How Philly graffiti artist Cornbread became a legend, one tag at a time
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From left, graffiti artist Darryl "Cornbread" McCray and some of his greatest works. Photos: Courtesy of Paradigm
The thing about legends is you never really know how true they are. But legendary graffiti artist Cornbread insists even that's not true.
- "Everything I say is the truth," he tells Axios before kicking off an hour-long conversation with a stunning icebreaker: "I have 45 children. You find it hard to believe. That's a fact. My 10 children gave me 35 grandchildren."
Why it matters: This much is verifiably true about Cornbread: His government name is Darryl McCray; he believes his late grandmother baked the best cornbread; he's one of hip-hop's OGs — "the very first element of this culture" — who made his name tagging everything in sight in Philadelphia; and he has a new exhibit to prove it.
Driving the news: "Cornbread: Legendary," running through Feb. 15 at the Paradigm Gallery + Studio, features more than 100 of McCray's greatest works — cementing his status as a pioneer who helped push graffiti — widely considered the visual expression of hip-hop — from vandalism into legitimacy before the movement took off nationwide in the early 1970s.
- The exhibition also serves as a lead-up to Cornbread's work being immortalized in the Hip Hop Museum, opening later this year in New York.
Flashback: McCray loves telling the story of how he got his nickname — a name he'd later tag on walls, bridges, stop signs, police cars, the Jackson 5's jet, he claims, and even an elephant at the Philadelphia Zoo.
- A young kid from Brewerytown, he was locked up at the juvenile detention center. Their bread sucked, McCray said, so one day he marched into the kitchen to complain.
- The cook, Mr. Swanson, didn't take too kindly to the criticism, and later dragged McCray by his shirt into the mess hall and told a staffer to "keep this cornbread out of my kitchen."
Catch up quick: The name stuck, and McCray started tagging it on the walls of the jail, like lines on a chalkboard, until they made him see a therapist, who asked him why he was intent on scrawling the moniker everywhere.
- "You ain't seen nothing yet," McCray told the counselor. "When I get out of here, I'm gonna set the world on fire."
Flash forward: He did. His publicity-drawing stunts — like tagging "Cornbread lives" on an elephant's backside after local newspapers declared he was dead, mistaking him for another street hustler — helped him burnish a reputation for bravado — and even helped him win over a high-school crush.
Zoom in: Now 73, McCray has spent the past few years on tour, with his street art featured in exhibits all over the world, including a solo show at Amsterdam's STRAAT Museum.
- He had a book published about himself. And he has served as a mentor to countless Philly youth who see art as their path toward putting their marks — not just on street signs — but on the world.
What they're saying: "So many of the stories, people kind of passed down," Paradigm curator Sara McCorriston tells Axios. "Darryl is such a good storyteller. People in Europe would meet him and sometimes were brought to tears."
Yes, but: Two things still bring McCray to tears.
- While he was in Paris, he beat back the itch to tag his name on the Eiffel Tower.
- And he's hard-pressed to admit his grandmother's cornbread — God rest her soul — isn't the best he's ever had. That distinction belongs to a little joint in Virginia.
"I sit at the bar. I told her, [the waitress], 'Got any cornbread?' She said, 'We do.' I don't want you to print this, but I'm gonna tell you the truth. The cornbread was orange. It put my grandma's cornbread to shame."