[steps approaching]
[Estevan] Um...
I'm making this movie because, uh...
Which way you want me to look?
-[producer] Right here. -Okay.
I'm basically making this movie
because I have 25 years
of footage and photos of me and Cartoon's...
I guess, uh, journey in life,
and all the movement that we've...
Wait, let me see.
["Juice" by Eric B and Rakim playing]
If you ain't got tatted by Cartoon, you ain't got no tat.
If you ain't get shot by Estevan, you got a weak photographer.
[camera shutter clicks]
[hip-hop music playing]
You can't tell the story of Estevan without telling the story of Cartoon.
You know Toons, then you know Estev.
They are LA.
Premier representatives of that Los Angeles culture.
Like, the pioneers.
Not just pioneers, I mean, I think they're historians.
Storytellers, they're the image-makers. The chroniclers.
When you say LA tattoo artists, you can't not mention Mister Cartoon.
Nobody does art like Cartoon.
When you look at a Mister Cartoon tattoo, you know that's Mister Cartoon.
Everybody knows Mister Cartoon.
The hip-hop tattoo artist.
Man, you got tatted by Toons, it's, like, a level of respect.
Cartoon, baby.
-My boy Cartoon. -Cartoon.
The world-famous Cartoon.
Everything Cartoon did, Estevan was there.
Estevan brings an authenticity that is matched by none other.
Photographing gang members.
Capturing the whole culture and everything, man.
Lowrider culture, tattoo culture, shots of Skid Row.
[Wilmer] Leaving pieces of history behind.
-[George] These vatos... -[Snoop] They showed
that you can do it the right way if you do it the right way.
[George] They take pride in all of that.
[Snoop] They paved the way for a lot of people.
Even if they don't admit it.
We couldn't have done it without these two guys.
It's about courage.
Just be true to who you are, and a lot of people are terrified
of being who they are.
That's one of the reasons they're so successful.
They mean what they say and they say what they mean.
This is our thing, and we wanna bring this out to the world.
LA's globalized.
They've joined forces, and they've been unstoppable ever since.
[hip-hop music playing]
[birds chirping]
[Cartoon] Coming from a Chicano, Mexican family,
believing in God is standard issue.
I was formerly raised Catholic.
I was told at a young age that I was gifted, I was blessed,
I have a gift from God.
And when you tell a kid that every day
over and over and over,
they start to believe it.
So when my mom would ask me to clean the room,
make my bed, I'd be like,
"I've been gifted from God. I'm not gonna make my bed. Come on."
[slow music playing]
[Estevan] For me, work is happiness. Yeah, I love to work.
I love doing photography. I love filming.
You know, when you say "work," that means you do something
and you get paid, so, yeah, that means my bills can get paid,
and I can keep moving forward.
-[girl] Daddy! -[Estevan] I'm not the best dad
or the best husband,
but I think I'm a good worker,
a good photographer,
and a pretty good friend.
Nobody could say I'd done them wrong. If they do, they're a lying motherfucker.
[car horns honking]
[Cartoon] If you focus,
you could see shit off of your talent.
You could travel the world.
You could go to Europe and shit. Like, we've been all around the world.
You can buy a home for your family.
[slow music playing]
[birds chirping]
[Estevan] Art was like I had to scratch an itch.
I would see shit,
I would see a movie poster,
or I would see something that made me wanna draw,
and I would get this kind of anxiety that I had to draw,
I had to draw every day. To let it go.
[Latin music playing]
[Yolanda] He was young, very young, like... four.
At that time, he was drawing nostrils, fingernails, earlobes,
you know, things that kids drew with stick figures,
he was drawing, doing very intricate things.
He was my first child, so I just thought I was the greatest mom
because he was so good, you know?
[David] His mom was, "You're the best.
You're amazing. You're the best artist in the world.
You're gonna grow up to be wonderful."
And then, at some point, you just believe it.
When I was a kid, my father met this guy at the line at the bank.
He says, "I'm in karate. I have a business, a karate business."
My dad comes home and he goes,
"I got great news. You're going to martial arts school."
I go, "I don't wanna do that." He goes, "Yeah."
Hey, I'm paying for that...
[chuckling] ...you're gonna go.
When he first started, he was real shy, wouldn't talk to anybody.
But maybe about a year after karate,
I would say that he was so confident that he'd walk straight up.
Going to the karate school introduced me
to the world of candy paint
because the grand master of the school was also a custom car painter,
so I learned all those things, you know, the murals, the candy paint,
respect, the flow of life.
All these things kind of went in a circle.
It's crazy.
[hip-hop music playing]
I'm Estevan Oriol. I'm a photographer and director.
Raised in LA.
I was born in Santa Monica at Saint John's Hospital.
[David] So you got Estevan.
Like, this tall cholo guy,
but then most people don't know he's half Italian.
[Estevan] My mom and dad were married up until I was about three.
And they split up, and it was me and my mom.
To me, my mom was great.
We grew up on welfare, food stamps and Medi-Cal,
but she did her best to make it the best for me.
Any time you have mixed-race children,
they grow up a little bit confused though, "Am I this race or am I this race?"
And at some point, you just gotta choose. He chose the Latino side.
I didn't even know it until years later.
[Estevan] My dad, he was kind of like a hippie.
He didn't give a shit about having a nice car and all that shit,
so that pushed me to strive for more.
That's what gave me my drive.
So after high school, I worked at a snack bar,
I worked on fishing boats,
supermarkets,
liquor store delivery.
I always had, like, one, two, three jobs.
[upbeat music playing]
[video games beeping]
[Cartoon] At the time, in the '80s,
it was all about where do you fit in
in hip-hop.
Are you a breaker? Are you a rapper?
Are you a locker? Are you a writer?
And I was like, "I love breakdancing,
and all that shit," but I couldn't hang.
But I could draw.
[Angel] Cartoon, uh, always had a marker
or a can of spray paint with him all the time.
And wherever we were at, he'd hit up.
[Cartoon] 'Cause I was hip-hop. I had a b-boy side of me.
It was, like, bombing, 3-Ds, fade.
[Revok] You know, before the Cartoon that he's known for today,
he was an awesome graffiti writer.
He was from this crew WCA that was kind of legendary
and was really fucking good.
[Risk] I go to probably late '80s with Cartoon.
He was "Flame" at the time.
I thought I knew everybody. I was like, "Who the fuck is this?"
And he had such a unique style, and was so different.
He hit and run. Like, I'd see a wall, and next day I was like,
"Where did this come from? Who did it?" You know.
[Cartoon] I basically do graffiti everywhere I go.
It brought me a rush, like, you can go to jail for this shit.
[tense music playing]
[Yolanda] He put his name, "Flame," on the graffiti piece,
and, so, he was caught, you know, for doing that.
[Angel] There was something different about him.
We had an idea that someday he was gonna do something,
that he was gonna go somewhere, he was gonna be something in life.
[Bob] It's like a work of art in there.
We were all proud of this, when he came out in the paper.
[Cartoon] I was just searching for my look, you know?
What felt good and what felt real to me.
I went to LA Trade-Tech to learn Sign Graphics,
to understand letters.
Letters have a weight to them.
When I was in school, all the kids knew where the prisons were,
and some of them would get letters from their family members,
and I would look at the envelope
and see these crazy collaged, pinta-style envelopes
and I would think to myself,
"Man, if I could mix that style of artwork with bombing graffiti style,
put them together."
That's where my style was born.
[upbeat music playing]
[Estevan] When I hit 19, I moved to Hollywood.
Sunset Boulevard was cracking.
The Whisky, The Roxy.
Hip-hop was new.
Just that scene was fucking off the chain,
and I was working nightclubs for extra money.
And that's where I met all the LA bands.
Ice-T and the Rhyme Syndicate,
the Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.,
Everlast from House of Pain.
That's how I met Muggs.
And then he took me down to the block on Cypress Ave,
and that's where I met B-Real and Sen.
[hip-hop music playing]
[Muggs] So, this right here is SP 1200.
This is the drum machine that we did um, all the House of Pain's records.
["Jump Around" by House of Pain playing]
♪ Pack it up, pack it in Let me begin ♪
The sample though-- For "Jump Around," I made it.
Horn player... came in the studio, played the horn,
and I put it in here, then I detuned it.
When you detune it, it gives it like a crunch.
♪ Feelin', funkin' Amps in the trunk ♪
It spreads it out a little bit. That's why that sounds unique.
First time I met Estevan, he was working the door of a club on 2nd Street
in, like, Little Tokyo.
He just would always show me love and let me in.
That's the homie Steve-O, short for Steve Oriol.
Switched it up to Scan. Scan was just Scandalous.
[Everlast] After we started getting the music together,
and we realized we were gonna go on the road, Muggs basically said,
"Yo, I know exactly who should be your road manager."
Who can I get that's fucking responsible and got they shit together?
And I was like, "Who?"
I hit up Scan and then, um...
He became our tour manager.
That was it, right there.
That was the beginning of us having worldwide escapades.
[hip-hop music playing]
[Estevan] In the beginning, people didn't know that House of Pain was white.
People were like, "What the fuck?"
"What are these fucking white boys walking through here?"
And then they'd hear the...
[Estevan humming the start of "Jump Around"]
And the whole fucking club would just go buck wild, berserk,
and they're just losing their fucking minds.
From there, it just took off.
I was with the band in the music videos, like "Shamrocks and Shenanigans."
When I wasn't here in LA, I was on tour with House of Pain.
My dad, he was a photographer.
He thought I lived kind of a cool lifestyle, so...
This is my first camera that my dad gave me.
This is the one that I talk about when people say,
"Oh, how did you start in photography?"
[Everlast] We would go on these little really fucked-up promo tours,
and he was just always taking pictures.
[clicking]
[spraying]
[Cartoon] I figured out that I was gonna be an artist
when it was time to get a real job.
I think airbrushing T-shirts, when I first did that,
about 17 years old,
is when I knew I could do this for a living.
And I would paint portraits of people's cars,
put it on a T-shirt and put the name over top.
I just started working right off the bat.
Cartoon's Customs was born,
kind of like preparing me to tattoo.
[hip-hop music playing]
[Muggs] Scandalous got the camera.
Japan. It's how we do it.
