Airbrush Artist Shirt King Phade Interview

From massive portraits of Biggie, Dapper Dan, and Gil Scott-Heron to framed photos of LL Cool J and his viral 1-of-1 Virgil Abloh Tribute Hoodie, there’s no question that Shirt King Phade and his work are living memories. Phade went from tagging trains with his brother in the 70s to accidentally airbrushing the start of a multibillion-dollar phenomenon: Streetwear. 

Originally from Queens and raised in Brooklyn, Phade found the art of graffiti in the early ’70s, playing shadow to his older brother on weekend trips to the Bronx. What he found was nothing like he had ever seen: hip-hop, a vibrantly gritty universe that fused together a kaleidoscope of underground talent—the first Em-Cees, B-boys, DJs, and graffiti writers. At 9, Phade picked up a spray can and began to mark his part of the culture, eventually trading it in for an airbrush. 

When Phade met airbrushing, it was new tech: an alien tool to most writers that completely blew open the possibilities of innovation for street art and its canvas. What began as a post-art-school hustle cutting group orders of custom tees for everyone from local ball players to drug dealers turned into collaborations with some of the biggest names in urbanwear—Supreme, Stüssy, Nike, Champion, and more—as well as 1-of 1-work for contemporary global superstars like 21 Savage, Rihanna, Meek Mill, and ASAP Rocky. Phade’s influence on the culture is undeniable; he’s a pioneer who inspired countless artists and brands to take street art global. But airbrushing, graffiti, and streetwear are more than mere aesthetics and trends, more than drops and collabs. As Phade tells it, they’re the ultimate form of free expression, a way out of hard circumstances, and an opportunity for overlooked communities to flaunt their beauty and make you pay attention. 

Check out more of Phade’s work in our “Blurred Lines” story for Issue 2 of Complex Magazine. The Innovation Issue is now available for pre-order on Complex Shop.

Phade: Let me back up a little bit. When we moved from Brooklyn to the Bronx, I saw two different worlds. Everybody in the projects was doing graffiti. My older brother was deep into graffiti, and as his little brother, I had to tag along—literally. At 8 or 9, I had to get involved because there was nowhere he could stash me. I was pretty much injected with that—what was soon to become hip-hop through the art. 

Every week, it was something new—first graffiti, then music, then breakdancing, then turntables. It was a whole culture I hadn’t seen in Brooklyn. We’d come uptown to the Bronx, it’s like, man, what’s this thing going on? I started tagging as Phase 3 until I got to the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, and when I got there, the top writers basically told me, “You can’t write Phase 3—he’s a legend, and you’re a toy.” That hit hard.

So, I went down the alphabet and came up with P-H-A-D-E. Then I did a hood check basically instead of a Google search—“Yo, anybody ever write Phade?” Everyone said no, so I claimed it. Alright, cool. I’m Phade.

The early ’80s is when you start to make this shift. You become part of the first wave to commercialize graffiti and bring it into fashion, and at the same time, we see other elements of hip-hop permeate the mainstream. We see Sugar Hill Gang do The Rapper’s Delight and Kurtis Blow do The Breaks. Hip-hop is on the radio. How do you see the growth of streetwear in relation to hip-hop’s rise, and how do you view your role as a pioneer of a subculture that’s now a multibillion-dollar industry?
That’s a heavy question. I like that. A pivotal moment was when my boy Mac said, “Yo, I saw something that looked like your name—was that you?” I was like, “Yeah, that’s me.” And he said, “Man, you’re really getting up on the trains, but I just couldn’t read it.” That gave me an idea—once I started phasing out of the train era, let me start doing more simple pieces, something that’s legible.

