ATL Stylewriters Jam celebrates graffiti culture and history on the Beltline

For generations, Atlanta’s stylewriters have treated the city’s walls, bridges and concrete corridors as canvases. Long before the Beltline became one of the city’s most ambitious public spaces, its abandoned railroad infrastructure served as a living gallery, marked by layers of graffiti that reflected the people, music and subcultures moving through Atlanta.

Celebrating that history becomes the main event November 6 through November 8 when the annual ATL Stylewriters Jam returns to the Beltline for its fifth year. 

Stylewriting is the art of transforming letters into visual compositions: spray painting stylish bends, intricate spatial relationships, color and rhythmic flair to give an artist’s or crew’s name or signature tag a distinct identity.

Over three days, artists from multiple generations of Atlanta’s stylewriting community will transform four locations along the Beltline and its Westside PATH Foundation connector, bringing a long-standing underground art form into a more visible public setting.

Organizer Naomi Perry helped establish the event in 2022, when the Beltline Inc. was looking for ways to celebrate hip-hop culture during its 50th anniversary. Originally from Hawaii, Perry moved to Atlanta in 2014. She discovered Atlanta’s underground stylewriter scene just by going out and discovering the city.

Perry saw an opportunity to bring attention to an artistic community whose work had been part of Atlanta’s urban landscape for decades but was rarely included in conversations about the city’s public art.

“As I started making my way around Atlanta’s art scene, I started wondering why the people I met weren’t being chosen for these types of Beltline opportunities and other opportunities in the city,” Perry says. “Being that stylewriting is such a significant part of the public art space and the public art story here, it seemed a natural fit.”

Perry adds that the anonymous nature of graffiti culture can make it difficult for artists to navigate traditional public art opportunities. Through an initial connection with Miranda Kyle, who at the time served as the Beltline’s arts and culture program manager and chief curator, Perry found a way to bridge that gap. Since then, she has served as a representative for the artists through the Atlanta StyleWriters Association, handling organization and logistics while allowing the painters to concentrate on their work. The Beltline pays the artists and provides paint and equipment needed to complete the work.

The first Stylewriters Jam took shape around a straightforward proposition: If the Beltline was celebrating hip-hop, stylewriting deserved a place in that conversation. Graffiti is one of hip-hop’s foundational elements, but its cultural reach extends beyond music. Its history intersects with skateboarding, fashion, streetwear and other underground communities that have helped shape Atlanta’s creative identity.

This year’s painting locations include the Berne St. SE bridge underpass on the Southwest Beltline trail; the Westside Connector tunnel at 11 Joseph E. Lowery Blvd.; the pillars at North Highland Avenue near Ladybird; and the Metropolitan Avenue bridge near Jamrock Jerk Center & Grill.

The weekend’s events place an emphasis on bringing together several generations of Atlanta stylewriters, reflecting a culture built on decades of shared history. SparkyZ, who has been writing since the early 1980s, will paint one side of the Metropolitan Avenue bridge alongside the artist Save1, whose work stretches back to the ’90s. On the opposite side, Zeus40, a Naples, Italy-based stylewriter who organizes a graffiti event in his hometown, will join more contemporary local artists Wane and Hiero.

Dr. Dax and Vayne will paint the pillars along North Highland Avenue. Meanwhile, at the Westside Connector tunnel beneath Joseph E. Lowery Blvd., Atlanta’s original graffiti crew, the United Kings, will join several more contemporary artists, including Wage, Never and Skie.

United Kings have been part of Atlanta’s graffiti landscape since 1983, helping establish a foundation for the city’s stylewriting culture.

“I’m really excited to get the community together,” Perry says. “It will be fun to have everyone out there — all different generations — vibing out together and celebrating what they love.”

The Stylewriters Jam serves as a gathering point for a community whose history is often passed down through personal connections, shared experiences and generations of painters. That generational exchange is central to the event’s purpose. The event recognizes stylewriting as a living culture that continues to evolve alongside the city.

For Perry, maintaining that presence is about ensuring that the history remains part of the city’s future.

“Maintaining representation on the Beltline, above all, is the main thing,” she says. “We don’t want this stylewriting presence that’s been in these tunnels and on these walls — long before the Beltline was even an idea — to be erased.”

The annual ATL Stylewriters Jam gives a nod to that history while giving artists an opportunity to continue shaping the spaces they helped define.

ATL StyleWriters Jam. November 6 through November 8 daily from noon to 8 p.m. Four activation sites along the Beltline include: Berne Street SE bridge underpass (Southeast Trail); 11 Joseph E. Lowery Blvd. NW (Westside Beltline Connector); Metropolitan Parkway SW (Southside Trail); North Highland Avenue NE bridge underpass (Eastside Trail).

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Chad Radford is an Atlanta-based music writer, editor and moderator whose work has chronicled the city’s music and cultural landscape for more than two decades. He is the author of Atlanta Record Stores: An Oral History, editor of the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap and former music editor for Creative Loafing. His writing has appeared in Atlanta magazine, Flagpole, Record Plug and others. A longtime advocate for independent music and local culture, Radford is also the founder and editor of RadATL, where he continues to document Atlanta’s musicians, venues, record stores and creative communities.