When Blondie declared 45 years ago that “Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody’s fly” in their hit song “Rapture,” they introduced the world to the pioneering cultural icon Fred Brathwaite, also known as Fab 5 Freddy. His creativity reshaped the worlds of art, style, and music. He’s the graffiti artist who turned subway tags into fine art, showing his work most recently at the Saatchi Gallery in London; the visionary behind Wild Style, the first hip-hop movie, and countless music videos; the bridge between Jean-Michel Basquiat and the downtown punk scene; and the first person to take rap global on MTV. 

Join Fab 5 Freddy for a special Cooper Union Gardiner Foundation Great Hall Forum event celebrating the release of his first memoir, Everybody’s Fly: A Life of Art, Music, and Changing the Culture. It is an essential, street-level cultural history into how New York’s underground art and music scene—guided by Fab 5 Freddy’s singular vision of what could be possible—irrevocably transformed mainstream culture from the late 1970s to today. He will be joined in conversation by Booker Prize-winning author Marlon James. Barnes & Noble Union Square will be on site with books available for purchase. 

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Registration on Eventbrite is required. However, an Eventbrite ticket does not guarantee entry as this is a first-come-first-served free event. 

Fred Brathwaite, also known as Fab 5 Freddy, is a pioneering graffiti artist who became one of the first to exhibit his paintings internationally. He co-produced, starred in, and composed the music for the cult classic film Wild Style, directed music videos for numerous hip-hop stars, including Snoop Dogg, KRS-One, Nas, and Queen Latifah, and was the original host of Yo! MTV Raps. Brathwaite lives in Harlem, where he continues to make visual art and produce and direct projects for film and television.

Jamaican-born novelist Marlon James is the author of the New York Times-bestseller Black Leopard, Red Wolf, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction in 2019. His novel A Brief History of Seven Killings won the 2015 Man Booker Prize. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for fiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction, and the Minnesota Book Award. His other award-winning books include The Book of Night Women and John Crow’s Devil.