Darryl alexanDer Mccray AKA CornBread

Daryl Alexander McCray widely known by his tagging name as Cornbread is considered the first graffiti writer earning him the title the Godfather of Graffiti.

Born 1953 in Brewerytown, Philadelphia, Daryl spent two years in juvenile detention during his youth. While at the juvenile detention center Daryl would constantly irritate the head cook with repeated requests for fresh cornbread instead of white bread. One day the cook finally got fed up, and snatched Daryl by his shirt collar and threw him on the floor in front of the peers and counselors— yelling,

The Godfather of Graffiti

“Keep this Cornbread out my kitchen!”

Daryl’s peers began teasing him calling Daryl Cornbread. But Daryl embraced it and began writing Cornbread on the back of shirt— and although Daryl wasn’t gang affiliated, he would eventually develop relationships with gang members in the detention facilities and would begin tagging his new nickname next to the gangs.

Immediately upon his release

Cornbread began tagging everything throughout the streets to build his reputation.

Bus stops, park benches, street signs, pay phones, trains, and other surfaces were all Cornbreads for the taking.

One day the newspaper mistakenly reported that Cornbread was shot dead in a gang altercation—wasting no time to capitalize on the opportunity Cornbread took to the streets and tagged “Cornbread Lives” for everyone to see.

Everyone thought it was imposter, so cornbread took it up a notch and tagged Cornbread

Lives on a elephant in the New York City Zoo. Sometime after Cornbread also tagged the Jackson 5’s jet. Those daring and bold missions sealed cornbread’s reputation as a legitimate graffiti writer.

Cornbread pioneered tagging signatures on everything—you can find unique and distinctive graffiti art everywhere! But his legacy goes beyond just graffiti: he paved the way for artists today to be more daring with their work and break down boundaries in their respective art mediums.