Chicken and soup. And I'm gonna get the spinach and butter.
When you're on the road, man, shit can get a bit stressful.
You need somebody out there that knows everybody's personalities
and everything, keep everything at ease all the time.
Every day was a new adventure, new city, new country, new shows.
It was the shit, to roll with the homie.
Hey, Steve-O.
He wasn't Estevan Oriol, the photographer. He was the road dog.
[hip-hop music playing]
[Estevan] They got the homie.
Cypress Hill, at the time, had not only... selling crazy records or platinum records,
but a well-respected hip-hop group.
B-Real was one of the dopest emcees in the world at the time.
[B-Real] Look at this view, motherfuckers.
[door creaking]
I look fucking good.
[screams]
You never have to ask me if I'm ready. I'm always ready, motherfucker. Fuck you.
[hip-hop music playing]
[coughs]
Oh, shit. That was a good hit.
Muggs had put on Estevan to work with the House of Pain guys
and then he came to work with us, Cypress Hill.
His first show with us was at Woodstock 1994.
[Estevan] B-Real jumps off the stage into the crowd, now I gotta pull him out,
but while I'm pulling him out, I'm taking pictures.
That shit was fucking crazy.
♪ But I'm still comin' to get ya Thinkin' like a peace smoke ♪
♪ Comin' on a homicide You talkin' shit, try to take... ♪
Estevan, he had many different roles he played.
He was tour managing,
he was our photographer and videographer.
[people chanting]
♪ So what ya gonna do now? Being the hunted one is no fun ♪
♪ Here I come, son ♪
Those are all mine.
♪ Better run more And move a little faster ♪
♪ Second of thought And I'm comin' to blast ya with my ♪
♪ Sawed off shotgun, hand on the pump Left hand on a forty ♪
♪ Puffin' on a blunt ♪
♪ Pumped my shotgun ♪
♪ Niggas didn't jump ♪
-♪ Lala, la la, la la, la la ♪ -[B-Real] Let's rock 'n' roll.
♪ Cypress Hill, Cypress Hill ♪
♪ Look at it ♪
♪ Cypress Hill, Cypress Hill ♪
♪ Look at it ♪
[B-Real] That's the way our crew was. We all worked together very tightly.
No one ever wore one hat.
You know, everybody did multiple things just to get whatever we needed done,
and Estevan, you know, he covered a lot of bases,
and, at the same time, being our family and friend
and filling every spot that needed to be filled.
What's up, dude? This is motherfucking Scandalous.
If you need anything, I got what you want, baby.
[chuckles]
Motherfuckin', big old skunk.
[hip-hop music playing]
[man] Come on!
Can you hear me? We're right here in fucked-up Cleveland,
we just had Mother Nature trip the fuck out on us.
Yeah!
♪ Olé, olé, olé, olé, Cypress, Cypress ♪
[Sen] So Estevan came through and a lot of the great footage that we have now
from Cypress Hill in those early days, it was all Estevan Oriol footage.
♪ Cypress ♪
[audience] ♪ Cypress ♪
♪ Cypress Hill ♪
[audience] ♪ Cypress Hill ♪
♪ Cypress ♪
[audience] ♪ Cypress ♪
♪ Cypress Hill ♪
[audience] ♪ Cypress Hill ♪
I have Steve-O in my head always saying things like,
"I'm just right here. I'm just right here."
Him, I think, saying to me,
"Don't worry about it. I'm doing my job. I'm right here."
[Estevan] Alright, we're still on our way.
[laughter]
[man singing]
[Sen] The most pissed-on fucking countryside I've seen.
-[Estevan] What else are we gonna do? -[Sen] We need to get there before you do.
[driver] Fucking Ireland.
-[boy] Oh, he's stuck! -[driver] You fucking bollocks!
[boy yells]
[Sen] What the fuck did he say?
[driver] We have to go backstage, you know?
[policeman] You can't get in that way. It's too small.
-[driver] We wanna go backstage. -Yeah, you got a pass?
Yeah, we-- This is our pass. Cypress Hill.
-[policeman] Cypress-- Oh, yeah. -Yeah.
-[Sen] We made it, Engolf. -[Estevan chuckles]
[Estevan] I'm on tour with The Beastie Boys,
No Doubt, The Fugees,
Limp Bizkit, Erykah Badu,
and all these other bands,
and I'm the only one there with a camera.
[rock music playing]
[Estevan] You're going from nothing to seeing thousands of people
losing their fucking minds to the song that you guys are bringing, you know?
So, you're, like, "Fuck, man."
That's when I started, like, feeling like,
"Okay, yeah, I need to take pictures of all this shit."
[screaming]
This is Southern California, motherfucker.
[Estevan] I started offering my photos to the magazines,
so music magazines started publishing my photos.
[birds chirping]
Yo, kick it off, dog.
One, two, three. Chickity boom bang.
Estevan...
The motherfucker was the man, you know? He was a man of many hats.
When I met him, I was about 14, 15 years old.
I was in the group The Whooliganz. I rapped. I was a rapper.
♪ Book your silly crick Put your hands up ♪
[Alchemist] Me and my man Scotty. Scotty Caan.
[Scott] We had made a record with B-Real, so they were bringing us out on tour
to pump up our record that hadn't come out yet.
So, I'm 16 years old in that situation,
with nothing to do, but be alive for one hour.
Otherwise, it was, like, hit on girls,
smoke weed and drink, and hang out with your idols.
I don't like to represent an age group. I'm representing hip-hop.
You know, he started fucking with the camera then...
Alchemist started fucking with beats then and...
-Can we say "fuck"? -[producer] Yeah.
You talk about that time, you can't not curse.
It's impossible, you know?
You gotta remember, in '93, Soul Assassins,
Cypress Hill, House of Pain, they were the top of rap.
You know, you had Dre and Snoop otherwise,
but other than that, this was the biggest shit going on.
That was Soul Assassins. We were the top.
[hip-hop music playing]
[Pat] I met Estevan Oriol 25 plus years ago.
It was surreal for a 16-year-old to go to a concert
with The Whooliganz opening up for House of Pain and Cypress Hill
at the height of their career.
We were backstage, and they almost shut the whole concert down
because some guy named Estevan punched out the bootleggers.
They would get your artwork from the newspaper and make a shirt.
Like an hour before the show, a couple-- All the homeboys
would like, put their hoods on and, like, go walk through the parking lot
and you'd just be sittin' by the, you know, by the trailers,
-and you just hear, "Wham!" -Damn!
And dudes would just get knocked out cold, like...
I won't name any names.
-[producer] Name names. -Muggs, Estevan.
Motherfucker said something...
So I punch him in the face.
Poor guy.
[Pat] So, that's when I met Estevan Oriol.
Him beating up a bootlegger in San Francisco
at a Soul Assassins' concert.
When I met Steve-O, he was tour manager,
the all-time funny guy...
slash photographer, slash DJ.
From their platinum album Temples of Boom, you guys, here is Cypress Hill!
♪ All this confusion's stressing me Out in my mind ♪
There were times I think where he even may have filled in
as a member of Cypress Hill in interviews.
You can't blame all of us for these few groups.
[Jim] Clearly, the controversy is going to continue.
-Thanks a lot for joining us. -Thanks for having us.
This is Cypress Hill. And now, back to New York.
[people shouting]
[Chuck D] Then fight!
[police car siren wailing]
I think it all changed, though, when I did my first album cover.
["Fight the Power" by Public Enemy playing]
[Cartoon] There were the 1992 riots.
It's not a message of protest.
It's the brutality of a mob.
[shouting]
[Cartoon] The verdict was read, and the streets went crazy.
[hip-hop music playing]
Shit just happened.
Blacks and Mexicans started looking at each other, communicating
like family.
Boy, they didn't like that. They didn't like that.
I remember that day, driving on the 110 freeway,
going to Hollywood and seeing the sides of the 110
with fire on each side of it.
What it did was, it spawned a relationship
from '92 to now that they can never break.
[Cartoon] But as crazy as that shit was,
that everything was on fire
and the injustice against Rodney King,
and "fuck the police," and this and that,
I was driving, and the Kid Frost album cover I had drawn
was blown up on a billboard
for Virgin Records.
Now I'm in the music game, and I don't even play the guitar.
[car horn honking]
Behind me is where me and Cartoon first met.
On that particular night, they rented out the top floor
for The Penthouse Players record release party.
Me and my friend Donnie Charles, we went there together.
Right when we walked in,
he saw Cartoon, and he goes, "Hey..."
"Come over here, uh, I want you to meet my other homie.
He's Mexican too."
"Both of you guys are in the music game.
He did The Penthouse Players' album cover.
You guys just kick it right here, and I'm gonna go roll around."
"E" impacted my life because I found someone
that was on the same mission I was,
artistically, friendship-wise.
[Yolanda] I remember him telling me, "Mommy," says,
"I met a guy that thinks along the same lines I do."
Probably my first seeing Cartoon was, like, early '94.
[B-Real] If I remember correctly,
it was at Muggs' crib up in the Hollywood Hills.
-They were in a '64 Impala. -[David] It is a buddy comedy.
[Muggs] Abbott and Costello. These two motherfuckers was non-stop.
They knew how to hustle.
[Cartoon] At the beginning, it was rough for us.
And the more we hung out, the more we just started building on ideas
of things that we could do to make money that weren't illegal.
[man] The check dance. Let's see the-- Let's see the--
The stripper check.
Back in those days, you know, there was no Estevan without Cartoon.
[Muggs] Cartoon's role in Soul Assassins, he's like the... the visuals.
We saw the talent in him. We believed in him.
[Estevan] Get in there. Get in there, fucker.
[Cartoon] For real?
[Cartoon exhales]
Turn the camera off!
[ferry boat horns honking]
-[Estevan] Where we at? -We're in a ferry right now.
Fucking eight in the morning and shit.
[Cartoon] I'm so tired.
All that tour life, man, I think that's what kind of molded us
to be able to have different relationships, you know?
Just living that life, man.
-[woman] You're high, man. -[Estevan] Wow!
What do you think about that? It looks crazy.
[Estevan] I'll take a little piece and taste it.
When Cartoon first started coming around, he started doing all of our shit.
He was mad talented.
[Cartoon] I would do the stage design.
