Along with other Fabulous 5 member Lee Quiñones, under his direction they began to shift from street graffiti to transition into the art world and in 1979 they both exhibited in a prestigious gallery in Rome, Italy, Galleria LaMedusa.

[7] In late 1980, Glenn O'Brien cast Freddy, along with fellow Lower East Side graffiti writer Quiñones, in the film New York Beat (later released as Downtown 81).

"[8] As recounted in the 1999 TV documentary The Hip Hop Years, the "Rapture" video featured Freddy in a cameo role painting graffiti art in the background.

[9] Freddy connected with New York underground filmmaker Charlie Ahearn, who he had met at The Times Square Show, and they began production on the film Wild Style (1983) in 1981, which showcased artist Quiñones in the Uptown, Manhattan, environment of the Bronx and the burgeoning hip-hop culture.

[10] The movie Wild Style, the first film to illustrate hip hop culture, grew from an idea Freddy had to refute the negative depiction of New York City's urban youth and to link for the first time break dancing, rapping, DJing and graffiti under one umbrella or branches from the same tree.

Freddy created the film's original music, co-produced and ended up in one of the leading roles as the charismatic Bronx hip hop club promoter and former graffiti artist, Phade.

In April 1981, Freddy co-curated with Futura 2000 the graffiti-related art show Beyond Words, at the Mudd Club which contained their own work along with Basquiat, Rammellzee, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and others.

When the beat stops in Beside's version of the song, it is disputed[12][13] as to whether Freddy or Laswell’s manager says "Ahhhhh, this stuff is really fresh", a line which is quite possibly the most scratched sample in the history of hip-hop music.

[15] That year he was the subject of an extensive profile by Susan Orlean in The New Yorker which began with the sentence "The coolest person in New York at the moment is a man named Fred Brathwaite.

[19] On August 11, 2017, an animated version of Freddy appeared in a Google Doodle as a narrator, which observed the 44th anniversary of DJ Kool Herc's pioneering use of the hip-hop break.

[20] In 2019, coinciding with the release of his Netflix film Grass Is Greener,[21] Freddy served as creative director for the full-size hip hop photography and culture exhibit entitled, Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop,[22] based on the 2018 book of the same name created and written by Vikki Tobak (published by Clarkson Potter).