Roma Omnia Vincit: every corner of the city offers something different. Rome is rich and sumptuous, dirty and deranged, touristic and ancient, industrial and suburban, in short, a paradise where trash can demand artistic recognition. Since 1993 JB Rock and Diamond have been working as a crew known as TTS. TTS: The True Style, represents the spirit of their work and way of being. It symbolizes a life lived on the streets and their dedication to their vision. Their history is long and full of crazy stories, fun and absurd tales of arrests, pranks amongst friends, parties, delirium, and in particular, of living for the sake of their obsession, the addiction of bestowing art to the urban fabric and to make it when and where they please, giving a gift to a sleeping society. They work day and night both in the studio and on the streets to produce their unmistakable style. They have infiltrated the streets of the Eternal City and covered her walls with their Burlesque Punk scenes, images filled with sensual young girls whose flesh has been covered in the words and symbols of cryptic tattoos. It is with these of images that they have declared war on bourgeois respectability and have forced civil society to confront its values and adapt the morals of a more truthful and sincere underground.
Their entrance into the world of galleries and exhibitions has not compromised their ethics, but rather it has reinforced the facet of Street Art that concerns them the most: to be on the street and to conquer it. The concept of the gallery is essential to cultivating the acceptance of their work and street culture in general, where they have been from the beginning and where they will continue to grow, filling every possible and impossible space with speed and madness. When we first met we went out immediately to leave signs of our journey on the streets of the city. While some friends and I stood guard, JB Rock and Diamond filled various spaces with posters of at least two or three meters in height, if not larger. The energy and excitement of the evening kept us awake through the night and we continued to wander the streets well into the following afternoon. One thing that can be said for sure is that one is hard as Rock and the other sharp as Diamond. Marta Gargiulo