[man over speakers] Check, check.
[Cartoon] Artwork that I had drawn
would get blown up into this big giant blow-up doll
of a king sitting on a throne,
the most gangster shit I could think of.
I hadn't even started tattooing. I didn't even have a tattoo yet.
It wasn't until later I started
hangin' around professional tattoo shops that...
[sniffs] ...the smell of the green soap,
the energy of the shop kind of drew me in.
My life would go another direction.
[rhythmic music playing]
[man] This is NFC, stands for "No Fat Chicks."
A long, long time ago, I made a tattoo machine...
for my partner Cartoon.
And this is what he started tattooing me with.
[Cartoon] Even though I was good at drawing on paper,
and I could do graffiti, airbrush, skin was a completely different world.
[Muggs] His transition from drawing to the tattoo game
had everybody shook.
[Alchemist] I don't remember exactly how he transitioned,
but I remember, like, his first tattoos. It was, like, "Oh, it's over."
[Estevan] Cartoon came in and changed the game.
[Alchemist] From spraying on a metal to "Give me this fucking gun,"
he just, like, took to skin
like it was just second nature.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
In the early days, he'd bring me all my customers.
I'd just see all these people and all these bands,
and I'd see their tattoos and I was like,
"Fuck, man, that tattoo looks like shit."
[Cartoon] Just see them at a concert and be like,
"Oh, you like tattoos? That's a nice tattoo.
You ever got tattooed by Cartoon? He did this on me."
And I showed them mine, and they were fresh.
Most of the guys were like,
"Oh, that's badass, you know. Who did that?"
"My boy Cartoon. He brought his shit. You can get tattooed with him."
That's how I got all my clients, you know?
My big ones.
[hip-hop music playing]
There is so much going on with those guys.
[hip-hop music playing]
[Paul] They're super ambitious, super creative.
You just want this same style, but just a little more symmetrical.
[man] Like this.
[Paul] Super fun to be around.
Super assholes at times.
Hey, Paul, we're ready to get Jewish, get right.
I know Toons went on the Anger Management Tour
over to Europe.
Everybody hung out.
Anger Management Tour.
-This was the tour. -Damn.
[Bobo] We're doing these European festivals
and you get access to all these bands.
I mean, all-access pass.
Whookid is accused of trying to bribe a prostitute
with a mixtape and two tickets.
[all laugh and yell]
[Xzibit] Order in court! Order in court!
Did you or did you not pay for pussy?
I paid for entertainment.
[all laugh]
[hip-hop music playing]
He's a pro at that, man.
It was crazy, he was tattooing on tour over there in Europe.
Amsterdam.
I came over here to Europe to come with Cypress Hill.
Actually, it's a Cartoon tour featuring 50 Cent.
He makes me want a tattoo and shit.
-[Cartoon] Eminem. -Cartoon, homie. Y'all can't afford it.
-[Cartoon] Xzibit. -Fucking ecstasy, man!
[Cartoon] Cypress Hill.
It ain't easy, but somebody gotta do it. Why the hell not you, right?
Basically, my tattoo customers are getting together
and throwing some type of little concert.
That was pretty cool 'cause he was doing it sometimes
right backstage.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
-You're coming with us tomorrow, right? -We're coming at 3:00 p.m. 2:00 p--
No, 1:00 p.m.
I was Proof before it, but this really--
Wow! I'm Proof now, for real, for real, you know what I'm saying?
[Cartoon] Motherfuckers are bored,
so when you have a tattoo machine going in the back...
What do you got on that shoulder?
...and you're in Germany somewhere, you're gonna be there all day.
He's got another victim.
He shoulda did a class photo with all his ink victims on this tour.
[Eric] He did Bizarre from D12. He did his belly, man.
I remember, I was there just watching him do this.
He had a lot of real estate.
[chuckling]
He had lot of real estate right there. It was crazy.
[Bizarre] If you're a rapper
and you ain't got a tattoo by Cartoon, then you ain't living.
[chuckling]
[hip-hop music playing]
[Cartoon] I was just that guy in the industry
and people were coming to see me because of my work.
I surrounded myself by talent.
[hip-hop music playing]
[tattoo machine buzzing]
[hip-hop music playing]
[Cartoon] 25 years old, this is holding its weight.
DL, all day strong. Know what I'm talkin' bout?
Hola.
[Estevan] Is there anywhere to go get something to eat?
Terminal two.
-[Estevan] Huh? -Terminal two.
-[Estevan] How do you get there? -You go--
Where did she say to turn?
[Estevan] The green ramp.
New York City. No one's here.
-[Estevan] You need that? -No.
-[Estevan] Let's go. -[baggage claim siren]
[hip-hop music playing]
[Eric] Before you know it, everybody was calling Cartoon.
He was top name, flying him in.
Well, at that point in time, everybody started getting tatted up.
Hey, let's order a pizza pie.
Gang Starr, you know what I'm saying?
That means that's me and my motherfucking man Preemo, okay?
-DJ Premier. -Yeah.
[Premier] Only real shit gets done on me anyway, so the realest shit,
Mister Cartoon.
This hot, though, this hot.
He's created a masterpiece.
[door creaking]
[scoffs] Busted.
[laughs]
I'm gonna leave my whole little cigarette binge right here in New York,
where I found it.
[Estevan] I thought you found it in Tokyo.
Yeah, but...
I can't leave it there cause I'm over here.
[hip-hop music playing]
That nigga Cartoon be doin'.
You see, this is how we do it.
And-- And what you have with Estevan...
If I tell you to shut the fuck up, will you shut the fuck up?
Insane drug addict, alcoholic.
He was partying his ass off.
[Cartoon] I might've experimented with every kind of drug you could try.
PCP, blow, mushrooms,
acid, ecstasy,
MDMA.
I'd wake up with the craziest cramps in my legs.
And... it was just too much.
We looked at each other and we were like,
"We need to go to the next level, man."
And to go to the next level, "E" had to leave...
the substances behind.
[David] And he got sober
and sponsored countless amount of people for years.
Once he got sober, I just seen domination kick in.
And they grew that empire,
Soul Assassins Studios.
Before you know it... [imitates explosion]
[crowd cheering]
I mean, should I tell you-- I can tell you the whole story now.
["Children's Story" by Slick Rick playing]
♪ Now here's a little something That needs to be heard ♪
[Snoop] My first time going to S.A. Studios,
lowriders,
rims,
the art on the wall.
I was like a kid in a candy store.
It was like a Chicano...
like a camp, like a club.
These dudes are like cholo Da Vincis.
I never would've found them if I hadn't become successful.
[Eminem] Yeah. Yeah. Check, check.
Yo. I remember walking in, though, and being like,
"Damn, you guys made it."
[chuckling] 'Cause it was, like, fucking incredible.
[Travis] You're in downtown,
and you're in the thick of it, Skid Row is right there,
and that spot was super jammin'. I loved that.
[Eminem] It seemed like it should be like a tour museum.
Like, people need to see that shit.
[Estevan] When we first moved down here, this was an extension of Skid Row.
This is where the homeless used to live. The people on drugs or mentally ill.
That's what this area was like before.
Can you see it? All right. The Art Department were those two windows.
And we had like a little showroom here.
We had all of our cars laid out behind these windows.
Inside that double doors right there
was Cartoon's Skid Row Tattoo.
S.A. Studios. That was a great time.
It was like a hideout.
You guys gave us the tour. Like, showed us a bunch of shit.
[Alchemist] It was kind of like a wild playground.
[Estevan] Come on! Let's go! Busted! Yeah!
Shalom.
Yeah, I got a good tattoo for you guys right here.
-Oh! -[man laughs]
The Jew unit in effect, you know what I'm saying?
["Bust a Move" by Young MC's playing]
[David] We have these two guys with shaved heads covered in tattoos,
and then you go to their office, and they have their own Nikes,
they have their own Vans.
And Estevan's sittin' there, and his room's a mess,
and he has like a little gun on the table.
[Travis] Motorcycles. It was the illest, illest studio ever.
It was nothing like I'd ever seen before.
I'm green with envy.
When I walked out and I saw Too $hort, and then I saw Darlene,
Ice-T's old wife, right?
Well, I saw 50 there.
I saw Dre, Snoop.
You know, every day was somebody else coming through.
I saw her walking in, and I'm like,
"Oh, this must be the spot." You know what I'm saying? Like...
[Sen] I saw Eminem over there.
He tatted me there.
I think one day I saw Kim Kardashian there.
Went and done a photo shoot with her or whatever.
You guys still got that place?
The building itself seemed slightly dangerous.
Oh, there comes shitbox.
[Brian] I'm sure it's really dangerous, but since you planted
your spot there it became--
[chuckling] It was like a safe house or something.
[Sen] The homeless people around it, they took care of it.
You know, that's why no one ever really messed with that building.
[Estevan] Pull your ass over. Face the wall.
And I wanna see your ID and your bike.
There's my ID,
there's my nutsack,
and fuck you, my ass.
[Cartoon] It seems like we were able to exist in multiple worlds.
You know what I'm saying?
For lunch, we'd be in downtown
and bullshitting with some crazy homeless guy in his tent.
Estevan would jump out and take a picture of him.
And then we'd jump on the 10 freeway and be at a five-star hotel.
It was just normal, you know what I'm saying?
[Pepper] I'm Pepper, you know?
I'm Skid Row's most highest-ranked right now.
I'm the mayor of Skid Row.
The homeless pretty much answer to me.
Factory place was dead.
When Joker, Cartoon, everyone come here.
They brought the factory to life, okay?
And then I came into the scene.
-[Estevan] How old you turn? -Forty-one.
Okay, I'm 50.
Soon to be 51 in a couple of months.
I'm an ex-convict, ex-drug dealer, ex-drug user.
I gutted his ass.
We got in an argument, so I gutted him.
This family never gave up on me.
They never gave up on me when I was all filthy, drugged out and shit.
When I was thrown in and out of County Jail,
they accepted me with open arms when I come out.
[Cartoon] I've been dealing with homeless people
all my life, you know.
They don't wanna follow rules.
I work when I wanna work.
Sleep when I wanna sleep.
Sleep where I wanna sleep.
[Cartoon] They have a problem with authority.
