by MATTHEW WOODLEY

Sterling Downey counts himself among the graffiti literate.

"See that?" he says, pointing at a bomb (graffiti art, to the uninitiated) on a brick wall. "I know where that comes from. I can tell you why that's there and why that deserves to be there."

Downey is co-organizer of Under Pressure, about to kick off its eighth year of bringing together the four-sided face of hip hop culture - graffiti writers, DJs, MCs and breakdancers - for an outdoor bash. We're sitting on a heavily hit sidestreet off St-Laurent along with DJ Killa-Jewel, a local who's been spinning records at UP since '99, and Esprit, a writer fresh off the plane from Geneva who's painted at the event the last four years.

Under Pressure sees close to 100 gas-masked graffiti writers come out of the brickwork, rows of them on scaffolding set up against the walls in the parking lot behind Foufounes. The hiss of spray cans mixes with the beats put out by a steady stream of turntablists on a central stage, and a big circle surrounds a space set up for breakdancing - this year is the first where there'll be an official B-boy/B-girl competition. As the day progresses, spectators - from those who know the scene to tourists who stumble upon it all - watch as the morning's sketches slowly turn to tight pieces.

The event is the biggest of its kind in Canada - "a big block party," as Downey calls it. Big enough that Esprit has come from Switzerland on his own coin, one of dozens of writers here from cities all over North America and a few places in Europe.

"The first year my crew was invited it was because Absolut was a sponsor," he says. "They paid, and we painted a big mural. The next year I came for the love of it - and because it was an event done by graffiti writers for graffiti writers. And the writers who are at this event know that."

Aerosol for art's sake

Esprit has been doing graffiti for 12 years. He started out tagging and developed a style that's taken him to a level of international recognition, meaning commissions and travel. "I respect taggers and I respect bombers because we all come from that," he says. "But I'm into piecing and doing productions because I want the recognition for my art. There's two different kinds of writers: the artists and the others, and I'm more going in the artist direction."

Comissions don't pay all the bills. Esprit has a day job working at a youth centre in Geneva. He comes across as mellow and unassuming, maybe it's the jet lag, but it seems fitting that his pieces have a certain roundness to them, elements easily blending into one another. "You can look at different pieces and you can picture the writer who did it," he says. "Say he uses a lot of curves, or, on the contrary, his work is very spiky, it reflects the personality of the writer. My style is what I am."

Killa-Jewel, representing the aural side of Under Pressure, got introduced to the world of record spinning just five years ago. In that short time she's turned heads, first as a girl in a boy's club, and more importantly as a scratch DJ, working with the likes of Dubmatique and Robert LePage. "It's the sam thing with style, just that I'm making vocal statements instead of visual ones," she says. "The samples I choose are very personal, and the whole reason I got into hip hop in the first place was as an outlet for how I was feeling at the time. It just so happens that it turned into something bigger for me."

There's long been a link between hip hop music and graffiti. They share a street connection, a genesis from turf battles and the quest for fame. The only thing all writers have in common, though, is that they do graffiti, as Downey attests: "There are people you'd see on the street who you'd never think are writers; there's a punk thing, a lot of tattoo culture, anything goes."

"In Germany they're mostly punks. Alcoholics then punks," adds Esprit, laughing. As Downey puts it, drawing agreement around the table, "Hip hop is about community, and that's the essence of the whole thing. With Under Pressure we're trying to be a voice for the community in Canada."

Ad bust

Downey is a writer himself (though he prefers to keep his moniker separate from his promoter persona). "I understand the culture from the perspective of a participant from within it," he says. "I organize Under Pressure to benefit the writers as much as the general public. If it was being organized by somebody who wasn't part of the community it would be organized differently, with different motivations and a different mentality."

The graffiti mentality has shifted shape many times. It has been defended, bashed and scrutinized since it rolled by on NYC subway trains and into galleries, pushed by '70s art stars with names like Basquiat and Haring. Of course somewhere along the way, advertisers caught on. Take a look at those Fuji Film billboards all over town. Most of them are surrounded by tags, quick signatures leaving a personal mark in, as Downey puts it, "a world owned by somebody else."

Downey approached Fuji for sponsorship, to no avail. Nike, Addidas and many other companies also said no. "The events in other countries are being financed majorly," he says, "whereas it's encountering all these financial barriers in Canada. They come out with a campaign with graffiti in it and when you say, ‘I want to get on board,' they say, ‘No no, we do our own things.'"

As a result, Downey has had to tack a $20 fee onto Under Pressure. Initially it was $40. Some writers cried "sell out," but Downey is adamant that the fee is no big deal. "You take into account the scaffolding, the five free cans of paint they get, the T-shirt, plus the opportunity to be part of something international like this and 20 bucks is nothing," he says.

Whether the registration fees don't sit well with some of the kids who got into graffiti for its no-rules nature or graffiti writers just love to bitch, Downey - pissed off with the corporate diss - says he's on their level: "Corporations exploit graffiti imagery and give nothing back to the community… In Canada, especially in Montreal, graffiti is on its way down. First it was oppressed and people were against it. Then people worked with it, everyone supported it, and now kids are bombing or tagging again, which is fine, but what's happening is hard to take.

"With Under Pressure we're taking it upon ourselves to be a voice for the graffiti community. We're sticking up for the artists."

Under Pressure goes down all day on Sunday, Aug. 10, behind Foufounes (87 Ste-Catherine E.) with an ongoing, all-ages free outdoor show, a B-Boys/B-Girls crew battle from 3pm–7pm and an 18+ indoor show at Foufounes hosted by Rawgged MC at 9pm, $5. Pre-event black book session at Off the Hook (1021A Ste-Catherine W.) on Aug. 8, 8pm, and show that night, featuring Bless and Maestro Fresh Wes, at Le Medley (1170 St-Denis), 9pm, $14-$20