Featured artist - Oustem One

In '82 / '83 I came into contact with the phenomenon Hip Hop Culture. Like B-BOYIN´ / ELECTRIC / POPPIN´ & LOCKIN´, & GRAFFITI WRITING. Mc´z & Dj´z was not my thing.

Starting out as a B-Boy (Breakdancer) I soon came into contact with graffiti writers from the local B-Boy scene .. What I looked up to back then as a boy of 10 years young (born in 1973, also the year that Hip Hop was born).


The writers whose work I regularly saw in my hometown Alkmaar and my own neighborhood were: Artic R.I.P. (Founder of the ESB Crew), Zense, Oase, Suez, Sake, Beach, Insane, Inseno, Track / Ai, etc. 

I came into contact with Zense hanging out at local community center De Vang, where the B-Boy scene gathered at that time. I was immediately accepted and trained as a starting writer. I was called “ The Yellow Toy” by the kings because of my yellow bubble goose jacket. Zense was also the one who got me my first name: “EAON”´ which I wrote for about 1 or 2 years just bombing and tagging with it. I then passed it on to another homie who did quite a bit of damage with it, all of a sudden EaonOner could be found  all over town. This really motivated me and I decided I had to create my own name for myself . Getting a name in the graff game back then was considered pretty “toy”. My new name was found in the legendary graffiti book Subway Art and is based on the name CUSTOM.  Then in 1985 I started with the name OUSTEMONE and also got accepted in the KING CREW ESB: Empty Space Bomberz, by Zense. It is what I still write and represent to this day in 2021.

I’ve basically been active since day one, I only stopped writing for three years between 1990-1993 because everyone had been caught and got snitched on and many writers such as Oase and Suez moved to larger cities like Amsterdam. But I always kept designing. In 1993 I picked it up again and started actively writing harder then ever before.  Just rocking illegal stuff, no assignments, no festivals, jams or halls of fame. I rocked everything I could. Started with tagging and throw ups in the beginning, then it evolved into doing pieces and characters and moved on to doing production murals and at a later stage the commission work, festivals and graffiti jams worldwide came into play. And yes, I also rocked trains. Which I think is still the pinnacle of writing, as in GOLD 4 da Olympics. :D

I’ve seen a lot of the world through graffiti and met a lot of dope peepz through the culture of Graffiti & Hip Hop in general, which I am very grateful for and proud of. Been alll over Europe and even Australia. Where I met my wife Sydney's Queen Shaz IBS who was also a hardcore bomber / writer in the 80s. Strictly trains, no walls. Sin and Shaz IBS ran the lines in Sydney back then. 

Crews that I represent then and now are: ESB-IBS-CM-TFT-NNA-PFD-ACW-RED-TBS .... And the BBC fun with Mean & Joint the tag crew from the early days!

In a nut shell, graffiti has been the common thread in my life since 1983 up untill today. Thank god for graffiti, it has blessed me in so many ways. 

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