And whoever don't like it, fuck them in their ass and suck my dick.
For the fourth time today. This is harassment.
Fourth time being stopped for no reason.
[Pepper continues yelling]
-[Estevan] See you tomorrow, Pepper! -[Pepper] All right.
[Cartoon] We could fall off and lose all our shit.
Pepper's world.
[Cartoon] So, any of us could be walking the streets, you know?
Drugs will take you down there.
But that's the way life goes. Life is about change.
And change is what it's about.
[Lepke] Look, if y'all gonna keep telling me
which way to move, we can't do no interview. Damn!
Look, are you good, cameraman? All right.
Listen, I'm Big Lepke, Westside Rebels, gangster locos.
Yeah, I'm an ex-gang member.
We up on Skid Row. We keep it real.
Today we ain't trippin'. Ain't no heroin in the veins.
Ain't no rock in the mouth.
Skid Row was my home.
Some people call it "hell." I call it "home."
The city I roam.
[Estevan] So, right here Lepke would get the boxes
from when we'd throw them out,
and he'd make like a little bed right here.
I remember one time we were coming to have a meeting here
and Lepke, he'd been shooting heroin.
We were like, "Great, fucking Lepke's passed out.
The clients are coming, and we're gonna have this big meeting,
and there's our, you know, dopefiend friend
passed out from shooting too much heroin.
You know, he didn't OD, so we didn't have to stick an ice cube up his ass.
But he was knocked out, so we had to spray him with some water...
so he could come to.
[Cartoon] Hey.
[laughing] Come back.
Get him later.
I'm over here, kickin' it.
-[Cartoon] Don't threaten me, man. -Hey, motherfucker.
No, no, we told him, "You gotta go. We're gonna have a meeting."
Oh, suck a dick.
Yeah, he squirted some water in my nose, and it was a cool wake-up call.
I always think about stuff like that.
You're gonna get kicked.
So, downtown has always been a Soul Assassins' headquarters.
It was kind of like a home base. Kind of reminds me of Grand Theft Auto.
Estevan was upstairs,
Cartoon was tattooing.
There was eyes on it. It was protected, man, yeah.
There's like a shield around it or something.
But you take pictures, you do cars, all that stuff in that space.
You tattoo there.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
There's only one guy that I let do my tattoos,
and my kids' tattoos.
The great Cartoon.
[slow music playing]
[Danny, in Spanish] How does the car look?
-[man, in Spanish] Great. -[Danny laughing]
[in English] Tattoos used to be a stigma.
I mean, a bad one.
When I got out of the pen,
the first girl I saw with a tattoo, I-- I thought she was a hooker.
Before him, tattooing hip-hop guys,
I don't think there was a prominent position in hip-hop
where guys were getting tatted like that.
Nobody was-- Like, in hip-hop, was about that.
I mean--
Fuck, I mean, I feel like Cartoon gave Eminem one of his first tattoos,
Didn't he? He gave Snoop one of his first tattoos.
[Snoop] Look at this, man. I really look like my old boy Nate Dogg.
It looks like my lovely wife.
He captured that, man.
I mean, I don't even have a Cartoon tattoo, believe it or not.
That's, you know what I mean, I'd love one.
But, you know, I'm not paying 50 Gs. [chuckling] I'm just not doing it.
This guy is the best in the world, but he costs an arm and a leg.
He'll tattoo your arm and he'll take it with you.
Hey, man, it's worth it.
-[Cartoon] Talk about your new tattoo. -Cartoon is the greatest tattoo artist
to ever live.
[Cartoon] This should be enough for this, because, my man--
He's the greatest, the quickest, uh...
-[Cartoon] With the biggest truck. -With the biggest truck.
It's getting expensive, man.
With the biggest truck...
in the world, probably.
I mean, his clientele, you know, it's like, you know, Travis,
and Eminem, Redman,
Method Man, you know,
Justin Timberlake,
Beyoncé from Destiny's Child...
Don't show me.
[Beyoncé laughs]
[Skinhead Rob] It's appointment only
and not every deek off the street can just come in and get something.
I knew If I was gonna get my fucking head done,
for what I wanted and stuff, and the style,
I knew it was gonna be Cartoon, you know.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
[upbeat music playing]
That was an experience.
[Ryan] I would hear his name in songs. The Game,
there's a couple of rap songs where he drops Cartoon's name.
♪ I'm to hip-hop What Cartoon is to Mexicans ♪
[Paul R., Jr] You know, I'm a hip-hop fan, and, so, I would see Cartoon
pop up in music videos.
["Ups & Downs" by Snoop Dogg playing]
♪ From the reign of the tec I break 'em off ♪
♪ I even got a tattoo With your name across the chest ♪
[Ryan] In the waiting room,
I remember looking at the pictures on the wall,
pictures Estevan probably took.
Cartoon was tatting up all those, 50 Cent, Eminem and Dr. Dre.
If Xzibit was getting tattooed,
Estevan was photographing him, and you'd see that photo everywhere.
[Ryan] I knew pretty early on that he had done the Xs on Xzibit,
that he did 50 Cent's back,
You know, 50 got that shit on his back, man.
That shit is crazy.
♪ One, two, three, let's go! ♪
["Disco Inferno" by 50 Cent playing] ♪ Lil' mama, show me how you move it ♪
♪ Go ahead, put your back into it ♪
[Cartoon] More people were coming down, more people were willing to come downtown.
I mean, back then, people used to complain about having to drive to downtown.
"Oh, all the way downtown?"
They wouldn't go east of La Brea.
50 Cent, my boy Cartoon.
We out here in LA, boy.
[Estevan] Cartoon was tattooing 50 Cent in there,
and he said he had to go have a meeting.
He was going to sign with Jimmy Iovine at Interscope.
[50 Cent] Huh? Huh?
[Estevan] So he had to leave for an hour or two.
So me and Cartoon left in his brand-new white Escalade
on, like, 22-inch rims.
[police car siren wailing]
[Estevan] About six police officers followed us down that street.
They pulled us both out of the car.
They threw me on the ground, put the handcuffs behind my back,
put his shotgun in the back of my head right here,
and he was shaking.
What happened was...
Some motorcycle cop was put in the hospital
by a young gentleman with a shaved head looking a lot like me,
driving a truck like this.
[Estevan] We have customers here from out of town.
And they go, "Hey, you guys gotta go," then 50 Cent said...
I ain't did it. Cartoon ain't did it. Leave us the fuck alone.
[man] If you go on a talk show, you have a big story to tell.
I get my tattoo done...
-[man] That tattoo artist got- -Yeah, on my back. And they're harassing.
We ain't going nowhere.
He's a friend of mine from Virginia,
but he's going to see this shit and that's gonna be it.
♪ To flip dough To get more for sho' ♪
♪ Get my drink on Then get on the dance floor ♪
Did you ever get anybody, like, right at this point, "Wait, I wanna change it"?
All you need now is, uh, Mister Cartoon's signature.
[laughs]
[Nas] What's up, y'all? It's Nas.
Chillin' up here with my man Cartoon.
[Method] Hey, yo, this is Meth right here.
I just got a tattoo done by the world-famous Cartoon.
-Cartoon. -Cartoon, baby.
-What? -[tattoo machine buzzing]
[crowd cheering]
[Travis] Cartoon is...
just an OG.
He's one of the illest.
Cartoon really made black and gray popular again.
I'd sit down with Cartoon, and we really wouldn't even have a plan.
I would trust him to just go freehand.
[soft music playing]
I had an appointment with Cartoon. We all came to my spot in Corona.
We had just met, but it felt, like, you know,
we had all been homies for a long time.
[Cartoon] We got the kids with us,
we're taking the whole families, Fourth of July.
[Travis] The first tattoo Cartoon did on me was
praying hands on the side of my head.
It said, "Barker," like my family name.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
It was like therapy or something, you know.
Just sitting with Toons, you don't even realize you're getting tattooed.
I think the next tattoos he did
was he started filling in my ghetto blaster.
He also did this Marilyn piece
right on my Adam's apple, that one's a hard one.
Look at that shit.
My son was born, and we were recording the new record,
and I'd decided that I wanted to get
my wife and son's name tattooed, and Travis said...
"Then you gotta go to Cartoon, he's the best."
And we were literally set up on a road case in the living room
with all my bass equipment in it.
And I was nervous about getting my first tattoos.
I remember just as he was about to start, he said,
"Hey, man, I wanna give you props."
[Cartoon] Being the first-class guy you are, you picked
one of the more painful spots to get tattooed.
[both chuckle]
[chuckles] And he started tattooing "Jack."
And about halfway through "Jack,"
I didn't know that the wife was gonna happen at all.
These are still the only tattoos that I have.
I don't know, being tattooed by Cartoon
kind of feels like you're in an exclusive club?
Anybody who has Cartoon tats,
of any significance, he's like... your brothers.
Now I'm brothers with 50 Cent,
Eminem, Beyoncé, and everybody else.
[Roger] Cartoon is instrumental in bringing his tattoo style
into the mainstream for a really simple reason.
He's tattooing celebrities,
he's tattooing athletes.
Those people are photographed.
You see those tattoos. Those people are everywhere.
[Dallas] I was lucky enough to go to my first World Series and win it.
I wanted that to stay with me for the rest of my life.
So I wanted Toons.
Being a tattoo artist, our heroes were working out their kitchen
or their garage at their mom's house.
They hadn't been to really a red-carpet level at that point.
There was some tattooers that was higher than others
that we looked up to...
but it wasn't set up that that was the jewelry of an NBA player.
-[commentator 1] Kobe! -[commentator 2] Attacking. All the way!
[commentator 1] Kobe did it!
Tattoos are a big thing in NBA.
I mean, not just in NBA, but just in sports culture in general.
You know, I always said--
'Cause I had guys on the team that had tattoos,
but they didn't go to Mister Cartoon, and it becomes pretty apparent
because I can't read what the fuck's on their arm anyway.
[Cartoon] A lot of it is not how good of a tattooer you are.
It's your timing
and who you surround yourself by.
You could be the dopest motherfucker in the world,
but if no one sees your shit 'cause you're in some small town somewhere,
that's not Hollywood.
[soft music playing]
[Cartoon] We're right here in the mix of the shit.
