#decentpeoples

Considering their constant endeavour to not restrict themselves to the typical avenues of promotion such as Facebook or Twitter it can be surprising for some that they have managed to amass such a following across the British Isles. For Decent Peoples however this is just a reflection of their principles. As they put it, "We are lucky enough to have a strong network & support from a few angles . We don’t just network online , We paint canvases through the week , print LTD runs of clothing , hit free art drops & also do a bit of painting on the streets ." So instead of being limited to the internet you might see it as part of everything. "We feel that integration with your generation is more important than for example a flyer through the door.” Considering how difficult it is to move around Leeds without coming across a flyer for something or another we found this to be one of the aspects of Decent Peoples that first drew us into their world most. 

"Decent Peoples isn’t really a name, its more a way of being…"

In order to really understand what Decent Peoples is all about, it’s important to understand the thinking behind their name. Rather than just a name plucked out of the air at a whim, its a description of the ultimate goal. As the Decent Peoples explained to us "Its far more about connecting to your unknown history rather than the next trend . So instead of all this crap that gets spat at you in the media , and eventually begins to numb you to the entire thing. Decent peoples it’s about putting the positivity out there . We’re creating a subculture of our own of Decent People.” They use their platform as a vehicle "So those who are doing good things for good reasons will hopefully get just as much of a voice or influence as those who are doing things for no good reason.”

"the Headz are just decent people who are there to be seen and considered..."

Their rapid and meteoric rise to prominence is a testament to how this thinking resonates among their fan base largely built up through word of mouth. To date they have put out over 100 pieces of free art. We asked why they give away these no-string-attached rarities and the answer was fairly simple. “ It’s nice to throw something out there expecting nothing in return . It’s so that a wandering walker can just pick it up , they might have walked the walk a hundred times and one day theres a painting there for them to take home or give to someone they think might like it. We rarely do, but when we do get personal feedback its really heart warming! As you get to hear a opinion about the Headz You’ve never heard.”

      Currently based across Bristol and Leeds, Decent Peoples are forced to deal with two distinct attitudes towards street art. In one hand in Bristol, it is welcomed with open arms. With designated areas for artists to practice their craft, this is a stark contrast to the climate for street art here in Leeds, a city where a highly restrictive council expend vast amounts of time and money keeping the streets and walls of the city clean. We asked Decent Peoples what they thought about the art scene in the city. "Leeds has got far more of an underground scene, like if you are in Bristol you will see it all, there is so much there that in fact, sometimes its hard for your stuff to be seen. We think Leeds could be more like that and it would work really well for so many businesses and different people who live and work here. We do feel that street art isn’t supported or allowed in Leeds. If the council just gave artists a public space and murals were supported , it would be better for the people and probably better for the council too...because then they wouldn’t be wasting time and money cleaning up the vandal side of graffiti & the people get coloured streets!”

"There’s not much here in Leeds in terms of street art, it had a nice music scene but now its mainly House and Garage ha..the parties here are still the best though!"

If We ponder the fact that “even if you look back in history, you can call cave paintings graffiti, and now writers get more than a slap on a wrist for drawing a picture on a wall.” It does begin to seem fairly ridiculous that there is such a negative stigma still assigned to street art. Especially as we can see examples across the UK and further afar the positive consequences that culture can have on the well being of a populace. Maybe as Decent Peoples suggested to us, it is something to with the way artists can be singled out and penalised for doing what they love: "If you could find them, instead fining them for doing something wrong, say “Look you have a passion for this, you are up everywhere, you clearly put yourself on the line for this,” it would be heroic to get them together and consider what positive things could be done with this drive for creation  instead of hunting writers down to be punished and locked away.

"Removal should go on majority instead of being put to a board behind closed door…"

One thing this attitude towards street art really reflects is the interesting double standard towards the medium that has steadily taken root. On one hand, the artists are denigrated by the media, labeled menaces and wastes of time. But on the other more and more clubs, shops & commercial entities are looking to integrate aspects of street art and graffiti into their artistic visions. We asked Decent Peoples where they fell on this debate: “It’s totally relative to the person viewing whether they call it art or a mess...Theres a group of painters in the UK who aren’t really seen as graffiti writers , however they’re bringing a massive section to the table of graffiti, hitting it from a more structured side. They get to have the best of both worlds, if you are going to try and be seen and try and have it as a business, you have to find a balance between the different sides, which is why some writers lose the underground credibility. The second you put yourself out there in a commercial scene, part of your ruthlessness gets lost with it. In our opinion music and art are the most important things in  this world… You have to remember there are plenty of bedroom heroes. Unbelievable writers who will pour hours into a blackbook, laying down the sickest concepts / pieces , but they’ll never get out to paint them on a wall or a large scale down to the way that this form of art is seen as vandalism.”