And why did you phase out of the train era? 
College. You turn 16, 17, about to graduate. At Art and Design, they trained us for the corporate world, so I figured I would work for a magazine or do photography. I went to New York Tech and then Savannah College of Art and Design for video production and I was also studying photography. But one Christmas, I came home for break and went to the Roxy with my friend Georgie, and they played the Run DMC song for the first time—I saw the crowd go crazy. They’re these younger kids, breakdancing, going crazy, and doing the stuff I was doing, maybe eight years prior—but these kids took it to another level. They’re talking about going to Europe and doing movies, and I’m like, wait a minute. I need to insert myself in this one way or another.

How exactly did you transition from traditional tagging to airbrushing?
While I was home that break, my boy Georgie kept calling me to come over. When I got there, he handed me an airbrush, and I’m like, “What the hell is this? You young guys, y’all are getting high. This doesn’t make any sense. How are you making paint come out of a pen?” It was just super weird to me, and I didn’t want any parts. He said, “Nah, you gotta do it.” I tried it, couldn’t control it, and he’s like, “You gotta use the force. Concentrate, Young Skywalker.” And soI did my first shirt—Ernie and Burt—and he said, “Yo, you’re gonna be good.” Georgie gave me his compressor, airbrush, and paint. I went home and made my mom a shirt, and she gave me money and said, “You’re gonna need more supplies.” That’s when I realized I could actually get into this. So next is: how can I do the stuff that’s on the train and have people wear it?

That’s so cool that your mom was your champion in this because what you did with that was crazy. That came from that moment, and that came from that support.
It did come from that moment. The support was twofold: I still need to get a job. I’m like, “Ma, don’t you see us on TV? Don’t you see us on the video? Don’t you see everybody wearing the work?” And she’s like, get a job. You know what I’m saying?

Street art is an art that’s rooted in resourcefulness. Resourcefulness is an innovation that breeds creativity.
For sure.

On your website, you talk a lot about turning culture on its head, making cartoons badass, or reassigning meaning to notable elements of pop culture. What has it meant for you to express yourself, to take the dominant white mainstream culture and flip it on its head?As Dapper Dan says, one of the biggest draws early on was that we “Black-inized” our characters. We took familiar characters that we all grew up on and loved, like the Flintstones, Transformers, whoever, and we “Black-inized” them. We put Mickey Mouse, Underdog, Kimba the Lion—a lot of influence from Japanese cartoons—whoever we could think [of], in our favorite clothes. Whatever the dealer was looking like—with the gold chain, Jordans on their feet—we took that and put it on our favorite character. We put it on Bugs Money. Do you know what I’m saying? What it did was kind of like therapy because a lot of the gangs in the street at that time were selling crack, but when they came into our store, it was neutral. These dudes would see each other, and it’s like, “No, we not doing nothing in front of the Shirt King store. Right here is peace.” Because those characters brought these dudes back to a time when it was peaceful, when you were eating your bowl of cereal and watching Saturday morning cartoons. So the art was always therapeutic. We cooled out the friction of major dealers that were in opposition with each other through our designs.

Remind everyone of their roots.
Exactly. Take you back to that time when you were innocent.

And be able to see yourself in that because people forget that the illicit economy is modeled after the “mainstream” economy, and especially [in] this period of time, nobody wanted to give Black and Brown people the opportunities to participate in that. 
New York gave off that aura of despair. You’re riding through the South Bronx, it’s like the buildings are burnt. The city was broke at the time, or at least they claimed broke. You would see it on the front cover of the Daily News or the New York Times. The senator and the governor were like, “F New York. We’re not giving y’all no money.” Times Square was a hell pot, and it looked like a movie. Like if the next train don’t come, I’m running out of here, man. 

And nobody’s coming to—
Fix it! There’s nobody to coming to help, man. So it’s the rose that came out of the concrete. It all shows the resilience of the people, the innovation of the people. You get to a point where enough is enough, and by the grace of God, hip-hop, protesting, all that, boom. We did that. They did that in the ’60s, too. And what’s the result? I’m quoting someone else when I say this, but who knew that there were going to be some kids in the Bronx just kicking around a can [who] came up with this multi-billion dollar business jumping on mattresses, flipping, tagging trains, and doing this and that. Who knew they would create a whole avenue for people to eat, to survive.