[soft music playing]
I was in China. We were staying at a hotel.
I went down to the weight room.
There was a young woman working behind the desk, right?
They have a policy.
If you have tattoos on your arms, you have to wear long sleeves.
I'm like, "What?"
She says, "I'm sorry, you have to put on long sleeves."
And she goes,
"But that's Mister Cartoon, right? He did the artwork."
I'm like, "Dude, how did you know that's Mister Cartoon
but you know, I can't--?" You know.
But she knew that was Mister Cartoon's artwork.
This is a young woman in Beijing. It's so far removed from LA.
That's big.
Waiting on Paul Rosenberg...
manager of the stars,
Eminem.
[clicks tongue]
Paul, being the person he is,
recognized Estevan and his photography skills,
and Cartoon with his art skills and packaging.
I certainly figured out
ways to maximize having access to them.
You know, everything, from working with Eminem...
You see Big Lepke?
...and designing the Shady Records' logo.
[Cartoon] When I was doing the portrait of Eminem's daughter,
I knew it was big, but I didn't know how.
You know what I'm saying?
You know, I wasn't looking at the major impact
that it would have later.
I was just doing what was in front of me.
♪ Or even worse, they can teach hate ♪
♪ It's like these kids ♪
Eminem video shoot.
Waiting on doing some tattoos on the homie.
[Eminem] They came to Detroit, and he said, "We should do a mushroom."
He said-- He was like, "I can do a big-ass mushroom."
[imitates tattoo machine]
He did all-- my whole sleeves.
I don't know, I got them removed since then. I'm kidding.
I wanna get something like this over here,
but just-- I wanna make sure that it's the right shit
'cause tattoos are for life.
[Cartoon] You know, We could bust something out like your--
Your daughter's portrait.
Right here, I would probably put something around this
to beefen it up a little bit.
Right.
[Cartoon] And maybe put another ribbon and kind of tie it into the other side.
It's so crazy.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
One of the things was Hailie. I wanted to put her on my arm.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
[Cartoon] You should just outline...
[Estevan] My favorite rappers were getting tattooed.
Like, that shit trips you out.
Let me put some bullet holes.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
[Estevan] I remember being in the bathroom
and I was tripping out that I was the only person there
documenting Cartoon tattooing
the biggest artist in the world at that time.
["I'm Back" by Eminem playing]
[yells]
-♪ That's why ♪ -[audience] ♪ They call me Slim Shady ♪
[continues singing]
[Estevan] I remember, man, I'm getting those shots
of the greatest of all times in our lifetime,
like the number one celebrity, artist,
anything in the world.
And I was there documenting it,
I wished, I remember, like,
kind of like smiling in the mirror, like I was happy.
I got a question I wanna ask you.
How many people are sick...
of motherfuckers talking shit about me?
[crowd cheering]
[Estevan] And it was a cool feeling, you know?
It made me, like, think of all the times when there was, like,
a picture of Elvis Presley getting his hair cut
and it's just him and the barber.
Damn, that photographer had some crazy-ass access, you know?
Oh, yeah, get one of those too.
You have to put that shit on your back.
[tattoo machine buzzing]
Cartoon. Big Cartoon.
Call him Big Cartoon now.
Guy's good, man.
He's pretty decent.
[Cartoon] Estevan's eye for seeing what angle to shoot something...
how to bring someone's best look out of them.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Cartoon] A lot of other photographers, that's what they don't understand.
They don't know how to make someone look good.
[presenter] George Lopez!
[people cheering]
[George] When I got my star in the Walk of Fame, Estevan came over
and took this fucking amazing picture of me
surrounded by the fans,
and thousands of people, maybe a couple thousand people.
And to get that,
of me and my suit, of me with the flag,
of me surrounded by, you know,
other Latinos right there on Hollywood Boulevard was-- It was great.
[soft music playing]
[Cartoon] Same thing, that's why he gets a lot of jobs in hip-hop.
'Cause he knows hip-hop.
Grew up in that shit.
So it's better for someone from the inside
to shoot the outside, you know?
On my Ego Trippin' cover, me and Estevan,
we went back to my old high school, Poly High School,
got an old B210 like I used to have in high school,
had on my Letterman jacket,
and it just felt like I was in high school.
That shit was hard.
But only he could capture what I wanted.
This is an era when Dogg didn't have money.
He understood that.
Shoot Snoop Doggy Dogg. Snoop Doggy fizzle fizzle.
[upbeat music playing]
[camera shutter clicks]
If Estevan did your album cover, Cartoon was doing the artwork.
[Cartoon] Some people try to do everything by themselves.
We just did different ends of the table.
He covered photography
while I would do the logo, I would draw the concept.
[upbeat music playing]
I've seen this, when they're snapping 400 pictures to get some shit,
and I've seen this guy walk out...
Bam.
Stand against that wall. Click.
And then you see it, it could be an album cover
or, like, the cover of a magazine.
[upbeat music playing]
You feel like you're being directed, like you're in the hands of the director.
I love it when a director knows exactly what he wants
and he says, "Look, this is what I want."
Okay, cool. You got hired to direct me, I got hired to act.
I was around lowriders and gangsters, and I was around hip-hop.
With both of those comes girls.
[girls screaming]
[Estevan] LA culture.
Like, I get Estevan's book. Wow.
[camera shutter clicks]
[sexy music playing]
I always thought my dad's work was very inspiring.
For girls, like, he just captures beauty, like, so perfectly.
[sexy music playing]
[Cartoon] A lot of the art too comes from jail,
where guys are sitting in a cell
and fantasizing about their girl.
I always looked at it
as really uplifting women.
They may not have any clothes on, or they'd be topless.
I think as an artist, I always looked at the beauty of it,
but knowing who to shoot,
where to shoot, when to shoot,
you look at that, you're like, "That shit's real."
[over phone] If I wasn't shooting LA culture,
I was going on tour with bands like Blink-182,
only I wasn't a road manager anymore.
[Travis] Right about the time we went on that tour to Iraq and Europe,
touring was, like, more fun when you brought friends.
Having Estevan out there was so fun.
It is freezing like a motherfucker in Paris.
[Mark] The tour that Estevan came with us in Europe
was a very difficult time
in Blink's history.
We were arguing...
the entire tour.
Leave me fucking be! I'm fucking tired!
[rock music playing]
[crowd cheering]
-[Travis] How was that? -[Estevan] It was the shit.
-That was fun, right? -[Estevan] Hell, yeah.
[laughter]
[Mark] The last show that we played before the band broke up the first time,
we finished the last note, and I thought to myself,
"This is probably gonna be the last show. This feels like the end of something."
And Estevan came on stage and said,
"Hey, I wanna get a shot of the three of you guys."
And it's actually on our Greatest Hits album
that came out after that.
It goes back to Estevan's ethos
of putting himself in these situations
where he is able to document things that are happening with other people.
[helicopters whirring]
[shouting]
The United States and our allies have prevailed.
[cheering]
[Mark] Estevan came with us when we went overseas
to the Middle East to meet and perform for the troops.
[Travis] When we got to Iraq, everyone was kind of shook about going there
'cause the war had just started.
I don't have any idea what to expect.
I'm just going in, having this adventure.
It's really cool.
It was scary,
it was hot, it was dusty.
It was like five or six days
of being transported to an entirely different world.
It's like a movie.
[Mark] We were on a nuclear submarine
literally crawling in the torpedo tubes.
[Travis] So that whole trip was fireworks. It was scary as fuck.
It was definitely an eye-opening experience.
Travis, what's your job, Travis?
-I play the drums. -Drummer, all right. How are you?
Don't hit the torpedo buttons.
[Mark] You fire torpedoes? You shot one?
-I shot one. -[Mark] Cool.
We were in a marine forward base on the border of Iraq.
[man] We got Blink-182 in the house!
[applause]
-[man] Don't turn the key on. -[Travis] I won't.
I guess things were getting heated,
so we took a COD plane
that boomeranged us
off of the aircraft carrier.
[Mark] But it was insane. I was really glad that he was there
to get those photos.
[upbeat music playing]
As a lot of photographers were breaking into digital photography,
Estevan stuck to film
and the development process.
Because it's grainy and it looks like film,
it's a document of one specific moment.
Before you know it, you know, Estevan was doing more directing.
Started to do mad videos for everybody.
♪ Hold you down ♪
[white noise]
[Eminem] Estevan did the first D12 video we ever shot.
It was supposed to be a gritty, grimy-looking video,
and Estevan captured that perfectly.
["Shit On You" by D12 playing]
I know we shot the outside of the house, the Dresden house,
but I'm pretty sure we shot the inside of it too.
I'm like, "Yeah, that's the bathroom."
It wasn't really a lot of fun dressing up...
like Richard Simmons.
But, hey, man, at that point in time,
I was doing whatever it took.
He directed a couple of Cypress videos.
♪ Hello, my name is Dr. Greenthumb ♪
♪ I'd like to tell you... ♪
[Sen] You know, we had the same ideas, we grew up in the same part of the planet,
so it wasn't hard for him to know what we were gonna like
and what we wanted to see in our videos.
♪ Hello, my name is Dr. Greenthumb ♪
And then, when we went down to Mexico City, in DF,
we had thousands and thousands of kids following us
on the street that day,
and in the midst of it all,
Estevan was on point the whole time with the camera, you know.
[in Spanish] ♪ Here is something you can't understand ♪
[Roger] He understood what made a good story
and he understood what was authentic.
I like that.
I'll tell you when, just keep the light on him
so when I sweep back around--
[Mark] With this video, it was an idea
that was thought out by the director, Estevan Oriol.
He directed this video that really shook everything up.
It was really like, "What in the world?"
Like it's the real deal.
[Mark] Having him come in and direct a video for us
just, I don't know, brought a really element of cool
that I think was really ahead of its time.
That shit was, like, really amazing. Just the way he-- His style.
[Travis] The "Down" video was fun. It was the first time I ever met Trigz.
It was I think the first time we ever brought Mark and Tom to the hood.
[chuckling] I think they were tripping a little bit.
[Terry] He put me in the Blink-182 video.
As a cop.
What I loved was the authenticity.
Here was an example of the culture
needing another voice.
