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Reading the Streets: Brazil’s hip-hop-obsessed twins, Os Gemeos

Os Gemeos, New York City, Photo by Ilana Novick
Os Gemeos, New York City, Photo by Ilana Novick

NEW YORK – For three blessed minutes each night in August, Brazilian street art twins Os Gemeos took over Times Square’s electronic billboards, replacing ads for cars, clothes, and comedies with their animated characters. The residency was beautiful but oddly timed; the images played only from 11:57pm-12:00am each night. I worried my inability to make it to Times Square at just the right time meant I’d missed the twins entirely, but fortunately Os Gemeos also graced 26 Second Avenue with a mural you can see anytime you like, at least until a 10-story building begins construction in the adjacent lot.

On the side of the building facing Houston Street is a lanky teenage boy wearing a backwards baseball hat and boom box slung across his shoulder like a purse, climbing his way out of the concrete. I remember those boom boxes perched on the shoulders of men walking below my fourth floor bedroom window, Run DMC, Public Enemy, and eventually Biggie Smalls blasting from the speakers, the beats mixing in with cars and buses.

Os Gemeos, New York City, Photo by Jamie Rojo via BrooklynStreetArt.com
Os Gemeos, New York City, Photo by Jamie Rojo via BrooklynStreetArt.com

The boy looks like he’s running away, climbing through the concrete of the building. I wondered if he might be running from something. Perhaps, like his creators, he’s a graffiti artist, running away from the scene of the last mural or tag. I don’t think he’s in danger—the hint of mischief in his eyes says he knows what he’s doing. Maybe he’s a ghost of one of the men with boom boxes, about to step into a changed city.

Os Gemeos’s Instagram page calls the mural an independent project that pays tribute to “to everyone that has made and continues to keep the real Hiphop alive!” No word from designers RSVP Studios or 24 Second Avenue owners AORE Holdings LLC as to when construction will start. If New Yorkers are lucky, maybe the ghost of hip-hop past can keep the eye-catching street-art mural alive just a little longer.

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