My Dear Friends of Figma in The world has changed to a way where my growing up was always hidden and plus I was in the service so when I was in the service everything was t-shirt Level under the shirt under the neckline as I messed that up went to prison grew up I’m running out of room my neck and up came not as a fashion statement or as something cool to show.
The world it came all of this it came because I ran out of room so fingers face neck ears uh inside the ears back of the ears what do we got to do toes let’s run it privates yep privates are done too my name is Mark Matt I work for selling clothing I’m from Los Angeles California so I had a mohawk for a while I kind of.
Went through growing up with the transition of the street life to the military life to the jail live to the back to normal society life and as I got older unfortunately it wasn’t too old my hair started thinning at a younger age so I actually tattooed a mohawk on my head so I have a mohawk tattooed on my head.
In Mohawk letters so and you just that’s where it stuck I I was one of those kids that kind of watched too many boys in the hood New Jack City movies I brought myself to trouble I don’t have the sob story that I grew up in the projects or the hood I uh I grew up in a pretty decent City and I found graffiti at a really young age.
And in the early 90s graffiti was a monster in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles everything I ever wanted this thing called graffiti made me free and I was able to take pick a name join a couple of Crews which are groups of guys all with the same goal of just getting our names out there the most we.
Just took over the streets of the valley through Los Angeles and it was that’s where everything changed and started for me one of my buddies had the bright idea and went and got his last name tattooed on him at some like biker tattoo shop in the city of North Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley and.
He came back and just blew our minds blew up blew all of our minds this little simple his last name across in the center of his back they’re really tiny a little smaller a little smaller than you thought it would be for him showing up acting as tough as he did it was about this big but I never never forget how cool that looked I got my.
Tagging crew right here across my Forum I’ve since covered it up because you know life changes and you go different places I I think I felt like a few inches taller I remember my backbone kind of straightened out I remember I purposely would wear a tank top a wife beater so I could this would be.
Shown and the one on my shoulder would be slightly shown through the side of that arch with the wife beater and I remember I just I had this way to just walk in my shoulders got up a little bit higher and I just kind of walked a little tougher and square and I made sure to when I was in the car like you could always see my shoulder when I was.
Driving and stuff it was just it’s like a mar a badge of honor all my parents were Furious my parents they didn’t let alone I get a tattoo of a graffiti crew that they that they attributed to being a gang so they they were not happy about that all mind you back then graffiti was extremely bad it was extremely frowned upon cops were.
Chasing you gang members were shooting at you business owners were attacking you so just the graffiti aspect alone my parents were already getting ready to what’s wrong with you get out of our house then on top of a tattoo I tattooed a graffiti call me oh my God silver was I wouldn’t have balls to the wall getting all types of little knickknacks.
You know back then it wasn’t I didn’t know how to like pick a sleeve or design today these artists can do immaculate Mona Lisa’s type styles of artwork on sleeves and back back then it was all about I got 50 bucks what can we get so it was like stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp there was no this became a sleeve due to me continuing to slam.
Pieces together it wasn’t planned out that way graffiti turned into a bad place for me it eventually evolved and if you know any of the LA history graffiti merged with gangs throughout the 90s and gangs became a a different step on the evolutionary chain even in regards to tattoos because there’s a whole history.
With gang tattoos that follow suit with tattoo lifestyle the tag and crew tattoos evolved into more like gang tattoos and those gang tattoos became more serious they became things you have to earn and Jill came along in the process as well as my behavior got worse with the transition from gang graffiti to gangs you start going to the jail.
System and then tattoo industry in the jail system it’s actually humongous it’s like I don’t they don’t give it enough credit because there’s some fantastic artists in jail depending on the artist you had like the pancake motors which are flat out of CD players we also had the old school tape cassette desk uh tattoo motors which.
Were we call them Jolly Ranchers some of the most insanely intelligent people are in jail because to watch them accumulate old parts from electronic devices to take the wires and the solder to re-solder all these wires together and then to wrap them with a couple batteries taped together wrapped around with some paper.
With the wires to the to the little guns they’d make with cut down pieces of big pens um it was just insanely intelligent it’s like an old school machine the way they have it rigged up and Tattoos take longer in my opinion they hurt a lot less in prison because it’s a single needle they’re slower it takes longer so.
The pain is less despite all the changes I’ve made a lot of those friendships and those memories are important I’ve made I have some good friends that I’ve basically a lot of the country has the wrong perception about gangs there’s not a lot of there’s not a lot of positivity with it but there is some some stuff and um.
It’s like going to war so I have some friends I’ve made that I I I’m not going to disrespect their memory by removing some things I have them they’re kind of what I’ve been smart enough to do is get rid of the ones that could be dangerous on the street from prison to Street you get you accumulate tattoos that don’t have the importance out here and they.
