Lady Pink: “They watched me paint.”

I started tagging my boyfriend’s name around the middle school after he got arrested. Then his friends took me under their wing and taught me proper style, because it isn’t just random letters. Every letter has meaning, style, and nuance.

SEEN, the leader of TC5, gave me my name. He just came into school one day with a piece of paper and said, “Look, I drew out Pink in a nice style”. Then I titled myself Lady because I used to read a lot about European nobility, the aristocracy: dukes, duchesses, ladies, and all of that stuff.

In New York, it was very common to show where you’re from through the way you do your letters. So I first started in Brooklyn style. Then we moved to Queens just as I was starting, so eventually I got Queens style.

Guys would talk: “She’s just sleeping with the boys to get her name up on the train”. BULLSH*T! I HAD TO PAINT AND THEY WATCHED ME PAINT. My real friends knew who I was. My family knew who I was, and that was all that mattered.

If you fail, you have to live with the failure and do better next time, grow from that and not let it stop you. Like any artist, you have to learn to live with rejection: you go for a job, you don’t get it... you go for ten, and maybe you get one.