The art of Graffiti is no longer done solely as a hobby. Its popularity has stretched across a vast number of locations, gracing the unsuspecting walls and rooftops of the world. From South Africa to Italy, Australia, Germany and back to the U.S., graffiti artists have been leaving their mark.

In 2003 these daredevil artists were rewarded for their efforts in what has become the largest graffiti battle in the world, Write4Gold. Originating in Europe, Write4Gold brings together graffiti artists who compete for money and fame. It became global in 2006, and since then has marked its territory as one of the most highly anticipated events in the street art culture.

Events take place in the Baltics, Austria, Russia, Denmark and several other locations where they choose finalists for the World Finals, which is held in Germany.

The competition is split up into four categories: concept painting, freestyle throw ups, freestyle tagging and freestyle sketching. The entire event is free to the public and takes place all day, with live band performances and graffiti showcases.

The Budapest competition has found itself a new venue, Mokka Cuka, and takes place this Saturday at 10 am. The competition will feature DJ Swamp, the Vinyl Warriors, and DJ Rocksteady along with other performances and popular Hungarian break dance teams.

Click here for more info and here for some dope videos from previous years here.

Other Upcoming Events Include:

Date: 06.14.2008

Loc: Skaters Palace, Dahlweg 12648153, Münster, Germany

Details: for all crews from Germany, Belgium. Netherlands, Luxemburg, UK, Switzerland

Date: 06.21.2008

Loc: Skatepark Adrenalin, Moscow, Russia

Details: for all crews from Commonwealth of Independent States

Date: 06.29.2008

Loc: Roskilde Festival, Roskilde, Denmark

Details: for all crews from Denmark,Sweden, Finalnd and Norway.

When House meets Electro meets bamboo earrings meets rope chains meets conspicuously- dressed high fashion gals and guy-gals channeling the likes of Richard Avedon in a basement club, you’ve stumbled upon one of the most eclectic nights of the week! Hosted weekly by Nacho Biz, “self expression” means to turn up the volume – and by this I mean until the neighbors complain!

If you’re looking for another facet to L.A., then Mustache is sure to provide a cultural gathering of oddity and amazement. Homosexuals, heterosexuals, drag queens, androgyny, vogue battles and a great DJ rotation is sure to welcome you. The permeating sounds of Santogold, Yelle, Estelle and Fedde Le Grand waft through the downtown alleyways by DJ’s Victor Rodriguez, Josh Peace and Dino Dinco. Please note, spread like the red sea once the cat walking queer shenanigans begin.

This underground scene, literally, is a place to revel in the synergy of other like-minded cultural creators. Nestled in the historic downtown Los Angles district, this gathering of artists, dancers, singers, and oddity is surely worth a visit!

The weekly performances at midnight are certainly captivating and quite enough to keep coming back. Past performances have included Jonté, Le Tigre and resident club socialite, Fade-Dra, who continues to deliver every week — in about seven inch heels nonetheless.

More information here.

Evolving at fiberoptic lightspped, the Goth-Loli — or Goth-Lolita — movement in Japan is not longer just a ’style’, but an entire lifestyle, replete with outposts in other transcultural Japanese youth subcultures — punk, early American, cyber and even kimono.

Beyond even the best pages of Soichi Aoki’s Fruits — which introduced most of the world to the obsessively constructed, deeply theatrical costumes that pass for streetwear in Harajuku, Tokyo — the photographs of Masayuki Yoshinaga don’t just document the outerwear. They capture and communicate the the delicate balance of such Japanese youth subcultures — the frenzy of style, the studied poses for cameras and the surprising awkwardness when caught by Yoshinaga’s lens outside of those poses.

Partnering with TRACE magazine in celebration of our Erykah Badu and Q-Tip Art issue — free download here — the exhibition of Yoshinaga’s Goth-Loli series opens this evening in New York!

139 Norfolk Street
between Rivington and Stanton streets
New York

Here you have it…Biz’s Halloween Beat Of The Day, from Kidrobot’s super-superb Nick Jr. show “Yo Gabba Gabba“. This clip begs the question, can you ever really get enough Biz? OK maybe if you cloned him a thousand times, then cloned each of those clones a thousand times, I’m almost positive you’d get sick of dude beat-boxing at all hours of the night eventually.But let’s be realistic; that technology is like three or four years away, so yeah, there’s your answer. And I can hear him now, that destroyer of all things, that perpetual Man-Bastard, Rufus. I can see the scenario perfectly, in the theater of my mind. Rufus shouting across the way, perched atop his birdshit-stained stoop: “Yo Kasai, it’s spring time kid! Shit is like mad primaveral right now!” Oh Rufus, I’m well aware. I know, I’m mad late on this one. But if you ask me, the Gregorian calender’s a bunch of mularkey anyway. Besides, the way I get down, every day’s Halloween, ya heard? Now I just need a bat-hat like Biz’s and I’m in like Flynn.That and plastic surgery to make me look like the Count from Sesame Street. Yeah. I’m super serial.

Since founding TRACE in London circa 1996 with little more than a deep belief in Transculturalism, the Togo-born Claude Grunitzky’s word and philosophy have since grown into a global movement of tastemakers, culture stylers and — in a word — TRACERS.

But even as transculturals explode in music, politics and cultural cachet, shaping the world we live in a little more each day, you’ll still get two answers about what transcultural “is” if you ask two people.

So come hear it from Claude Grunitzky, the TRACE Chairman and Editor-in-Chief himself next Wednesday at the French Institute Alliance Française in New York, where he will be hosting a rare intimate conversation on Transculturalism for the World Nomads series.

More info here.