Don’t really belong out here those I’ve removed the other ones I’ve kept are really important to me and I but what I have gotten better at is working for selling clothing I have the access to so many amazing people artists so many just great people that have helped me on this journey and we just add stuff around things so it’s kind of.
Like it’s not as prominent and standing out on my body it’s there in the background just like my history will always be in the background but these tattoos I have so many good ones around these things to cover them up and blend them in to a background setting so I had some stuff that had to go when I came home from prison and uh we lasered my.
Face sides of my face I did a couple other spots on my body I lasered it down enough to where you could cover over it I also lasered my uh my private I had a tattoo on the on the tip of my and I also had some along the length of it and the process for that I can tell you is probably one of the most ungodly they didn’t have the medical advances they.
Have now none of the cream none of the novocaine shots would work and they also had another nurse there with a bowl because I kept throwing up the pain was so bad I kept throwing up into the bowl and you know you could smell your skin burning you could hear your hair follicles popping and just watching your skin burn and I just kept throwing up.
But it just goes to how important for me those things had to go I didn’t give a hell it what I had to go through just like when I chose to get sober whatever you told me to do I’m going to do it to stay sober those I had some stuff that had to go and it was uh whatever I got to go through let’s just hold the bowl I’ll throw up let’s get it going it’s.
Like being cleansed by fire it’s spiritual I came home from prison one of the tattoos I’ll share with you I had a big six six six huge when I was in prison I wanted to blame you I wanted to blame everybody out there for what I did to go to jail I didn’t realize that it was just something dumb I I mean I did it I.
Did it nobody made me do what I did I did what I did and I went to jail I lost my military career um I uh I have a medical honorable discharge I was discharged with veteran status after a a while in and um but I wanted to blame you I wanted to blame America for what happened to me and I went back to committing crime so I put.
This stamp on my neck to make sure that would push you away from me and believe me something like that it’s the equivalent to some other evil hateful symbol because trust me nobody wants to be around nobody liked to come near me with that big of a thing on me and recently I want to say about a year and a half ago I was I got connected to my.
Friend Chris out in North North Hollywood he helped me cover it up with a rose and I swear to you I can’t tell this story so many times it makes me happy when he put that gun down after the third session and this was done I felt something leave me I felt like something pushed me I literally felt something hit.
Me and like a naked like an energy force just leave me and that 666 was covered and I smiled and I was just free I felt free from all the after lasering off symbols after lasering off dumb tattoos that was like the last thing and it just I felt a bunch leave and I feel free so yeah some of them some of them can keep people away from you.
When I stepped away from the gang life and I started to investigate stuff that was cool so the gang tattoos mind you the ones I kept I went from gang tattoos to Star Wars tattoos to a Transformer tattoo because once I changed from that type of Lifestyle to where now I can just be Mohawk Matt I don’t have to be the gang guy it’s nice to be able to.
Really get what I like I’ve got a Starscream from Transformers because that was my favorite toy as a kid you know Star Wars Boba Fett I’ve got two Boba Fett tattoos my Viking stuff because that’s in my history so like that’s important to me it’s my culture I have some Viking in my history Celtic Scottish Celtic Welsh I really started.
Studying it when I went to jail and learned a little bit more about my my history and I love it I love getting in the controversial arguments about it too because it’s so like people think it’s negative and I’m like okay that’s that’s dumb like study your history and and uh yeah I’ve learned that like some of these symbols go back because I’ve.
Studied most of them they go back way before we were even here so many cultures have tattooed themselves um and these symbols carry weight and when you’re putting these symbols on your body there’s a definite meaning and a weight to them that you need to be aware of before you just randomly tattoo.
Something on your body if you could go all the way back would you do the journey the same way you did I have to say yeah because I wouldn’t be who I am right now if I didn’t go through every single one of those damn things to get right here every one of them even from the start.
All the [__] up all the uncomfortable I had to learn all of that to be right here probably in front of you right now and you never know I believe in fate you know in Vikings there’s something we call the web of word it’s it’s at the Matrix of fate and everything we do is going to happen anyway you might sidestep it you might a.
Little bit but it’s supposed to happen so I I think I had to go through all of it so if I changed it I don’t know what could be do I don’t want it right now I don’t want to change even a quarter or something I’m really happy so I don’t want to I don’t want to alter it
Growing up, Matt was enamored by the glorification of street life he saw in movies like “Boyz n the Hood,” prodding him to seek out danger. He got very into graffiti and ended up getting sucked into the gang life like so many others in Los Angeles at the time, eventually finding himself in prison. It was there that he got a lot of tattoos he regretted, a lot of tattoos that don’t belong out in the world. We spoke with Matt about getting tattooed in prison, the weight that was lifted when he removed some of those tattoos and much more in this episode of Heavily Inked.
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