Today is Dream Day-Remembering Graf King Mike Dream

 “Dream was a very humble and charismatic writer,” said Refa 1; Dream’s close friend and graffiti partner with whom Dream had scheduled a new show at Oakland’s Asian Resource Center (310 8th Street @ Harrison) this week. “He put so much love and dedication into a form that many of us had taken for granted and he had taken it to new heights,” said Refa 1. “He excelled in that and he gave the world so many beautiful pieces coz he himself was a beautiful person. And he always loved the culture!” The one day art show, scheduled for Thurs 2/24 5PM to 8PM, will now become a memorial and its pieces, no doubt, will take on profound new meaning. “In the new exhibit there’s a piece dedicated to 2Pac and Plan B and now I’m gonna have to do a piece dedicated to him,” said Refa 1 shaking his head.

 Sunday (2/20) at the Future Primitive Sound Session at the Fillmore in San Francisco friend and fellow graffiti artist Doze titled his live onstage graffiti installment “DREAM” in his honor. “He wasn’t just a great artist. He was also a great person,” said Doze. Later that night onstage DJ Disk, another longtime friend of Dream’s, paid homage to the slain artist by stopping the music and leading the soldout crowd in a moment of silence. In fact all weekend, all over the Bay people, touched by Dream’s art and ever warm personality, were shocked as news of his sudden death reached them. Many pointed to the sad irony of how Dream always made mention in his art to Plan B who was also slain.

 Emcee/graffiti artist & fellow Hobo Junction member Plan B (real name Jesse Hall), who was murdered in 1992, was a close friend of Dream’s and often the topic of his art. The PBS documentary “Jesse’s Gone” from a few years ago about the death of Plan B, which features interviews with Dream, will rebroadcast on KQED San Francisco on Tuesday Feb 22nd. In an interview broadcast on Hip Hop Slam in 1993 from at the anti-police brutality art exhibit “No Justice No Peace” Dream noted that for many of the attendees at the downtown Oakland art gallery that this was their first exposure to graffiti as art and a dose of “reality” for them. “But to brothers like us reality is watching people die on the streets everyday, everyday,” he said. Billy Jam (2/21/00)

 (NOTE: for updates on Dream’s memorial service and other info related to the artist call the Hip Hop Slam offices at (510) 658-4293, ext 2 or e-mail HipHopSlam@aol.com)