In 2013, on a park wall, WEKX painted over a piece by SMITE.
SMITE is one of the most respected graffiti writers on the post-Soviet scene — a founding member of True Stilo, one of the oldest crews in Belarus, based in Minsk. His style is known for something rare: staple forms that stay readable and elegant while carrying serious fill work. Clean, considered, the kind of writing that takes years to develop and longer to be recognised for.
WEKX was 2013. First experiments with volume style, early work, the confidence that comes before full competence arrives. The piece that went over SMITE's wall was one of the first attempts at something more complex — and it went on top of work that was, by any honest measure, stronger.
This post is about that. Not as a confession, but as a case study in one of the oldest and least discussed dynamics in graffiti culture: the gap between how good you think you are and how good you actually are — and what happens when that gap lands on someone else's wall.
The unwritten rules of graffiti — what going over someone actually means
Graffiti culture is built on graffiti hierarchy — an unwritten code of graffiti respect that determines whose work stays and whose gets buried. Going over graffiti is not neutral; graffiti reputation is built or destroyed by exactly these decisions.
This is not a written law — there is no graffiti rulebook, no governing body, no enforcement mechanism. Crossing someone out is not an accident. It is a declaration. The culture polices itself through reputation: who you go over, and whether what you put up in its place was worth it, follows you.
The graffiti unwritten rules are clear on hierarchy: throw-ups go over tags, pieces go over throw-ups, and burners go over pieces. If you can't do something better than the last person, leave it alone. The hierarchy exists not to protect egos but to protect the quality of what's on the wall. When a weaker piece replaces a stronger one, the wall loses. The culture loses. And the writer who did it earns a reputation they didn't intend.
Why young writers go over people they shouldn't
The honest answer is not disrespect — or not usually. It's a specific kind of miscalibration that happens early in a writing career: you overestimate your own work and underestimate the work of the person whose spot you're taking.
At a certain point in development, a writer knows enough to see complexity in their own pieces — the hours, the decisions, the things that went right — but not yet enough to read the same complexity in the work of a more experienced writer. SMITE's staple forms look clean and direct. To an inexperienced eye, clean and direct can read as simple. It isn't. Following the ethics of graffiti culture demonstrates to others that you are willing to give respect first. By going over people, especially while you're still new, you lose respect from the wider graffiti community.
What you can't see at that stage — and what only time teaches you to see — is that the elegance of experienced work is the result of everything being removed that didn't need to be there. Simplicity in graffiti lettering is harder than complexity. A letter that reads clearly and carries a fill with depth while staying elegant is more difficult to produce than a letter that is complex and busy. You learn this by watching writers you respect at work, by comparing your own work to theirs year after year, and sometimes by going over someone you shouldn't have and understanding it only afterwards.
There is a footnote to this session. TASH was there that day — not as the main writer, but painting alongside, helping with the background and parts of the fill, the way crew sessions often work. At that point TASH had more experience and had spent more time studying writers, their styles, how they approached their work. That context made the situation on the wall readable in a way it wasn't yet for WEKX: the piece underneath was by someone serious, with a reputation that extended well beyond that park wall. The advice was to leave it, find another wall in the same park, paint next to it rather than over it. WEKX went ahead anyway. This is not a criticism — it's how experience gets transmitted, or sometimes doesn't. You can have the information. You still have to be ready to hear it.
Graffiti respect — what it actually means and how it's earned
A real graffiti writer studies the city before touching it. Respecting the wall means knowing where you paint, why you paint there, and what existed before you. The city is not empty — it remembers.
Graffiti respect is not given based on age or time in the culture. It's given based on what's on the wall. Never paint over graffiti you cannot outdo. SMITE's reputation — built across years, across cities, as part of one of the oldest graffiti crews in the region — represents exactly the kind of history that a wall holds. To paint over graffiti of that quality without that context is not neutral. It's a statement made without enough information to make it correctly.
The WEKX piece from 2013 was not a diss. It was the work of a writer at an early stage who didn't yet have the cultural knowledge to read what was underneath it. That distinction matters — intent is not the same as impact — but it doesn't change what happened on the wall.
What this means for writers starting out
Know your city's walls before you touch them. Not just visually — know who painted what, when, and what their work means in the local context. Old-school writers are given respect for being there when it all started. You don't need to imitate them but you must never ignore them. Without roots, graffiti becomes empty decoration.
If you're going to go over someone, the standard is simple: what you put up has to be better. Not slightly better — clearly better, in a way that anyone who knows the culture would agree on. If you're not certain you can meet that standard, find another wall in the same park.
And if you've already gone over someone you shouldn't have — the way forward is to paint better, consistently, over time. Graffiti reputation is not fixed. It's built. What WEKX painted in 2013 is part of the record. What comes after it is too.
P.S. Below is an example of SMITE's work — to give you a sense of the level we're talking about.
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