America ReFramed

Alaudin Ullah: By the time I got fourth or fifth grade, in the lower income areas of New there was a cultural revolution going down.

I was sneaking to the Black park In front of my building, they used to have all the rapper Rap really was connecting with this feeling of isolation, being an outcast, being a freak.

I loved it.

I worshiped it.

I wanted to be part of that revo and then when I got into the Boy there were a lot of Puerto Rican graffiti artists.

I was watching them tag and they were quick.

They were like pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft and they were gone.

When I went to Metropolitan and the MoMA with these guys, they were like, "Yo, my man, I gotta tell you something though.

We're never gonna be in this pla That's why we gotta do the train Watching the trains come out of that train yard, it was a feeling of euphoria.

So it's like you're in some underground movement.

You know, my father said, "Putting your signature on wall.

What is this?

What is that crap?

I looked at my father like a Uncle Tom dishwasher.

Like, you don't know anything about the hood, the projects.

You just some old man and a cane and I remember one time my mom c with a stick, screaming and yell 'cause it was past eight o'clock I couldn't express to her why I loved hip hop so much.

She was never gonna get it.

This was the beginning of when I just totally abandoned and rebelled against anything that was Bangladeshi or Muslim.