Subway Painters of New York City. From a vast array of inherited traditions and gritty urban lifestyles, talented and renegade young New Yorkers spawned a culture that was to go global and helped spawn hip-hop. As the artists wielded their spray cans, they expressed their acute social consciousness. This book documents key figures in the movement and examines the converging forces that created it the immigration of Caribbean peoples, the reinforcing presence of black American working-class styles and fashions, emergent advertising, the protest culture of the 1960s and 1970s, and more. The creative period lasted for