Wednesday, May 14th, 7:00 pm
French Institute Alliance Française
Le Skyroom
22 East 60th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues
New York, NY

Today marks the kick off of Washington D.C.’s Artomatic. Located in Northeast Washington D.C., Artomatic brings together visual artists, performers and musicians for a month-long multimedia arts event. Created in 1999 as a tool for bridging the gap between the arts and the public it has grown tremendously, and provides a place for artists to come together collectively and spread their talents amongst the D.C. community and those traveling from abroad.

What exactly happens at Artomatic? Well, the creators get an empty building and set up artists all over to perform and display their different art. Meanwhile, musicians and other performers are situated in the middle to set the mood. Artomatic showcases 2-D Visual and 3-D Stand Alone artists, poets, dancers, film, theater and much more. The biggest perk — besides experiencing amazing art and live performances, is that the entire event is completely free to the public!

This evening’s events will begin with a live performance by Avalon Parade and Stephaniesid at 6 p.m. It’s certainly an affair you wouldn’t want to miss. Artomatic lasts through to June 15th. For more information on how you can attend Artomatic click here.

In all seriousness, will.i.am’s celebrity-soaked “Yes We Can” video was amazing. But it was also, well, kind of serious. Just out as a solo project from Ti$a – front man of the three-man musical powerhouse known as Sa-Ra and a founding member of the group — and directed by graffiti man/DJ/hip hop producer/filmmaker Kenzo, “Obama Way” snags all the fun and irreverence that “Yes We Can” declined.

Despite intoning “this is real and not for play, I’m-a vote Obama way”, this video takes up a different spirit of all those Obama kids, some too young to vote themselves, who ended up spending school breaks knocking on doors in Texas and Ohio.

Here’s the thing: it doesn’t really feel like a publicity stunt. “Obama Way” has a political cut, but it’s also a sign that this ‘Obama Generation’ is not just a constituency group; it’s become the historical touchstone of a generation, a cultural reference for artists.

Also — best line ever: “We hood! We votin’! And throwin’ in up!”

Watch “Yes We Can” here here and “Obama Way“ here.

Amatus-sami has come a long way since she first learned the jazz standards from her dad, riding around in his taxi while he scatted along with the radio. Born in Chicago, raised in Philly and now living in New York, she’s risen the ranks as an electronically-inflected female producer and a hypnotic soul and hip-hop singer.

But along the way, this mixed Arabic, transcultural multi-talent has also picked up wisdom — including a few tips from ?uestlove, Barry Harris and Meshell Ndegeocello — and a mission: it’s hard for young artists to make it, harder now than in a long time.

With her debut album, “Everything in Pieces,” in the works, Amatus is also leading a charge to connect young artists and to seek support outside of an industry hesitant to compensate artists unless they produce cookie-cutter sounds and radio ephemera.

Check out the first in a series of events and fundraisers this Sunday, May 4th at Libation in New York with DJ Rich Medina, DJ Center and Amatus-sami herself. But before that, check out it out below as Amatus tell us about the music revolution, her addictive album and what web tech 2.0 has done to musicians.

TRACE: From your own experience with the industry, what needs to change?

Amatus-Sami: Everything! Artist development. Everything moves so quickly. There are a lot of talented people that don’t get to hang in there as much or get the opportunity that would take them, who knows, wherever they need to go. I don’t feel like people invest in the industry well and people don’t stick in the industry long enough to really feel it’s creativity span beyond just one genre.

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(UP)Rising Sonz! is no easy phenomenon to explain. Recently, it has become a book, but even in that form it becomes something more — a collection of connections made with images and ideas.

Created by Mark Felt and TRACE contributer, Scott Kinsey, (UP)Rising Sonz! feels like the lifebook of a micromovement or a mad roadtrip undertaken by ’soul skaters’ who travel through (sub)cultural and lingual borders by skating, experimenting with styles, making art and tagging up their urban global playgrounds.

In reality, UPRising Sonz! started as a simple creative endeavor to connect up with Japanese skaters, travel and kick around on a strong DIY tip.

We caught up with Scott to check in with his own thoughts on what (UP)Rising Sonz! is all about, what exactly a ‘Soul Skater’ is and what’s up with global youth subcultures.

Check out the book here.

TRACE: In your own words, what is (UP)Rising Sonz!?

Scott Kinsey: (UP)Rising Sonz! communicates so many things on so many different levels to each of us that was involved in its creation. We set out to create a project in which we could first and foremost, be creative and
we wanted to work with our friends to incorporate all the things that make us happy in life. The point of all this was to get lost in the moment…Lost in the art of it all with friends and family and share our experience and our art. (UP)Rising Sonz! is our window into the lifestyle of our friends and family. It is creativity, it is skateboarding, it is art, it is a lifestyle.

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Sometimes it takes little more than being in the right place at the right time to document history. So it was for photographer Martha Cooper in the early 70s, when she began taking pictures of the graffiti on New York’s subway cars and taglines on the walls.

Almost 40 years later, graffiti has more or less morphed from a pastime of ‘degenerate’ youth to a veritable art form, its influence seen throughout the art, fashion and design worlds. Starting this week at Gallerie Bailly in Paris, curator Hélène Bailly showcases a selection of Cooper’s photographs alongside thirteen, primarily French, artists who have either photographed graffiti, tagged something or have been influenced by it.

Other artists on display include L’Atlas, who has taken graffiti to express ideas both political and indelible, questioning culture in contemporary France and, Darco, one of Europe’s first great graffiti artists. A nice counterpoint to the New York-based images of the art form, “Taguer n’est pas Jouer” shows how graffiti inspires and is reinterpreted globally in addition to offering a slice of other street cultures.

Through May 24, Check it out.

Taguer n’est pas Jouer
Galerie Bailly
25 Quai Voltaire
Paris 75007

For more information on the show, click here.