Marc André Edmonds (December 20, 1956 – April 18, 1994), also known by the graffiti name ALI and as J. Walter Negro,[1] “The Playin’ Brown Rapper”[2] was an American artist and musician.
(RTW went on to become one of the most famed and prolific of all New York City Subway graffiti clubs with membership including some of the best-known street artists citywide, such as REVOLT, ZEPHYR, MIN-ONE, QUIK, CRUNCH, RICH2, PADE, REGAL 192, BOE, SACH, KEL 139, EL 3, IZ THE WIZ, and HAZE.)
A cynical social observer with a quick wit, ALI coined the term "Zoo York"[5] to describe the absurdity displayed in the attitudes of New Yorkers during what he called the Sick Seventies.
The tunnel's naming occurred one night in early 1973, after several members of The Underground (UND), ALI, FINE and CRUNCH attended a showing of National Lampoon Lemmings, a new musical-comedy review at the Village Gate in downtown Manhattan.
The show (which starred future comic notables John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest) lampooned the Woodstock Festival that had taken place in upstate New York four years earlier, calling it "Woodchuck" and equating the entire hippie generation with lemmings bent on self-destruction.
A conglomeration of rap, hip hop, Latin funk and disco rock, the song features ALI as “Negro” rap-vocalizing about opening a fire hydrant with a monkey wrench and directing the water blast with a can to soak passing cars and pedestrians by "shooting the pump" at them.