Off The Track - Asad “ULTRA” Walker
As part of our recent Give The Gift of Hip-Hop fundraising campaign, we held an online train auction featuring hand painted model trains by local artists. DMV graffiti legend Asad “ULTRA” Walker was one of these featured artists. Check out the video below to learn more!
About Asad “ULTRA” Walker:
Writing since 1983, ULTRA is arguably DC’s longest-running writer. He started his career as HOBO of Everywhere, a name he wrote in the pre-graffiti art signature form. The use of the associative device “of” indicates an earlier tradition of writing that allowed writers to connect their public identities to locations or groups, this form of graffiti was present in Washington, DC for almost two decades longer than any other major city.
Soon after ULTRA, now writing the name RAGE would become one of the only writers in the city to switch to the emerging graffiti art form of multi-dimensional lettering. He founded KGB crew, and in the mid-80s moved to NYC. Several years later in the early '90s he returned to DC to lead KGB crew as ULTRA and through the mid-90s they became one of the most up-and-feared crews in the city, before being arrested and incarcerated on non-graffiti-related charges.
ULTRA reemerged on the DC scene in 2008 and began rebuilding his KGB crew. Through 2010 they claimed the city by bombing hard and emblazoning the name into the public conscience. A high-profile arrest in 2011 for acts of vandalism marked ULTRA as one of only a handful of writers from DC to actively bomb the streets for three concurrent decades.
Photo of Asad’s donated train