Here I was this cop after this guy,
he's on the run, and there was a helicopter.
You know, shot in the LA Basin and...
There were people in the video
that looked like for real LA.
[Travis] But that was fun, man, that video came out so cool and it had...
just a different energy than anything we ever did and...
Estevan just really killed the visual.
[helicopter whirring]
[Estevan] You ready? Let's set up the shot.
[producer] Are you gonna sit on the chair?
-[Estevan] Can I direct? -[producer] Yes, sir.
Don't follow me. You're gonna be on the shot.
-[producer] Tell me what you're gonna do. -I'm gonna make a documentary
and talk about the Sixth Street Bridge.
-Ready? -[producer] Yes.
Okay, so, we're sitting right here
at what was formerly known as the Sixth Street Bridge.
So you see these pieces right here?
There was two arches. They were part of the bridge.
That's them now.
I have 20 years of photos
of this street
and where this bridge was, and that bridge.
And they're gonna redo it.
They're gonna have a poodle park here,
a cappuccino bar, a juice bar.
This whole area is changing.
[clicking]
[Estevan] This was the access way to the LA River.
And this was like our playground, our stomping ground.
I had a lot of good photo shoots here, a lot of good times.
Get it out of the street.
[Estevan] I was shooting a lot of women, gangsters, and lowriders,
'cause, you know, that's what I was around.
["Gin And Juice" by Snoop Dogg playing]
♪ Aye, baby, aye, baby ♪
♪ Aye, baby, get some bubblegum In this motherfucker or somethin'... ♪
[Estevan] I don't know what it is about California, man.
Don't let the palm trees and the white picket fences fool you.
There's wrought iron on the windows
and the murder rate is through the roof, you know.
[man] Perrito, don't worry about nothing. I got this.
[man 2] Are we keeping score?
[indistinct chatter]
Hey, man.
Pass already, dog. [chuckles]
[Estevan] I was shooting this girl that was a gang member.
She just threw up LA.
[Baldacci] LA, baby.
And I went in and just took two frames of the LA.
♪ I got bitches in the living room Gettin' it on... ♪
He caught it first. A lot of the photographers
didn't know some of that type of finger lingo, if you will, you know,
when you throw up the West Coast
or you throw up LA, whatever clique you're from.
A lot of people didn't wanna use that photo.
They said it was too gang-related.
[Estevan] At that time,
if the wrong person saw you doing that,
you'd get beat up, or shot at or fucking stabbed.
Throwing up the L and the A like that,
that was something that we did back in the day.
[B-Real] And that was the first representation of it.
[Sen] Now it's a global thing where kids in other countries
send me pictures of them throwing up that sign.
That's pretty cool, man. You know what I mean?
His LA hands photo?
That's Estevan.
That shit's been copied so much.
So many times. Ripped off.
Many have tried to bite it.
[Pat] I see the LA hands, and I know it's a bootleg.
Starbucks is ripping him off. Gosh!
The H&M thing?
To steal from artists like that, their images.
They have it on T-shirts.
[chuckling] The LA symbol's notorious.
[Estevan] Everybody, you know, and their mom, was doing it.
-[Angel Baby] The Mayor's throwing it up. -Boom!
People gonna copy it, people gonna try it, but we all know where it came from.
I advise everybody to dig into the roots of anything they do
and see where it came from and pay homage to the person before them.
[B-Real] It was iconic. It's an iconic picture.
[sad music playing]
[Cartoon] One of the things that is there with Chicano art
is violence,
is poverty,
is addiction,
alcoholism.
[slow music playing]
[Lepke] When I met Estevan, I was struggling through a lot of relapses.
We were in a motel, and I called Estevan. I go, "Hey, I'm on a good one, man.
You wanna film some footage? So why don't you come on through,
because we got it going on real good right here."
I had every drug in my system, 'cause I don't discriminate.
I just went on a binge.
A simple binge. Everybody does it once in a while.
You know, some people binge on donuts. Some people binge on heroin.
This is some new shit I came across.
These are five-dollar bolsas.
I love it. There's no excuse.
I love to get high on this. I love the feeling I get from it.
If you don't cook it right, it fucks your stomach good.
[hip-hop music playing]
This is the picture they took of the heroin
that wasn't getting me high no more with the syringe, the crack pipe,
and I don't know why I had the nail clipper there.
God only knows, right?
[hip-hop music playing]
Estevan could take me into the lab
and pull out all these pictures and I'll go,
"What the fuck? Are you serious, bro?"
I looked like an Ethiopian research monkey.
I don't even know why I'm alive today.
For some good reason, the good Lord didn't drop me
and put me on my back.
Sometimes, I sell real shit. Sometimes--
And I was in a bad stage right here.
And those are balloons of heroin in my mouth.
I sell fake shit. All this is fake.
This is all fake.
Either way, this is getting sold, all right?
Because, see, you can't buy drugs on the street.
That's illegal. You can't sell them. It's illegal.
There's no drugs in here. So it's a bungle case.
So the proof is in the pudding, ladies and gentlemen.
[Scott] If you wanna know the real street culture
and that street life, open one of Estevan's books.
And this is where it leads to. Everything leads to this picture.
This is 2003,
July 9th or 8th, I believe.
I got shot in front of the Econo Lodge hotel.
From where you're at, from where the camera's at, they shot me six times.
[Lepke] I took five bullets there.
And they came and told me I didn't have insurance,
so five days after that, I walked out, caught walking pneumonia, almost died,
and then went back and had to stay another additional 30 days.
See? Karma hits, 'cause I was supposed to be doing Estevan a favor
and moving somebody.
See how that works?
[Cartoon] The '90s were very, very violent.
You saw the peak of gang violence.
You saw people that were there that seen enemies they didn't like,
they just took off on them right there.
You could hear the bullets going by. [imitates bullets]
They were trying to stop here, homie. They were coming too fast.
So they stopped right here. And they went just like, "Hey, homie."
[imitates gunshot]
Man! [imitates gunshot]
I hit the floor quick, eh.
[Estevan] Why were they shooting at you?
[man] See, this is a black neighborhood, right?
I guess they're going at it with a Hispanic gang over there.
You know what I mean? Look at me, dog.
-[man] Look right here, homie. -[man 2] Yeah.
♪ Word up, son, word ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ To all the killers And the hundred-dollar billers ♪
♪ Yo, I got the phone thing Know I'm sayin' ♪
♪ For real niggas Who ain't got no feelings, feelings... ♪
You like that.
♪ Just watch my back I got the front, yo ♪
♪ Check it out now ♪
Right there, West Los.
School of hard knocks.
Sometimes hard rocks.
Hard knocks and cooked rocks.
From stealin' and dealin' to rollin' and chillin'.
Smack. Oh, ready.
♪ Queensbridge murderers ♪
♪ The Mobb comes equipped for warfare Beware ♪
♪ Of my crime family who got... ♪
[man] My eagle right here, 'cause I'm Mexican-American.
I'm American-made, Mexican descent.
♪ Your brain with your nose bone ♪
♪ You all alone in these streets, cousin Every man... ♪
[Speedy] They call me Speedy, one of my fans gave me the name.
[Baldacci] In there, the tattoo shop is your cell.
Just a couple of cases of soups and coffee, man, from prison.
That's what they charge you in there to do this type of thing.
Nowadays I guess that's just a way to look cool, but...
All these tattoos right here?
They were basically earned,
they were basically put on me for a reason.
[Johnny] All my tattoos were done in prison, single needle.
Never got tattooed in a shop.
They were kind of like the old black and gray feel to the ink.
♪ Don't make me Have to call your name out... ♪
Some tattoos that some people have, they put them on
because maybe they were in a lifestyle where a life was lost.
Not to say that they took the life,
because we're not gonna say that 'cause we're on camera.
When I sleeve somebody, they can't go into regular society,
but little by little, those people will be business owners.
You know, over the next 10, 20 years, those people that are getting sleeves
will be business owners and shit will change up for them.
[Lepke] That's okay. It's a trend now. We got the soccer moms putting tattoos on.
They're doing shit that we were looked down on.
We were putting these tattoos 'cause we were outcasts,
because society rejected us.
Now they're putting them on because now society accepts it?
So now I might just start taking them all off.
[Cartoon] We're interested in the darkest shit in life.
Ghetto bird in the sky...
homeless shit and drug addicts.
Watching and observing those cultures, you know what I mean?
What happened to your hand? You got arthritis?
No, I-- My ex-boyfriend broke it.
[Estevan] Oh, okay.
Okay, look, if you go out this way, and go on the side,
go straight all the way down, there's a little alley right there.
[Estevan] I'll go check it out.
-Take it easy. -[producer] Bye, thank you.
[Estevan] When you're in the streets in LA, in the bad neighborhoods,
it's like your blood is flowing,
the adrenaline is there.
When you know that it's an active area and some shit might happen,
it's kind of like, okay, cool, you know, you gotta be on point, you know.
Open the eyes on the back of your head,
'cause if you're just walking around all "ladi da, da,"
you know, like an idiot, you could lose that way.
They're just looking for someone to fuck with, so...
Right here, you know what I'm saying?
Just gotta make sure you're strapped.
[Estevan] A lot of people we've known have died.
[shotgun]
[Estevan] Can't even think of how that would be
if Cartoon passed away.
[sad music playing]
We've had to make out wills before,
and it was, like, the will went to, like, each other.
We would look out for each other's family.
Let's see what we have here in this little box.
This is my friend Mono. He passed away.
He's the guy that introduced me and my wife to each other.
[D.P.] Oh, yeah?
[Estevan] And he introduced Cartoon to his wife.
Right here, this is one of my favorite pictures of all times.
His name was Chato.
Rest in peace. He died.
Trigz got shot.
He got murdered 'cause he got into a fight with somebody.
Rest in peace.
This was another guy that was shot. His name was Nene.
I think he got shot 33 times.
-[D.P.] What happened to him? -[Estevan] He died.
You know, I think they're living the life they wanted to
and they died doing what they loved doing.
Those guys were gangsters and they died doing some gangster shit.
[D.P.] So you think they kind of dig being a gangster.
They'd rather do that--
Yeah, they loved it, or else they wouldn't have been a gangster.
