Cake HR aka Thomas Pridgen

One thing that I noticed when I was a participant in the graffiti scene in San Francisco was an ongoing battle between the crews US and HR over the name Cake which had been claimed by a member from both crews. Both members are from Oakland, but while Cake 89 is a tattoo artist, the other Cake is the new Mars Volta drummer. I don't know which one is more impressive, but although I like Cake 89's art more, I respect Pridgen for making it into a band political enough to support such a devious habit as graffiti.

They even released a video featuring the tagger grey, and Cake does a piece at the end. On my way to work every morning I see a ton of Cake throw ups and tags, and all I can see is Pridgen with his dreads just climbing up to these spots with cans. It's a bit inconspicuous to have a video out of your graffiti alias, but I suppose not when you've made it that big. The video can be seen by typing in Ilyena Web Video, but the video was restricted from being embedded. Smart choice there Thomas...