      Although the first half of 2013 was a relatively quiet one the momentum that they built up in the tail-end of the year has well and truly followed through into 2014. We asked what plans they had forthcoming, bringing the Headz into a festival or club night near you, and what the experience has been like so far. "Over the last few months we’ve been able to get into a better workspace and a much better mindset. Most importantly, We are creating again!!!! You have to be in the right mindset to work , if you have negative factors impacting your life it will restrict your movement. You just need to be strong & cut out anything that takes your energy. Now we have done that , we can work on the important things. For the last part of the year we have been working for Highrise , the Hotbox and a couple other events, it’s good working with events but it can be difficult if they haven’t worked with art before."

  One thing you may have noticed if you have ever had a glance over the Decent Peoples Facebook is the variety of surfaces they use to realise their vision. We wanted to know what it was like getting off the canvas and onto objects: “When you are painting on a wall opposed to canvases its a lot more therapeutic. Especially if you are doing it for yourself or for fun. When we go and do walls for fun we never plan the piece, it just comes out. You just hit it with a big roller then put down an outline & fill them, from there we figure the outlines. It can take hours sometimes but it’s just really good to just clear our heads. When you work on new objects / are painting commissions , it can be a bit more intense & you’re usually better off having better vision in your mind or sometimes planning the piece, mainly because you can’t & dont want to fuck it up !!! With a wall You can go back to it, or paint over it or whatever, but when you're painting for someone else on something, it’s fun but you have to paint something they like so you're kind of shitting yourself a bit at times haha…"

"It’s important to know your design rate and not over-run it or you could get ahead of yourself, then find it hard to grow on your own again." 

Currently collaborating with artists from all over Europe on various projects Decent peoples have a smorgasbord of projects brewing behind the scenes. We wanted to know how important they think collaboration is: "Collaboration is really important!!!! When you collaborate you get to see something totally new with a more or less unpredicted outcome which can bring you a quick exposure or growth . However its really important to remain true to your own design elements. Sometimes a collab piece might be ahead of its time, We have a few hidden away awaiting the right time to be dropped. There is a project that we are working on at the moment called collaboration nation, it’s all on Facebook and is a selected wing of artists pretty much from up and down the country all forming exclusive sets of work . It’s quite cool, you start  with a small section of a page and then your illustration will be sent around to 3 other artists to add to, you’ll also be sent pieces to complete then the final images will be published. This is a good way to collaborate as you have little to no choice of who you are sent on to! Mystery is fantastic!” 

"We’ve got a good network of people who are going to be submitting , making, playing , singing & collaborating on the tracks . It’s a collective of what’s going on now in our generation."

Currently living without TV or radio, Decent Peoples simply don’t hear much popular music. They put this down to the fact that: "It’s preachy and quite filled with profanity, dirt and smut !! Not really what you want on open-air daytime radio. We don’t want the children or world hearing this kinda stuff and thinking these things are normal or okay...We call it loose-living  (not in a positive way) and we think it cant be good to live loose all the time…”. In light of this, we asked them what music actually interested them: "Music to us means a journey through sound. We can be found digging tracks through most genres, although currently we are mainly  listening to stuff based between hip-hop , jazz and instrumentals. Our boy CHRO, (one of the Decent Peoples from the west based in Bristol ), makes incredible hip-hop which is just timeless . The way he makes the tracks somehow seems to suspend time.You can be in a zone with this music and get a lot done, the pace of it just gets you into the right place. We are working on a couple of albums of our own, with quite a few musicians featuring on DecentBeatz from around the UK & Europe. It’s thoughtful and emotive & positive, although we don’t want to say too much about the album just yet because it’s still being refined, but there’s always going to be hints about drops but it depends on whether or not you are looking out for them! So who knows maybe soon things might make sense hahaha…"

<a href="http://chro.bandcamp.com/track/exodus" data-mce-href="http://chro.bandcamp.com/track/exodus">Exodus by Chro</a>

  As they are making their debut foray into the independent music market, we wanted to know their opinion on whether the increase in artists, putting two fingers up to the major record labels, and taking it into their own hands to press and distribute their own music would lead to an eventual tipping in the power scales: "It’s hard to keep something small, when things do really well inevitably there will be progress, so the scales could be tipped. If everything that was made was judged as music instead of rated because someone famous put it out it could be judged on a level playing field without genres, it could help but who knows maybe it was like that before and now it’s like this cause its how it works best. From another side it looks like sometimes just being signed to a label can ruin things for an artist . Seems as though singers in the media are told to do this and make something like that. Things get produced that the artist would never really otherwise release so they can do well in the media . Thats what we think the TV is like now, either it's scary or loose. Sex sells but surely what you’re selling cant be that good if You’re relying on sex to sell it ???”

      What is really clear for us here at MisDigest is that Decent Peoples are a shining example of counter-culture done right. Their artwork, be it here in Leeds, on the streets, or online in cyberspace serves to lighten up the days of their thousands of supporters. We look forward to future works & the drop of the Decent Beatz album. It's sure to be another example that when good people get together to do something that they are truly passionate about, without the sole motive of making money or doing something “cool", great things can happen.

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