[in Spanish] ♪ I spend my time in the hood ♪
♪ That old Florencia district ♪
♪ I don't play games ♪
♪ And if you ask for it ♪
♪ I carry an AK-47 ♪
♪ I was shot five times ♪
♪ And almost lost my life ♪
♪ At the gates of hell ♪
♪ A smiling Devil awaits ♪
♪ These are facts of life ♪
♪ Consequences of this life ♪
♪ Because everything Must be paid for in this world ♪
♪ I spend my time smoking With my homies in the hood ♪
♪ I come from that gangster clique ♪
♪ Don't you dare betray us ♪
♪ I am a man of respect ♪
♪ And my word is worth a lot ♪
♪ Around Converse and Miramonte ♪
♪ I patrol through the night ♪
["Darling (Please Bring Your Love)" by Phil and Harv playing]
♪ Oh, darling ♪
♪ I'm so blue and lonely ♪
♪ Want your love here only ♪
♪ Please... ♪
[Cartoon] That violence, that poverty,
that madness,
spawned a beautiful art form
of music, and tattoos,
and wall murals,
pinstripe, and gold leaf.
Those guys sitting in cells that will never get out
helped shape an art form,
this rose out of a crack in the concrete.
Now you have a new wave of Chicano artists
that can focus on Chicano pride.
To be Chicano means identifying with your roots.
[David F., Jr] The number one thing is family.
It's all about family.
♪ I want to hold you ♪
♪ Squeeze you... ♪
[Michelle] You don't really hear about the heart of a Chicano,
but you can see it in a lowrider.
The way we build our cars,
they're old Benny's thrown away that we pick up and we shine.
[Michelle] It's almost like watching a Chicano's heart
being poured out onto paint
and coating a vehicle with love, you know?
[Javi] Those people that threw them away wish they had them back
after they see them all fixed up and clean and shined up.
You don't own a lowrider. You are a lowrider.
Promoting a great culture in America.
There are people that are incredibly wealthy
that actually know the culture
and are admirers of the culture.
[Bobo] The culture grew to places
like Japan, Europe,
South America.
They introduced the whole rest of the world basically
to the East LA esthetic.
["Boo Hoo Hoo" by The Sa Shays playing]
[Bobo] You go to Japan and you see some of the Japanese kids
dressing like cholos.
To the T.
You would think, they could put on glasses
and have the whole thing and they could look all "Chicanoed-out"
until they started to speak.
Sheeba city ghetto family.
[Wilmer] Asian culture has become obsessed
with East LA and lowriding.
There's a big lowrider scene that's gone around the world.
[people speaking Japanese]
[man] Because of what Cartoon and Estevan did with Chicano culture
and made it so pervasive and popular in Japanese subculture,
it made it even extra cool back here in the States.
And I think a lot of it comes from how pioneering these two gentlemen
have been to the culture.
[Cartoon] We listen to oldies, we listen to Motown-style, classic soul.
["One Like Mine" by The Salas Bros. playing]
Due to the weather on the West Coast, we wear T-shirts all year long.
We invented the white tee,
khakis and Dickies,
that whole look.
The West Coast grew up wearing Cortez shoes.
This is the staple for the West Coast.
In the '80s, though, it was like a gang-banging shoe.
Like, you wearing that shoe, people asked you, "Where are you from?"
I had meditated why it was relevant,
and why it had to be done.
My own Nike, period.
And once I got them in,
it was time to drop,
"I have to do a Cortez,"
paying homage to that era,
to the NWA era.
When that happened,
I was like, "Man, this is fucking amazing.
I'm gonna design the shoe I grew up wearing."
It'd be like McDonald's calling you, and be like,
"You're gonna do your own signature Big Mac.
Get ready."
Nike is doing a Mister Cartoon shoe?
They're giving you a shoe?
And letting you design it?
It's-- It's crazy.
There's not a lot of artists out here to have their own Nike shoe.
[Cartoon] I walk into a business meeting with confidence.
I walk in like, "I'm-- The boss is here."
And you convince the client
that you know what's poppin'.
This is inspiring to me.
I can apply that same philosophy to what I'm doing.
My homie did it, I can do it.
Oh, wow.
Whoa, Mister Cartoon is completely crossing over to a different level,
you know?
[Cartoon] I did the LA edition, which was putting the "LA"
and having the Nike check go through it.
The next one I did was the Aztec.
This was crazy because here I'm doing an Aztec
on a Cortez.
So you have the Spaniards coming to New Spain, which was Mexico,
to bring disease,
great war between the Spaniards and the Aztecs
to create Mexican people.
So, I had that on a shoe, which is a little heavy,
you know what I'm saying? For a shoe design.
And then on the Aztec warrior, I put a brush mustache,
which is representative of the homies now.
When it finally went through,
I was blown away.
I'm surprised every time one of these huge deals goes through.
So, to balance that,
it was important that I did outreach.
Talking to youngsters, explaining to them,
"Look, I went to LA Unified School,
and I designed my own shoe.
What would your shoe look like?"
And I would ask these kids, and they'd get all shy.
It's beautiful to see that Cartoon can set an example
for these young kids,
giving kids hope in art.
[Cartoon] My goal was to motivate them and get them to think,
"Man, if this knucklehead can do it, man, I can design my own shoe."
["Poochum" by The Mixtures]
[chuckling] What?
-[Danny chuckles] -Motherfucking premiere of Machete.
Yeah, that was sweet, with the lowriders.
[Cartoon] Seeing these big Hollywood events.
In the back on my mind, I was like,
"We can get a team together and do it."
We had the budgets.
And we were able to have some power
to do some of those events, and it came out dope.
And it was beautiful, man.
People in the street, happy that somebody's representing.
This is a historical moment right here.
We're taking our culture
and trying to lift it up.
[Michelle] It would be hard to be downtown that day
and not feel our presence.
We here. [laughs]
[Cartoon] Damn, man, we're bringing Chicano art
into places that it's never been before.
Shout-out to S.A. Studios. Grand Theft Auto, good looking.
GTA is the iconic video game that ended up becoming because of the Estev and Toon.
I played Cesar Vialpando.
[Cartoon] We did all the tattoos, graffiti,
murals,
liquor store,
and the Virgen de Guadalupe would be on the side.
Estevan would take them around
to all the sick shit
and fucking recreate that.
You've been on a trajectory
from the bottom-bottom,
and I guess prison, possibly.
You got out of that, survived that,
and you're on this uphill trajectory of perfecting this art form.
[Cartoon] It was a great time. Record businesses were still going.
And magazines were popping
and commercials were getting anywhere from 100,000 into the millions.
Then the digital age came.
It's over, and the Internet has allowed
global communication with a lot of people...
[anchor] Twenty million people get their music this way.
-They worst offender is Napster. -Metallica filed a...
At that point, S.A. Studios, it was kind of like a barber shop.
People came by afterward and bullshitted.
That's what S.A. Studios felt like. A bunch of big-ass kids having fun.
"What's up, homie?
What you doing, man? What you've been up to?"
It'd be like showing up at a doctor's office.
You're like, "What's up, fool?
Yay, man. Wow, you're doing some surgery. What's up?"
Working on the ice-cream truck.
I'm gonna stay here until five, six in the morning.
I'll probably just go crash upstairs.
A little bit overwhelming for me.
I don't need a lot of people around to do what I do.
They're changing.
Life's about change.
[bell ringing]
[reporter] After a rare week of gains--
[reporter 2] Worst one-day losses since 911.
The stock market fell hard--
[reporter 3] 533,000--
[reporter 4] Two point six million people--
In 2008 there was the depression.
The country just fell apart.
[reporter 5] Spinning the economy in a vicious cycle,
people losing their jobs,
then falling behind on their mortgages.
[Estevan] Magazines shut down, record labels shut down.
[reporter 6] President Obama facing increasing pressure
for a new stimulus package.
All the budgets went away.
[reporter 7] Eleven point three trillion dollars.
...to stabilize the housing market,
and help responsible home-owners stay in their homes.
That cut at least 75% of my work that was coming in.
S.A. Studios was a certain time.
Everything evolves, and everything is a moment in time.
[Cartoon] That whole place of downtown LA got over-gentrified in my opinion.
It became uncool.
It became very corporate.
[Roger] If everything always stays the same, how special is it?
It's about moments.
Five years, ten years. However long that moment was.
The vibe. Something happened.
[David] You have one guy who's in the profession of tattoos,
which has gone from, like, this fringe,
and now I don't know one fucking person who doesn't have a tattoo.
And then on this side of the spectrum,
you have photography, which was like this, and now it's, like, nothing.
Both things are symbiotic and feeding off each other.
But one of those things brings in a ton of cash,
and the other one, the cash is disappearing.
The tension that must bring between brothers...
Eventually...
it was gone.
[sad music playing]
The last time I'll ever be here.
We were here for 13 years.
We used to call our little thing here "Skid Row's finest"
because we were surrounded by the people of Skid Row.
And that's it. It's a wrap.
S.A. Studios.
We're out of downtown.
Gone.
That was probably one of the most challenging times in my life.
And...
I made it, 'cause I'm a fighter.
That was it.
You got it?
[Estevan exhales]
[police car wailing in the distance]
["Da Rockwilder" by Method Man and Redman playing]
♪ Microphone checker Swinging sword lecture ♪
♪ Closing down the sector Supreme neck protector ♪
♪ Better warn 'em kid Mr. Method boiling pot ♪
♪ About to blow his lid From the pressure ♪
♪ Too hot for TV for sheezy ♪
♪ Too many wanna be hard be easy ♪
♪ It's all in together Going all out together ♪
♪ It don't take much to please me ♪
-Congratulations. -Thank you.
♪ We don't condone biting See them selling crossbones ♪
♪ Protecting what am writing Don't clash with the Titan ♪
♪ Who blast with a license... ♪
[Estevan] To me, LA's the blood pumping through my veins.
I love everything about it.
♪ Put your lights out ♪
♪ Get the shit to the cracking Got you feelin' with your... out ♪
[Estevan] I mean, look at it. How fucking cool is that shit?
