‘It’s been called the greatest hip-hop film ever’: how we made cult graffiti classic Wild Style

‘It became a huge global thing’ … a scene from the 1983 film. Photograph: Cathy Campbell

Frederick Brathwaite AKA Fab 5 Freddy, concept, actor, musical director

I was part of the New York graffiti artists the Fabulous 5, who were primarily known for painting whole subway cars on the Lexington Avenue line. Lee Quiñones was the group’s Michelangelo. I’d been running with Jean-Michel Basquiat and wanted to take graffiti art into art spaces. I thought that an underground independent film could tell our story in the way we wanted.