SP.One is a writer from New York City who lived and wrote in Boston for approximately five years in the early 1990's. During that time he published Skills magazine, probably the earliest and most widely known magazine to come out of Boston.

I started the magazine because I had the opportunity, a kid that I graduated college with, a year before, he worked at a Copy Cop, and we were out of touch and then somehow I spoke to him or bumped into him or something like that, and he was the night manager at a Copy Cop, And I guess I was already doing shit up there, and he was like "if you ever want to make some color copies or anything just come by, because I'm usually here alone at night." And so I basically just opened up to the idea because I was like fuck, I could make something, actually make like a little book. But then I was like damn, I don't want to overwhelm this guy, overuse a favor. So I pursued the idea, I said yo I want to make this thing about Boston, I did the first magazine, which I ended up making there, we only made like a hundred of, I think which was like six or eight pages. He was down. He was just down to do it.

We ended up doing the first issue which was all Boston. Because in a lot of ways, to me, and obviously I've been thinking about this and everything, I definitely, when I came up there, since I was coming from New York, I was definitely always down with piecing, and I always could do letters, and maybe even a lot better than a lot of the people I hung out with, and we were bombing trains and bombing, doing stuff like that, it was just more about bombing, and doing insides, and doing fill ins and stuff like that. Because, I would go to lay-ups and I'd want to do a piece, but dudes would do throwups and they would be like four or five cars down the thing, and there would be no room left for me, you know what I mean, so you'd kind of have to keep up with everybody.

When I got to Boston a few years later, I definitely started piecing more. I definitely to a large extent honed my skills there. And bombing and throwups and piecing, I was definitely into everything, a lot. that was the direction the magazine went. I thought [Skills was a good title because it could encompass anything. When I first started doing it , it was like lets just make this little thing, about Boston, because I had the opportunity, there was really no "I want to do this, I have this plan." it was something , which was kind of the amazing thing, that it just came out of nothing. The first issue we made 100, the second issue we made 250, the third issue we made 750, the fourth issue we made like almost 1000, you don't know dude. Issue three and four were like 16, 18, 24 pages, I don't remember, I mean it's color copy and Xerox, but it's like yo man, we ganked that place.

The first place that sold it was Placid Planet, and they kind of pimped it, and people just started feeling it, I think. And at that point, in 92, when I started [Skills], people were bombing. I guess to some extent maybe after the fact that the magazine started that inspired some kids or other kids were exposed to it that maybe weren't before especially bombing and all kinds of different stuff, and if that had any impact I guess that's cool. Obviously Boston's a college town and a lot of people come there, and I think at that time a lot of people were having influence. KR and Shok were there, and they bombed, and at that point I guess the old school was already out, from the way people explain it to me, there were old writers in Boston in the 80's, and it kind of died out, I don't know if this is 100% true, but it kind of fazed out. And then in the early 90's I guess a lot of people came off, this dude Ryze got a lot of fame, and everyone started hating him because he got famous, I'm not saying he extorted it, but definitely these dudes had something. And then me coming out there, I hooked up with [Ryze], I hooked up with a lot of different people, and getting the whole idea of actually doing pieces, and doing productions and doing characters on walls. Which I had done pieces, but definitely not as many as when I came to Boston. When I look at it, it's like I did a pretty thorough job, I teamed up with a lot of different people. [now] I don't see Sly that often... but at one point it was like every night "yo what are you doing? all right pick me up, I'll meet you here we'll do this we'll do that." I was always one that always seemed to stay constant with it, whereas people would come in and out, and me and Sly definitely got into a bit of trouble with it, Nancy definitely finagled a way for us to get in trouble, so that might have curtailed some of the activity I suppose.

Basically it's like I did a lot of painting with Ryze when I was first there, I did a lot of painting with Sly when I was there, kind of partners type things, I did a lot of painting with Alert, and I did a lot of pieces with Wombat and these guys. When that shit was going on in 92 there were definitely other writers from New York, I don't know how much of an influence they had, there was Hask, these guys Bust and TM and Spin came up from Brooklyn, and they dropped a mega bomb, and Hops, so it seems like there was some sort of influence, whether it was New York, or seeing other shit. People started doing fill ins. I remember people bugging on me most was the spots I used to hit when I first got there, because I would be like "yo paint this spot" and dudes would be like "yo yo yo lets paint this spot because it's big and right on the street" but I'd be like yo, they paint that spot. I was all about perm spots, I remember Alert and other people, being like perm spots. Hit a spot where it's going to stay. You knew walls. You look at an old wall that has like an old Zone or a 2Mad tag and you know this wall's going to run, because you know they haven't buffed this wall since god knows when. They've cleaned a lot of shit up there, but I still have a few old tags up.

Obviously there were other magazines out before mine but at that point for some reason magazines became real hot. That's when shit was happening and people started taking shit seriously and make quality shit. now it's clearly, for when I was making [Skills] I feel it was quality, but in this day and age people have far superior quality than what I was doing. Sometimes I see people on line talking about magazines, what's your favorite magazine ever, you hear a lot of people say Can Control and this that and the other thing but I saw a couple of people and they were like yo the last issue of Skills. I'm just like, Oh shit, that's ill. Good for you. I bug out on it.
I used to bug out doing the magazine, it was a very grass roots thing, it was born out of that Copy Cop, we did it there until finally I was like yo, we're going to make a magazine, and we printed 5000 in the first real run.

In the beginning I was just distribute it myself, I would take my car and hit stores of in Boston, and then I would drive to New York, I'd go to Rhode Island, I'd go to Connecticut, I'd go to New Jersey, I'd got to Philadelphia.

The issue after that grew, and after that, and I had distributors, it was real, and it was cool. But I guess at that point, I also felt too in Boston, I guess being used to New York or being used to a big city I was just like damn I felt like I had done everything there was to do there, I could go to any club for free, I had mad drink tickets. It was a nice feeling, it wasn't like it was bad. I remember people seeing me and Wombat and Sly or whoever, we'd see other writers at clubs or at parties and it's like oh, the elite, people would be saying shit, and I'd be like, this is pretty funny.