♪ Where I used to battle crews Back when Antoinette had that attitude ♪
♪ Cover me, I'm going in Walls closing in ♪
♪ Got us busting off these... ♪
♪ My... got issues again ♪
♪ Same song, armed with the mega bomb ♪
♪ Blow you out the frame And then I'm gone ♪
[electric buzzing]
♪ Look up in the sky It's a bird, it's a plane ♪
♪ It's the funk Doctor Spock Get on a train ♪
♪ How high? ♪
♪ So high that I can kiss the sky ♪
-[police car siren wailing] -♪ So sick than you can suck my... ♪
[electric buzzing]
[car speeding off]
♪ I was gone too, but we roam Cellular phones ♪
♪ Doc-Meth back in the flesh... ♪
[Estevan] This is where I come and get all my film done right here.
♪ Suckers break like Turbo and Ozone... ♪
[Estevan] Oh, wow.
Wow, I got some good ones.
[whistles]
♪ Three nines in the glove with Masu... ♪
[Estevan exhales]
[elevator gates closes]
So, after 13 years, we've now relocated,
and I'm gonna show you the new S.A. Studios.
Well, my part of it. Cartoon has a different part.
So... here we are.
S.A. Studios.
[door creaks]
[Estevan] You can barely fit in here.
These are the new S.A. Studios.
These are all bills that haven't been paid.
You know, just so everybody knows
what it's like to be a world-famous photographer.
[Cartoon] Where am I today? I'm in a good place.
I'm an optimist.
I'm always gonna look at what's the solution,
what do I got to be grateful for,
how can I make this pop.
I haven't stopped one day since S.A. Studios.
I have a private studio right here.
I own this property. Can't kick me out.
And it's all dialed into my needs,
I airbrush the cars in here.
I've been here for five years now and...
I love it.
[car engine revs]
[Estevan, in Spanish] Attention! Attention!
[in English] There's our lovely Sixth Street Bridge.
[in Spanish] No more.
[in English] So crazy to see all this shit.
Fucking changing so fast.
This is a mural by my friend Risky.
Everybody knows Risk.
This was a parking lot before.
Some metal rinky-dink buildings,
and now it's like...
the biggest fucking most...
apartments, fuck it, whatever you could get in there.
[Cartoon] I don't feel like a victim. I feel like I'm on top of everything.
I'm on top of social media,
I know how to use Photoshop, I know how to use a computer.
I taught myself all that.
The guys that didn't do that, they probably feel overwhelmed.
And then I was trying to keep up with the Joneses, and, you know,
trying to post--
I tried all that shit.
I tried to post hot girls,
big celebrities, gangster stuff.
I tried to post everything
at certain times a day on certain days and I'm like,
"How the fuck does this guy have a million followers
and I got 115,000 or whatever?" You know?
Every time I'd think I was doing some big shit, good shit,
and I go, "Oh, I'm gonna show Instagram right now.
Fuck everybody."
You know. "All my haters are gonna come out on this one."
I would post something and it'd be like, "wah, wah, wah."
And I was like, "Man."
I got more likes just from taking a picture of my dog
with my iPhone or something, you know.
All the algorithms and the analytics and all that, and I was like,
"Man, this shit is, like, so time-consuming
and overwhelming."
It's tiring to try and keep up with the Joneses, so...
Sometimes I just say, "Fuck it, who am I doing all this shit--?"
And I go and, you know, do work
that I need to be doing, to...
To keep the-- keep the...
the checks coming in,
to keep up with the bills that are coming in.
♪ Money's growing Like grass with the mass appeal ♪
♪ Money, money, money... ♪
[Cartoon] People on the other side of the world looking at our shit,
we don't realize a lot of times 'cause it's in front of us.
[Loco speaking German]
We're from Berlin.
We're driving lowriders.
We wear that clothing stuff and...
listen to the music.
Latino life.
[chuckles]
[Cartoon] I think that this art form embraces everybody.
People are affected, and we don't know about it.
Inside I always looked like a cholo.
I'm a trans man and I'm tattooed. I love tattoos.
-[Loco] Yeah? Good? -[man] Danke schön.
[Loco chuckles]
♪ And with my unique skills, nah You can't compare... ♪
[passerby] All good, bro bro!
[Chris] Oh, I've been arrested over 20 times for graffiti.
And I've been chased with things and attacked by dogs
and my leg--
ripped my leg open over jumping fences.
But I love it.
Watching Estevan's photos
and Cartoon's tattoos
put me into an understanding about a lot of things out here.
-[man] Oh! -That was perfect timing.
[Mark] Between Estevan and Cartoon, they have really brought
the culture of downtown Los Angeles
to a place of respect and high art.
[hip-hop music playing]
[Roger] For this show, we wanted to be true to the spirit of the artform.
Vandalism, ambition,
rebellion, being out in the streets.
[Mark] Beyond The Streets show that's out now,
you have Banksy, Basquiat,
Murakami, Shepard Fairey.
And then you also have Cartoon's church,
and you have the iconic Estevan LA hand sign.
[Martha] People might dismiss graffiti as only being vandalism.
And I'm not saying that it isn't vandalism.
It is vandalism.
[Cartoon] This is vandal art.
Carving your name in a toilet
and shit. That's how people look at it.
We're not even supposed to be there in the first place
or have our cars in there,
photography.
♪ The building, Trinity Ave Ten years... ♪
[Snoop] To come from nothing...
They ain't got no degrees. They learned this from the streets.
♪ Why you think... ♪
[Haze] Are they responsible for bringing that style
and that culture to the forefront of the movement? Definitely.
♪ I did it all, I put the pieces... ♪
Hip-hop culture owes so much to Toons and Estevan.
[Eminem] Them being so prominent in the culture
helped shape that wave
that even the generation after us, coming up...
[Brian] Where do Cartoon and Estevan lie
in the greater scheme of art itself?
I think pretty high.
[Roger] They're out there. They're approachable.
They're shooting for magazines. They're friends with people on Skid Row.
You've done a lot for me, brother.
They're friends with graffiti writers.
[OG Slick] I'll show you what I think about H&M, you know?
[Roger] They're friends with musicians, celebrities.
♪ In the gutter one, ghetto running 'em Troublesome, extra double dumb... ♪
[George] They're still doing it.
They're doing it better than they ever have, and that's pride.
That's heart. That's Chicano.
[man] With all the racism, xenophobia
that's going on right now in the US,
for Chicano art to just be pushed as hard as possible,
whether it's a direct a political message or just as a style, is a great thing.
These ICE agents and these raids
and the racism,
it's only gonna speak to our cultures.
The culture has to be a little louder than the hate.
♪ Cause they say I rhyme They say I look like a gremlin... ♪
We're gonna keep moving forward, keep creating
and stay true to this culture.
Thank you for coming! Thank you for coming.
[people cheering]
[hip-hop music playing]
Ah!
[car honk honking]
[bicycle bells ringing]
[car honk honking]
♪ Slam ♪
♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
♪ It's my city ♪
♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
♪ It's my city ♪
♪ Wake up in the morning and I thank God ♪
♪ Pray for enemies and haters That's the meaning of a gang star ♪
♪ I'm into everything Hustle I get that money ♪
♪ I know I'm gonna make it I chase it, I come and run it down ♪
♪ We out here chilled, it's Sunday We got the pretty women ♪
♪ Barbecues popping, no stoppin' We're drinking beer with lemon ♪
♪ Los Angeles, baby We own the South side ♪
♪ Cruising down Pacific The sickest, that's how the South ride ♪
♪ Lowriders and OG's with tattoos ♪
♪ Bouncing down the boulevard Watching as they pass you ♪
♪ Hella smoke from this Charlie Brown It's in the sky ♪
♪ Tacos de carnitas with salsita Boy, I'm feeling fly ♪
♪ Mexicano by nature I'm living out a zone ♪
♪ I just think with that alone Really that I'm not alone ♪
♪ My city, my dreams, my lifestyle ♪
♪ I love LA and this is my style ♪
♪ I love cruisin' through my city ♪
♪ I love LA ♪
♪ We'll be chillin' On a South Side Sunday ♪
♪ It's my favorite kind of day ♪
-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪ -♪ Out here chillin' with the homies ♪
-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪ -♪ Barbecues and family ♪
-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪ -♪ Ain't no place I'd rather be ♪
-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪ -♪ I love LA ♪
♪ Dude, man, I love LA ♪
♪ Another sunny day in California This is Los Angeles ♪
♪ Beast Baldacci Not to worry, let me handle this ♪
♪ Palm trees It's the home of a real life ♪
♪ Battlefield, a war zone But this is where I feel right ♪
♪ No hatin', we just livin' Like we're supposed to ♪
♪ Stand for who you are, yep It's what we've been exposed to ♪
♪ I love my city, my people I love my family ♪
♪ I love my haters, my rivals And people mad at me ♪
♪ I'm on the grind I can't stop, I'm all lit ♪
♪ And every second I thank Pops This all him ♪
♪ Mini-bikes in the street going The feedback ♪
♪ Prostitutes and the weed sacks Believe that ♪
♪ Broken lights so it's dark out The kids playin' ♪
♪ Yellow tape on the next block I'm just sayin' ♪
♪ It ain't never gonna change Boy, I love my city ♪
♪ LA to my day come and rep it with me ♪
-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪ -♪ I love cruisin' through my city ♪
♪ Cruisin' through my city, boy ♪
-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪ -♪ I love LA ♪
-♪ Man, how I love LA ♪ -♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
♪ We'll be chillin' On a South Side Sunday ♪
-♪ Just chillin' on a South Side Sunday ♪ -♪ It's my favorite kind of day ♪
-♪ Yeah ♪ -♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪
♪ Out here chillin' with the homies ♪
-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪ -♪ Barbecues and family ♪
-♪ Rainbow, rainbow ♪ -♪ Ain't no place I'd rather be ♪
-♪ I love LA ♪
♪ Uh-huh, I love LA, yeah ♪
♪ Family is everything Tattoos represent mine ♪
♪ Everything ahead of me I hope you try and test mine ♪
♪ Southern champion California weed smoke ♪
♪ The real moonrock on the top When the beast toke ♪
♪ Los Angeles, shout-out to my hometown ♪
♪ Fabuloso Geez, HP, how it goes down ♪
♪ Chikoe, Blazer The Speedy's Estevan Oriol ♪
♪ Free my brothers that's put away Now let them go ♪
♪ I love LA ♪