Fab 5 Freddy recalls how he brought underground art forms mainstream respect

Source: NPR Published: March 15, 2026 (featured on NPR’s Bullseye, March 20, 2026)

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NPR spoke with Fred Brathwaite, known as Fab 5 Freddy, about his new memoir Everybody’s Fly: A Life of Art, Music, and Changing the Culture. Brathwaite was a pioneering figure in bringing hip-hop culture — graffiti, deejaying, breakdancing, and rapping — to mainstream audiences. As a teenager in 1970s New York City, he tagged subway cars, produced the foundational hip-hop film Wild Style in the early 1980s, and became the original host of Yo! MTV Raps, the first nationally televised show dedicated entirely to hip-hop. He also bridged hip-hop and the fine art world, forging connections between Bronx street artists and figures like Andy Warhol. His memoir documents decades of work advocating for critical and cultural respect for Black art forms that were once dismissed as vandalism.