San Francisco Music Blog

This week, an exclusive dispatch from San Francisco artists Telephone and Soup (most notable for having unleashed Shitty Kitty on the world), who are currently doing time in Morocco:

We're in the city of Rabat for the next four months, finishing up our upcoming graphic novel ("To Timbuktu") and researching for another book. When we're not working on all that, we've been walking the streets.

We've noticed a lot of the tags in the 'old city' are for the local soccer clubs. For example, here is Rabat's team, "FAR," right below Coke's Arabic logo:

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Once we started looking, we began to see FAR everywhere. Like here, behind that guy in the big yellow slippers (hey, it's traditional) on Avenue Mohammed V:

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Seriously, everywhere:
​Unfortunately, it seems like the bubble-letter graffiti look is taking hold. (Fortunately, so are guitars and pirates?)

​Honestly, we've gotten really good at spotting "FAR"s all around. Can you find it in this one?

​We've recently been told (by a non-Rabat) that everyone not from Rabat thinks Rabatis are assholes. This may explain why we saw neighboring Kenitra's club, "KAC", tagged all over one of the many commuter trains between the two cities.

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​They really went to town on the car. Of course, after that we started to see "KAC" everywhere. Here it is on one of the many pushcarts in the Rabat 'old city'. Bold, no? That's totally FAR turf.
​Wait-- now Barca and Madrid fans are getting into the fray? It looks like we're going to have to pick a team soon even if we could give a shit about soccer. We mean football. Whatever. GO FAR!!!!

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Is it just me or does graffiti in ancient cities feel more visceral? Like, they don't have art schools on every block and they don't have art supply boutiques on every block and they don't have graffiti-inspired clothing and ad campaigns around every corner. So this stuff really comes from the heart, right? Epicly genuine, like outsider art or something.

Thanks to Telephone and Soup for sharing all of this. Visit their website for more good stuff, and tune in next week when they show us what's up with the Moroccan stencil scene.