Meet Our Friends with Mr. Kaves McLeer
Meet Our Friends, our series spotlighting NYC originals who move culture. Michael “Kaves” McLeer is a South Brooklyn artist who’s carried the city’s soul across graffiti, music, painting, and beyond.
A Note from FFNY
Welcome back to Meet Our Friends, our series spotlighting the made-in-NYC creatives who carry the spirit of the city in everything they do. Today, we’re proud to feature Michael “Kaves” McLeer.
Graf writer. MC. Painter. Storyteller. Kaves has always been a vessel for Brooklyn—and for New York itself. From tagging trains at 11 to building The Brooklyn Pop, he’s spent decades turning broken things into beautiful ones. Graffiti, music, street culture, family legacy—he’s lived it all and somehow made it one piece.
This is his Brooklyn dream. And you can experience it firsthand at Industry City. The Brooklyn Pop exhibit is the future of experiential museum-going. Plus, catch the next performance of A Brooklyn Dream—an intimate immersive play—on May 31st. If you love NYC like we do, this is not to be missed. Tickets here
Now, let’s talk June. Because we need real reasons to get together, see each other, and hang out.
Friday, June 13th — we’re packed with fun!
DAY 12-7PM
We’re teaming up again with our friends at Grillo’s Pickles for a full-day takeover at 2 Rivington St. Expect in-store action, food, and style.
Live custom T-shirt making, Food by NYC sandwich legends Alidoro pickles galore, gear, and FRIENDS!
NIGHT 9PM
We do what we do best. DANCE.
We’re throwing our Summer Kickoff Party at Home Sweet Home (131 Christie St) starting at 9PM, unofficially following the Empire Skate Tribeca screening.
Soundtrack by the legend himself: DJ Eli Escobar
Summer’s about to scatter you people. So come dance, sweat, and connect while we’ve got the chance.
Friday the 13th. Don’t miss it.
See you on the dance floor. RSVP HERE
Now on to our interview with Michael ‘KAVES’ McLeer.
Where did the name Kaves come from—and what did it mean to you when you first wrote it?
My parents split when I was 10. My father was an aspiring gangster and my mother, a hippie with soul. She moved us back to her old block in Bay Ridge and I felt lost.
Graffiti was exploding in 1980 and by chance I landed on a block with a crew called The Bad Racket. The head of the crew saw something in me and gave me the name KAVS, a name retired by his brother.
I was baptized in the street. I wasn’t lost anymore. Under the Verrazano, behind JJ Carty Park, we had our own gallery inside the base of the bridge. The kids called it the caves.
I liked the sound of that. In ’82/83, I added the “E” and became KAVES. Graffiti saved my life. It gave me a voice, a purpose and a mission to be one of the best in South Brooklyn.
What first pulled you into making art—was it graffiti or something else?
I’ve been drawing since before I could walk. My father took me to the racetrack and I’d draw the horses.
Legend has it, he once won on a horse I sketched. I come from a family full of charisma and raw talent.
How do your painting, music, and The Brooklyn Pop all connect?
I’ve always been a storyteller through different mediums and
The Brooklyn Pop is my biggest project yet.
It is a way to celebrate Brooklyn and pull all my worlds of art, music and film together.
It’s a fourth-dimensional piece of work where you don’t just view art, you walk through it. Everything I’ve done up to this point has led to this.
What’s The Brooklyn Pop really about—to you?
It’s about a Brooklyn dream. A love letter to the borough that raised me and almost broke me. It’s for the ones who never got their flowers. For the culture that shaped us and the dreams we’re still chasing.
It’s about turning something broken into something beautiful and proving we mattered.
What do you want people to really understand about the Brooklyn you came from?
Brooklyn became a global brand but before it was hip, it was hop. Williamsburg and Greenpoint didn’t define us.
The dreamers, the strugglers and the builders did.
I wanted to show what made Brooklyn so cool in the first place.
I did that by telling my family’s three-generation journey.
Our own Brooklyn dream stitched together by sacrifice and survival.
Friends From New York started as a dance party—what’s one New York club or party from back in the day that shaped you?
1988. Ernie Barry’s in Bay Ridge.
I brought Public Enemy to South Brooklyn and it turned the place upside down.
It was like a movie. That moment gave me a new direction one that changed everything. That is when I started the Lordz of Brooklyn.
And if you could of experienced a party or club from another era what would you of checked out?
I would rock with The Clash at Bonds in 1981
Where do you go when you need to recharge your creativity?
As a kid, I’d climb to my rooftop, looking at the Verrazano Bridge like it was a portal to the world. It gave me hope. I still live nearby.
You might catch me on Tony’s bench, still talking to that bridge.
That’s where I reset.
What’s your NYC theme song?
New York Groove, the Lordz of Brooklyn cover of the KISS classic.
My parents took me and my brother to our first KISS concert in ’77 at Madison Square Garden. That song brings it all back.
Favorite New York movie?
Saturday Night Fever. SNF was filmed in my neighborhood. I watched them shoot Staying Alive too. It wasn’t just disco, it was about a Bay Ridge kid with a dream, just like me. Only my dance floor was a train yard and my fame came from a spray can.
What do you think the future of New York looks like?
New York keeps changing but its roots are solid. It’s still the birthplace of the world’s rawest street cultures.
There are stories buried in every block.
The Brooklyn motto is in unity there is strength. The magic’s still here we just have to protect it.
If you could walk the streets of nyc w any historical New Yorker who would it be and what you see or talk about
I would take a walk on the wild side with Lou Reed (just playing)
If you could only eat at one NYC restaurant forever, where are you going?
The Brooklyn Firefly. Not just because it’s mine but because it’s family.
It’s where our stories are baked into the crust, the love’s in the sauce and the jukebox never lets you down.
This is Friends From New York—who’s someone you want to shout out or think we should know?
My family. My wife, the secret in my sauce. My brother Adam, a lifelong collaborator. My kid brother Andrew, he taught us how to be fearless.
My sister Crissy, for holding down the Firefly along with my son Blaise, who is the pizza chef along with chef Vincent Bolognese.
And my son Quinn, who plays me in the immersive play, A Brooklyn Dream at The Brooklyn Pop.
He crushed it. I’m beyond proud.
Keep your ears open for him and my nephews, the next generation of Lordz of Brooklyn is already making noise.
What do you want the city to remember about you?
That I was one of its own. That I stayed true to the block that made me.
And that I gave Brooklyn everything I had.