Background

Stay High 149 was born in Emporia, Virginia, United States, on October 20, 1950. He never knew his father, not even his name. As a child, he moved to Harlem with his mother and his younger brother, Eddie. He also had two sisters, Pauline Noble and Karen Michelle Owens, as well as two more brothers, Tracy and Tyrone.

Education

When Wayne Roberts was 16, his family moved from Harlem to the Bronx and he began skipping school and smoking marijuana.

Career

Roberts initially worked as a messenger on Wall Street, smoking about an ounce of marijuana a week. As his drug use grew a friend gave him the nickname "Stay High". In 1971, when he began tagging, Roberts adopted this sobriquet, adding the number of the street on which he lived.

In 1972 he garnished his tag with a version of The Saint stick figure smoking a joint. As crime escalated in New York, graffiti writers rivaled with one another trying to become "all-city kings" by spraying their names across the city’s five districts. Soon Stay High 149 became a hero to fellow writers. "I would get mobbed," he said, "Everybody wanted autographs. It was crazy."

New York magazine featured Stay High 149 in an article and showed his face in 1973. It was opened with a portrait of the "Stay High 149" tag. He was arrested soon afterward. Because of his enormous fame, he decided to retire the tag: "I was scared. It seemed like everybody knew me."

Shifting to different tags, Roberts eventually managed to create another memorable tag: spare, kinetic letters declaring "Voice of the Ghetto." Many other writers copied some elements of his style, including the halo and the stick figure, and even the name: there was Stay Cool 149 and also Super High 149.

By the mid-1970s Wayne Roberts had disappeared from the scene occupying a new job as a messenger at the World Trade Center. Soon the staircases of the skyscrapers became his only canvas.

In the late 1970s, due to his troubles in the family and with his job, he began injecting heroin. For more than two decades he was "destroying himself", spending time in jail and in a number of rehabilitation programmes.

The salvation of a sort came in 2000, when he knew about an exhibition of graffiti art in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There he met a man who had the Stay High tag tattooed on his arm. Roberts suddenly found out that he had so many loyal fans, as he was surrounded by autograph seekers. Articles started to appear under such headlines as, for instance, "Graffiti King Returns After 20 Years". At the age of 52, the artist began to write graffiti again, first tagging subway trains, but soon he started to receive well-paid commissions for his works. Soon Stay High 149 adapted his talents to canvas selling his artworks to private collectors all over the world.

Achievements

• 

  Wayne Roberts was a pioneering 1970s graffiti writer. Being a graffiti icon, he produced works for such companies as Reebok, Ecko Unlimited and Zoo York.
  
  Norman Mailer featured him in his book “The Faith of Graffiti.” Besides, Sky Farrell also wrote a book about him. In addition, Roberts was featured in the 2004 documentary Just to Get a Rep by Peter Gerard.

Works

More photos

• graffiti

  • Tags

  • unknown title

  • Tag

  • Smoker Print

  • Piece

  • Piece

  • Tag

  • Map

  • Tag

  • Piece

  • Voice of the Ghetto

  • The Smoker

  • Tag

  • Piece

  • Smoker

  • Black Book drawing

  • The Legend Continues

  • Untitled

  • Voice Of The Ghetto

  • Untitled

  • Untitled

  • Voice of the ghetto

  • Bus Map

  • There Is No Place Like Homless

  • High Figural Stellar

  • Tag Stay High 149

  • Untitled

  • Watch the closing doors

  • Untitled

  • Live and let die

  • Untitled

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Eric Felisbret: "He was incredibly influential for generations. He set the pace for how to do an elegant tag and set yourself apart from other people. It was like corporate branding."
  
  Eric Felisbret: "When he came back on the scene, he had no idea how important he was. He could not capitalize on it because he had no business savvy. The level of his street cred could have translated into some money. Instead, he was selling canvases in the street for $25. I’m not saying he could have made Banksy money. He was looking for a quick buck. But at least I’m glad he knew how the culture felt about him."

Connections

Roberts was married and fathered two children, Dwayne and Michelle.

Brother:

Eddie Roberts

Sister:

Pauline Noble

Sister:

Karen Michelle Owens

Brother:

Tracy Roberts

Brother:

Tyrone Roberts

References

• Stay High 149 Book by Sky Farrell.
  2010
• Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City Hailed as the seminal study of spray can art of the 1970s and 1980s, Aerosol Kingdom explores the origins and aesthetics of graffiti writings.
  2012