Chemnitz…days of good writing with our homies and nights of wild party with everybody else! But nevertheless, there are things, that should be a "must" for a big event like this: why do Write4Gold participants at the HipHopOpen, painting for 10 hours under subtropical conditions, have to pay for a glass of water 3 euros, while the breakers (no stars, just participants at the battle of the south) were spoiled backstage with snacks, fruit and fresh drinks? It’s not that difficult and costly to have a small writer-tent with at least some water! A little consolation were the free Cokes at the Splash! Festival, but couldn’t everbody just walk into the coke-tent and have some free drinks? Did the writers get anything in addition? Also it was too bad, that even the writers, after 10 hours of “dirty work” didn’t get a shower for free at the VIP camping area! We don’t expect to be the centre of attention, we are not rap stars who attract the audience and therefore are treated specially, we do not expect to get paid for it, but we are and always have been an important part of the culture and at least should not have to be compelled to save our money to be able to travel to this event. Travel money would have been nice (the europeans at least got their flights paid, right?) As mentioned before and first of all we are in it for the love of style and spraycanshit and to meet our own Crew plus old and new friends – and not because of material interests. But another subject for the organisers to reassess is the distribution of the winner prices…we think 1400 cans for the first place and just some mags, markers and stickers for the second place is no very well balanced. … we hope in future, the Write4Gold-team takes care about the little things, that make such an event really big! …see you all next year, Write4Gold 2006 - Worldwide!

German Final: click here

Many thanks to Chosen Few.

We work on this critical points for 2006!

some changes for write4gold germany 2006 in advance:

- only 1 event (situated in the middle of germany)

- travel costs for the german final crew like all the european(worldwide) crews

- KO system

WATCH OUT FOR WRITE4GOLD GERMANY 2006!

Sincerely,

Write4Gold Team!