Boris Tellegen (NL, 1968) is also known as Delta and started his career as a graffiti artist in the 1980s. From the outset his style was characterised by geometric figures and three-dimensional letters. Over the years, in addition to his graffiti, he’s developed spatial works, sculptures and collages. In Het HEM we show his sculptural speaker set, entitled The Band.

The Band comes to life with a sound piece specially made for the exhibition by DJ and professor Rich Medina (US, 1970) in collaboration with Paul du Bois-Reymond (DE, 1974) en Victor Crezée (NL, 1986). Medina developed a unique performance lecture style in which he combines DJing with his deep knowledge of hip-hop’s cultural history. His sound compilation relates the background of James Brown’s lyrics ‘Can’t be greedy… You gotta take some, and leave some’ – the motto of this exhibition.

Guillaume: ‘I’ve known Boris for a really long time, here in Amsterdam. He belongs to a group of artists in the graffiti scene that really brought it to its own level — super special how he did it.’

Edson: ‘In fact, he and Parra are ongoing legends. They’ve done a lot of things that people have imitated since.’

Guillaume: ‘The same goes for Rich Medina. We’ve known him since the nineties.’

Edson: ‘Rich owned a shop already in the 90s. He’s a proper centipede: a multi-tasker! Even back then he had a lot of knowledge as a DJ; he was the first to come up with that Fela Kuti shit.’

Guillaume: ‘And then he came with his lectures. That blew me away. When people are that close to you, you sometimes take what they’re doing for granted. But his way of thinking really excites me.’

Edson: ‘Initially Rich was doubting about his lectures. So I said to him: ‘Just talk your talk and turn your records. You’ve gotta do this.’ And then they hired him as a curator at Cornell University, the most important black university with an incredible library for hip-hop history. That lecture shit is crazy.’