To be honest, the guest speaker who visited class last Friday, Rich Stremme, didn’t strike a chord with me immediately. I think the reason behind that was because I didn’t feel like I related to him on an artistic level. The concepts behind his artwork and music seemed too extreme for my taste, especially his concepts regarding race.

However, days after his visit into our class, I found some cool similarities between the punk rock/heavy metal scene and the hip-hop scene during Stremme’s heyday. One of the most unifying themes of the two sub-cultures was their value for graffiti. It seemed to be a craft that both sub-cultures treasured and used as an alternate form of public expression aside from music. Another similarity I found between the two sub-cultures were the groups inside each of the subcultures. It turns out that while Rich was doing graffiti and making music with his group called the “GodSquad,” an underground rap group called K.M.D (while collaborated with Brand Nubian) also called themselves the “GodSquad” and made music together while also involving themselves with graffiti.

There are some things that I admired in Rich Stremme. One of those things was his craftiness. His whalebone carvings, his skill in making tattoos, his experience with comic book style panels, along with his music ability sparked an artistic versatility in me that I’d like to cultivate in the future. I also respected his experience-oriented attitude. He encouraged interacting with the art scene head-on, instead of behind the safety of a screen while on the Internet. Overall, he was a pretty cool guest speaker. While I didn’t share the same tastes as Stremme, I respect the diversity of his work and his enthusiasm for experience.