Today's Pride of Bed-Stuy: Fab 5 Freddy

February 13, 2011: Fab 5 Freddy is a former graffiti artist, a cultural icon and a key architect for bringing hip hop music to a mainstream audience.

Born Fred Brathwaite in 1959 in Bedford Stuyvesant, Fab 5 Freddy began his journey as a young visual artist, executing graffiti pieces throughout New York City. His 1980 homage to Andy Warhol, a subway car covered in Campbell’s soup cans, is considered one of the all-time classics of subway graffiti.

Fab began exhibiting his paintings on canvas in major galleries internationally, serving as a liaison between New York’s downtown film, music and art scenes and the new hip-hop scene developing in Harlem and the Bronx.

He was affiliated with artistic titans Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring and appeared along with Basquiat in Blondie’s ground breaking 1981 music video, “Rapture," in which lead singer Debbie Harry immortalized him in that song with the lyrics, “Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody’s fly…”

Fab also was featured in Basquiat’s film, “Downtown 81.” Fab produced and composed all the original music, as well as starred in the 1981 movie “Wild Style,” recently recognized by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the “Top 25 Music DVDs of All Time.”

His 1982 single “Change The Beat” is a hip-hop classic that has been sampled and scratched (“ahhh, this stuff is realllly, FRESH!”) by producers and DJ’s countless times.

In 1988, MTV tapped Fab 5 Freddy to be the first host of Yo! MTV Raps, which quickly became the highest-rated show on the channel. It was his idea to be the first VJ to take a show out of MTV’s studios onto the streets, across the country and then overseas.

Fab brought MTV instant credibility along with his intelligent, engaging and insightful forays into the depths of hip hop culture and its major players.

After his iconic start with Yo! MTV Raps, Fab began directing videos and commercials for artists such as Queen Latifah, KRS-One, Nas, Snoop Doggy Dog and many more.

Fab has spent the last ten years, writing essays on pop culture (he penned the first dictionary of Hip Hop slang titled, “Fresh Fly Flavor”), executive producing and consulting for movies that portray the early days of graffiti and hip hop and receiving awards for his critical role as a pioneer of hip hop culture.

As a true hip hop pioneer and one of the most visible faces of hip hop around the world, Fab 5 Freddy, we acknowledge your work and honor your contributions.

*Source, www.fab5freddy.com

Every day, throughout February, we will celebrate Black History Month by profiling those, past and present, who either were born, raised or currently reside here that have have made Bedford-Stuyvesant proud.