Wake Self by Desi. photo: Abakus

On November 3rd, Southwestern hip-hop rising star Wake Self–aka Andrew Martinez–was fatally injured in a car accident  in Santa Fe New Mexico, reportedly caused by a drunk driver who swerved into oncoming traffic, striking the car Martinez was driving. Martinez had just completed his latest album, ironically titled Ready to Live, and was preparing for its release party when tragedy struck. 

The incident shook the tight-knit Southwestern hip-hop community where Martinez had become a familiar figure, and sent ripples of anguish throughout the larger hip-hop world, as HipHopDX reported <>.

In response, the aerosol community showed up to pay tribute to their fallen friend; numerous pieces honoring Martinez soon sprung up, including a two-story mural in New Mexico. 

CRP founder and Director Desi Mundo, an associate of Martinez, recently painted his own tribute piece in Richmond, CA. “

Mundo recalled meeting Martinez in the early 2000s: “When I met (former CRP member) Mike (360), he was with Wake and his partner Def-i, and they were all in a group called Breathe Deep, which is (a) beatboxing and rapping (outfit). Def-i and Wake, when it was just the two of them, they were called Definition Rare. They also did some solo stuff.

“I had seen some of the pieces that had already come out for Wake, those are dope. I saw a couple freights that people did. But they were all straight letters. They were all simple and readable. And I wanted to do something which was as deep as he got.”

“He stayed at my house for like a week,” Mundo said, during which time the two hung out and got to know each other. Over the years, Mundo says, he stayed up on Martinez’ projects through social media.

“He was just a cool dude. He was really really humble, really really about his shit,(he)  made whole albums about respecting women, instead of just one that one track that people do every once in a while. He was just a good dude.”

Art: Desi. Photo: Abakus

Mundo went on to say, “when one of the people from our community dies, the homies come out and represent.”

“Those Foundation of Freedom guys they’re really multidisciplinary. They can rap, some of them paint, they can break. They engage in all elements of hip-hop. I was thinking about his style as a rapper, in a spray paint form.”

Before painting his tribute, he says, “I went back and listened to a lot of his songs on YouTube. I was really moved a lot by what he was saying about women, that really resonated. He has a song called “Malala,” which is actually not so much about Malala Yusuf as it sounds, but that was actually the name of his album. He had a portrait done by one of the homies out there. He was just serious about uplifting consciousness, he was very open about his struggles, And he was just probably one of the humblest dudes you’ll ever meet.  For getting around and doing what he did,and being who he was in that community, he never had some big head about it.”

“I had those memories of him, good times, kicking it with him a few times that I remember from hearing them perform. One of the things those guys were known for  is they rapped really really fast. Not Bone Thugs fast, but they jammed a lot of words in each bar. Kind of like a wild style. If you think of a real elaborate piece, in lettering, the way that they rapped was like unreadable. It was super fast and complex and intricate. It had all this depth woven inside of it.” 

Martinez grew up in abject poverty– as a child, his family residence had no carpet, just a dirt floor– and considered himself a believer in “miracles” due to surviving a near-fatal case of water poisoning at the age of six months. In addition to Breathe Deep and Definition Rare, Martinez was also part of a collective called Foundation of Freedom, which Mundo says were “one of the key (hip-hop) groups that connected me to the Southwest.”.

“ I had seen some of the pieces that had already come out for Wake, those are dope. Paris went out, Strike went out, I saw a couple freights that people did. But they were all straight letters. They were all simple and readable. And I wanted to do something which was as deep as he got. Complex.

Wake Self tribute by Desi. Photo: Abakus

“Those Foundation of Freedom guys they’re really multidisciplinary. They can rap, some of them paint, they can break. They engage in all elements of hip-hop. I was thinking about his style as a rapper, in a spray paint form.”