The “OAKLAND IS PROUD” mural became a symbol of the Town’s resolve, and its cultural relevancy extended to city marketing, album covers, tribute murals and even a nationally syndicated television show.

Phresh’s original piece was painted over long ago. But last weekend, here at the same exact location, he and a few friends remade it, painting “OAKLAND IS PROUD 2” in metallic silver and royal blue along E. 12th Street.

‘OAKLAND IS PROUD 2,’ a re-creation of Del Phresh’s famed mural, in the same spot as the original along E. 12th Street in Oakland. (Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)

Given Oakland’s current issues, ranging from housing to violence, and the way people remain passionate about the Town despite its depiction in the media, Phresh’s piece is as relevant today as it was when he first painted it nearly 40 years ago.

From an East Oakland Wall to the World

After first painting a smaller, scrappy iteration of the mural on a wall of the historic St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged, Phresh returned (this time with permission of the center’s Ray Castor) and spent the entire summer of 1987 completing “OAKLAND IS PROUD.”

When it was done, the multicolored, bubble-letter piece stretched the length of a full city block, and soon became a cultural landmark.

It was featured in the opening credits of Mark Curry’s television show Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, and provided a fresh background for the cover image of Capital Tax’s 1989 self-titled record.

The Oakland rap group Capital Tax featured Del Phresh’s ‘OAKLAND IS PROUD’ mural on the cover of their 1989 EP, shown here in the original photo location. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

In 2020, Phresh collaborated with Oaklandish to create merchandise using the logo, as well as a piece reading “OAKLAND IS STILL PROUD,” painted on the wooden boards covering the retail store during protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

The mural’s legacy doesn’t stop there. It’s appeared on event flyers, and has been remixed within other prominent murals.

“They got a photo of it at the Oakland Airport,” Presh says, adding that he’s even seen it used in commercials promoting tourism to Oakland.

Repping his Home Turf

Well-recognized as a style king in his craft, Phresh made noise locally when he won a mural competition hosted by the KRON-TV show Home Turf in 1986. A year later, he stepped onto the international stage by appearing in Henry Chalfant and James Prigoff’s seminal 1987 book Spraycan Art.

Fitted in a customized jean jacket and hand-painted baseball hat embroidered with his given name, Joel, Phresh remembers his initial discovery of this spot on E. 12th.

“My first piece on this wall, I got arrested for it.” It was a style piece with bubble letters, he says, and it made waves. “Back in the day,” says Phresh, “you didn’t see graffiti out here.”

Others had scribbled on the walls and tagged their turfs, but it wasn’t stylized images and lettering — graf writing as we know it now.

An African American man in a colorful hat and painted jean jacket. — Oakland graffiti artist Del Phresh poses for a photo beneath the BART tracks in East Oakland, across the street from where his legendary ‘Oakland Is Proud’ piece was originally painted nearly 40 years ago. (Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)

Before the Town’s scene got popping, Phresh honed his skills by hitting up the surfaces of AC Transit’s 82 bus, tagging his first graf handle “GERM” as he rode through East Oakland.

It wasn’t until being arrested for painting the wall on E. 12th that he changed his name. Handcuffed and sitting in a patrol van, it hit him.

“Fresh. I like that, because that’s gonna be synonymous with with hip-hop forever,” he remembers thinking. “But I gotta be original.”

He added “Ph” in place of “F,” and “Bow!,” he exclaims, “that’s how I got my name, sitting in the back of the paddy wagon.”

Getting Active in Graffiti Crews

While Phresh treated the Town as his playground — he was the first to do a piece in the 23rd Yard of East Oakland — he really got his start by running around Berkeley and San Francisco.

A fly kid named Dizzy D, known for sporting Pumas and Adidas suits, was the first to take Phresh around the Bay, bombing walls. Soon after, Phresh got his first paid gig, painting at a store under the old Leopold’s Records near Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley.

“I was almost done,” says Phresh, reminiscing on his first paid job, “and this kid came in, and he’s like ‘I’m Kaos, I’m from TF.’”

The mention of the well-known TF, or Task Force crew, caused Phresh to freak out, but he played it cool. When he was invited to join the crew, he calmly obliged.

His work then started to spread all around the Bay, taking off after he met two kids who went by the names Style and West.

They arranged a meeting on that same concrete and grass median under the BART tracks on E. 12th. One of the trio had the idea to form their own crew. They called it the “Bomb Squad.”

“We were bombing the shit out of the city,” says Phresh, noting that the crew’s acronym of “BSK” came together when they added the word “Kings” to their title.

“BSK was the first crew (in Oakland),” says Phresh, adding that other crews immediately popped up thereafter. “We had the fame, we had the notoriety, we had the stats.”

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