Focus Of Street Art
There is a street art campaign which focuses on Andre the Giant, and artist/activist Shepard Fairey started it in Rhode Island during the late ‘90s. Stickering which features the stylized image of the late, great wrestler started appearing all over the world and has the phrase “Andre the Giant has a Posse.” At times, the wording just says “OBEY”. Explaining to Format magazine about how the meme started, Fairey said “The Andre the Giant sticker was just a spontaneous, happy accident. I was teaching a friend how to make stencils in the summer of 1989, and I looked for a picture to use in the newspaper, and there just happened to be an ad for wrestling with André the Giant and I told him that he should make a stencil of it…. I thought it was funny so I made the stencil and I made a few stickers and the group of guys I was hanging out with always called each other The Posse, so it said Andre the Giant Has a Posse, and it was sort of appropriated from hip-hop slang – Public Enemy, N.W.A and Ice-T were all using the word.”
Focus Of Street Art
A Rivalry With Kamala
In the 1980s, the legendary wrestler Kamala also fought against Andre and they had a rivalry for much of the decade. Calling himself a “headhunter,” Kamala wrestled while sporting a loincloth, full face paint, and bare feet. In recent times, Kamala has come out about the sexist and racist culture of wrestling, and mentioned Andre specifically: “Andre wasn’t the friendly guy that he appeared to be. He was real temperamental and had a nasty attitude. When I first started working with him, he called me a (derogatory) name in the ring and I beat him up. After that, I never had another problem with him. A lot of (top guys had problems with Andre too). He would just go out and mop the floor with people. He treated (wrestlers) nasty, and the fans too.” As a matter of fact, there are reports of Kamala and Andre having fistfights off the ring.
A Rivalry With Kamala
