A new documentary covering the renowned Bronx graffiti artist group TATS CRU screened in the South Bronx on Sunday night — the film’s final showing after screenings at several locations across New York City.
“Spray Can Stories: TATS CRU” premiered at Sankofa Haus, an event venue in Mott Haven. Featuring interviews with members Sotero “BG183” Ortiz and Hector “Nicer” Nazario, the 38-minute documentary describes the group’s start and rise to prominence — from painting mom-and-pop stores and memorial walls to working on corporate campaigns for Coca Cola and creating hip hop inspired jerseys for the NBA.
“Surprisingly, as big as they are in the Bronx, I didn’t know about them,” Emmitt Thrower, the director and producer of the film and CEO and founder of Wabisabi Productions, told the Bronx Times. “Neither did a lot of people.”
Thrower first interviewed Ortiz and Nazario in 2023 for a project he was working on celebrating 50 years of hip-hop. His interviews with the two men were so striking that he later researched more about the group — which includes founding member Wilfredo “Bio” Feliciano — and decided to create a documentary about them.
After receiving a $45,000 grant from the Bronx Council of the Arts in 2025, Thrower threw himself into finishing the short film, even spending some of his own money to finish production. “I wanted to do a really good job telling the story,” Thrower said.
In interviews with Thrower, both Ortiz and Nazario described how they became interested in graffiti art. Ortiz recalled how he and his friends used to go “bombing” — a term used by graffiti artists that refers to quickly tagging or throwing art up in highly-visible areas. Nazario remembered skipping school with his friends to look at graffiti art in the subways.
“It was something that was devised by poor kids in the hood [that] said, ‘We’re going to do something,’” Nazario said. “But we did it for ourselves, our own attention. We didn’t do it for the attention of the masses.”
Both men credited their work — and graffiti culture — as having been heavily influenced by hip hop, which emerged in the South Bronx in the 1970s.
TATS CRU’s rise in popularity was far from smooth — as Ortiz noted, the media had been “rough” on them as graffiti became criminalized in the 1990s — but the group now enjoys international acclaim.
Even with all the attention, TATS CRU remains a local force in the Bronx. Their works have featured in public spaces across the borough and attractions such as the Bronx Zoo. Most recently, the group helped design murals at the Bronx River Houses, honoring its earlier contributions to hip-hop culture. They also still paint memorial walls.
Bronx World Film, an organization dedicated to promoting art house cinema that helps promote local filmmakers, helped organize screenings of “Spray Can Stories: TATS CRU” in collaboration with Wabisabi Productions. Walter Krochmal, its founder and executive director, said it was an honor to be involved in showcasing the film to audiences.
“A film like ‘Spray Can Stories’ is extremely timely,” Krochmal said. He added that the film “fulfills everything this organization was created for” — which includes supporting “backyard” talent and community stories.
He first learned about TATS CRU while out biking through the borough. “I would see TATS CRU murals all over the place, abandoned places, places you would never expect to see,” he said. He hopes that viewers of the documentary leave showings with more of an understanding of the art form and the groups behind it.
Barbara Johnson-Thrower, a producer on the film and vice president of Wabisabi Productions alongside her husband, said that creating the documentary has inspired them to do a series of films on other graffiti artists.
“There’s so many other graffiti writers that have different stories, other than BG183 and Nicer,” Johnson-Thrower said. Now, when she sees graffiti art, she always wonders about the artist behind it. “Everyone has a story, and I’m looking forward to hearing it.
Surina Venkat is a contributing writer at the Bronx Times and a student at Columbia University. She can be reached at surinavenkat@gmail.com. For more coverage, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!
