All my tweeples (that's people on Twitter, for those that aren't up in the Twitterverse) know I've been posting mad videos and vibes concerning Iz the Wiz' passing.  I wanted to take this space to explain who he was for those that might not know, why I've posted so much about him and to use this as an opportunity to explain how songs come together sometimes.  I've never met Iz the Wiz, and only I've only really seen a handful of video of him over the years, but still felt like I knew him. 

To be honest, when I was a kid I was a toyish kind of writer.  I had some skills as a tagger, but was never that ill off of paper.  That's the truth.  But, I was a huge fan of "Spraycan Art" and "Subway Art".  Those books were legendary to me and all my friends coming up.  Another honest point is back in those days, I was feeling Iz' shit, but it wasn't my favorite shit in the book, I slept hardcore.  I was more inspired by Blade, Dondi, Futura 2000, Dez and others.

It wasn't until many years later (and many years after I stopped doing Graff myself) that I watched for the first time, "Style Wars".  I had always known about Style Wars, but I'm ashamed to say, I never saw it until about 3-4 years ago.  It was originally done for TV and was really hard to find a copy back in the old VHS days.

In watching that amazing documentary, the personalities of the graff writers from my old books came to life, and one of the personalities that jumped out of the screen was "Iz the Wiz".  Iz became famous for his "This is it!" line in the movie as the freshly painted train he and his boys just hit up rolled out of the station for the first time to the sun rising.  If that scene didn't make you want to be a graff writer around 1977, then you were really weren't ever cut out for this hip-hop shit.  What that movie showed is what's true about all art. Art is a reflection of someone's personality and their soul.  That's no matter whether your talking about music or on canvas, or in this case on subway cars.

The look in his eyes when he talked about graff, his future and his peoples was so passionate that it really put a face to a name.  Below, I embedded the bonus material from the Style Wars DVD re-release.  A MUST see by the way.  His interview as a grown man is epic as he explains without hesitation trading in what you know he loved from day one, his graff fame, for "perfect health".  That line jarred the hell out of me, which I'll explain more of.

The nievety of the interviewer of the current day Iz, really makes this clip so effective.  His reaction to the interviewer saying "that's not that long" when Iz said his last piece was done 6 months ago is classic.  "To me it's an eternity" replies Iz the Wiz (I know the feeling).  Even at an older age, and even considering his words about his health (which was causing him issues then) he still was fired up about Graff.  That's what made this piece so powerful to me.  His style was really tricky, it sneaks up on you.  It pretends to be simple, but then the details pops at the last minute.  You can see that in the piece he paints here.  Like a Bob Ross painting, it doesn't blow you away until he starts putting in details and shadowing and then.....BAM.

Well, around the time I saw this, I was putting together tracks for "We Are, Vol. 1".  The Presence had a posse cut with Centri and Stacs of Stamina that I hadn't dropped on yet, and the beat always reminded me of some shit that kids could bomb trains to.  It's one of my favorite beats I've ever made, most of my favorite beats I do remind me of my graffiti days.  So I sat down and dropped a verse dreaming about being a 70's Graff writer, and drawing the parallel of underground NYC emcee in the 00's to underground NYC writer in the 70's.  I tied the whole thing together with some audio that you just heard, "This is it" and had Shortrock cut Iz the Wiz' name from when Big Juss said it on one of his tributes to NYC graff.  I named the track after Iz as a nod for the inspiration, not just for that song, but as an artist overall as I keep it moving and get older.  The rest is history.

Below is the track and some of his artwork.  Hopefully it's a nice fit to peep the track and see his art as we say goodbye.  RIP Iz the Wiz, NYC Legend.