From highway bombing to rappelling with Chicago graffiti writer SOPO.
It’s an early fall night in Chicago. The sky is clear, and the air is cool; summer has just begun to fade. Wearing a paint-covered jacket, SOPO is standing at the top of the Amtrak South Branch Bridge east of Canal Street. It’s a twisted metal structure from the early 1900s, which he had just spent the last hour climbing. Carefully, he anchors his ropes to the metal structure, preparing himself for what he is about to do. As he traverses the roof, setting up his equipment, the bag slung across his shoulder rattles quietly. It’s filled with cans of Rust-Oleum paint, known as Rustos. He usually paints with Rustos, in part because the paint is impossible to fully remove, but mostly because the cans are incredibly easy to “rack” — graffiti slang for stealing. After shaking the cans, he puts his climbing belt on, attaches himself to the anchored rope with ascension gear he racked, and steps to the edge of the tower. Shaking from the adrenaline, he eases himself over the edge until he is suspended, hanging freely over an almost 200-foot drop.
This was the fifth time he had ever rappelled, a technique that he had only taught himself about a month prior. By this time, he has already been painting Chicago for nearly five years.
SOPO started writing in 2018. “What got me first into graffiti was seeing tags around my high school. As a freshman coming into high school, that’s something I noticed a lot. I remember seeing the tags and being like, damn, I kinda wanna do that, too.” At first, he would catch small tags around his school, but as he kept writing, the rush of seeing his name up created the urge to start painting more visible spots across the city. In 2021 he started painting street spots, and by 2022 he was bombing the highways in full force.
Now highway spots are SOPO’s home.
It’s 4 a.m., and SOPO’s car is parked a few blocks west of the Jane M. Byrne Interchange. There’s a decent spot underneath the crisscrossed roads of the interchange that commuters will have no choice but to look at when they pass by. It’s a spot that Chicago writers paint frequently. He walks toward the highway with his fellow crew member SOME, who’s frustrated that they’re about to waste paint on a spot that will get buffed quickly. The two writers have painted spots together for most of their graffiti careers. Despite the “waste of paint,” they still paint the interchange wall. Through years of painting highways, SOPO has learned to avoid the state troopers that patrol the freeways. This particular spot is usually pretty chill.
Not every night is predictable, though. Last year, he got tased by a state trooper while running away from a highway spot. Although he got booked that night, he never received jail time, a court date or any kind of charge.
So far, in the nearly seven years he’s painted in Chicago, SOPO has never received anything stronger than a fine for graffiti.
SOPO says it’s actually pretty rare for people to get jail time for writing graffiti in Chicago. “When they [Chicago writers] get locked up, they’re gonna be locked up for an assault charge, a gun charge… man, always a gun charge, hella gun charges. Sometimes they might get locked up for possession with intent to sell… Like whenever a writer in Chicago gets locked up, 95% of the time it’s for other much worse crimes.”
“You know, I be doin’ the [racking] s——t, I’m more likely to get locked up for that than the graffiti s——t.”
Despite the negatives that come with it, SOPO only sees himself painting harder in the future. There’s nothing that compares to the adrenaline high he gets when painting a spot, especially if he rappels. “I mean, the whole time I’m rappelling I’m super scared, but as soon as I’m done, it’s the best feeling ever. It’s like I really accomplished something.”
As of 2025, SOPO has rappelled more than 20 times — not just in Chicago, but in Portland, St. Louis and Gary, as well.
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All photographs and header are provided by SOPO.
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