You were at the genesis of this major cultural phenomenon and were friends with many of the people who are now the names and faces that we can’t not attach to the culture. 
Dapper Dan, my mentor, was phenomenal. Just learning nuggets from him. He’s survived through several generations and has been reinventing himself over and over. He’s not even at his best yet. Harlem world all day! Being mentored by Dap connected me to my childhood dreams of just running through Harlem but not being “anybody” in the Harlem sense. Back then, you had to have a name; you had to have done something. 

One of my first business partners was Dowell Ferguson, who was D Ferg, A$AP Ferg’s dad. We used to paint together at his crib on 143rd Street because he also went to The High School of Art and Design. 

Wes— he was creative director at Supreme, part of the same graffiti crew, TC5. I was just going up there just to hang out and chill. Then he turns around like, “Yo, you want to do something with Supreme?” I was like, “With who?” And he was like, “With Supreme, man.” That book I did (Shirt Kings: Pioneers of Hip Hop Fashion) opened doors for that. Supreme had the book, and I was on the mood board. I’m on the mood board of Nike. I’m on the mood board at Champion, at all these different companies—Star Wars—like, okay, this is starting to pay off in a way that I could have never imagined. These are characters that I lived and loved. You know, who didn’t love Star Wars? Now I’m able to express myself around the right people, and more is coming.

What about people who are more a part of the music side of the industry?
Definitely people like Heavy D stand out. He was there at a plateau, like, “Oh, come by my house.” I get there one morning, he’s got all these boxes like, “This is what you do with the corporate. Once you get a name, they’ll send you some stuff.” I’m looking through like, yo, this is from Nike. And remember, I’m talking about the late ’80s when we had to pay for this stuff. I’m paying for my first pair of Jordans, second, and third.

There’s no PR.
Yeah! There’s absolutely no PR. And this guy’s just getting a box like, “Yo, what size you wear, man? Here, have it.” I’m like, I need to make this name Shirt Kings hot enough that people are recognizing it. 

Big Daddy Kane was a good friend of mine. Rakim [and I] connected hard, too. I actually watched him and Rashad [Smith] do “Don’t Sweat the Technique” and “Juice.” We did that up at Grand Mixer DST’s crib. Rashad supplied the beat. You know what I’m saying? 

It’s just like a love. When you have a love for this culture, you just start doing everything but also doing nothing sometimes. 

You were this kid coming up in the projects, painting on trains. Fast forward, your career now shares space with these major brands where y’all have a kind of give and take. How do you understand that dynamic? What does it mean to you at this point in your career, and how does it feel in all the context preceding it? You were raised off of this.
Definitely raised off of this culture. When I look back, in retrospect, I see that God positioned me. God is really in my life in a big way. It could only be by divine appointment that a lot of these things happened, so I have to approach it from a different state of mind. Somebody asked me at an interview in Miami during Art Basel, “How does it feel that a lot of people have stolen from you?” And I was like, oh, that’s a deep word. I don’t see it as a legacy or idea being stolen. I was given that particular idea to create other entrepreneurs—that’s the angle. The angle is not for me; it’s for everybody. It’s basically like I was given a piece of food, and I’m breaking bread with younger up-and-coming brands. This thing ain’t just for me. I want pretty much everybody to be free. I want everybody to be out of poverty, right? It’s like, what do you have in the house? Oh, I got a little bit of oil. Okay, get all the jars you can get and pour the oil into each jar until you can’t pour no more. That’s what it is. I got to keep pouring into people, and it multiplies, and it multiplies. Next thing you know, that person is working at Jordan Brand, and they’re giving me a call, “Yo, Phade. I remember what you did 20 years ago.” Not that I’m looking for that, but that’s how this journey has been. It’s just been a give, give, give, come get me, boom.