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Goldie May Have Accidentally Revealed Banksy's Identity

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Photo of Goldie by Chelone Wolf.

The mystery surrounding the identity of British graffiti icon Banksy may have just been solved, thanks to drum and bass pioneer Goldie.

While being interviewed this past Tuesday on British spoken word artist Scroobius Pip's Distraction Pieces podcast, the veteran DJ-producer got to talking about the art world's commodification of graffiti, a still much-maligned art form.

"Something like graffiti, which has inspired the world with font or anything to do with anyone wearing a baseball cap and sneakers, at its center it is still misunderstood," said Goldie. "Give me a bubble letter and put it on a T-shirt and write 'Banksy' on it and we're sorted. We can sell it now. No disrespect to Robert, I think he is a brilliant artist. I think he has flipped the world of art over."

The Robert he's thought to be referring to is Robert Del Naja, who's most known as Massive Attack member 3D. Del Naja was a renowned graffiti artist in Bristol before joining Massive Attack, and he called Banksy a "close friend" in a 2008 interview.

Last year, Glaswegian journalism student Craig Williams published a highly circulated blog post also claiming Del Naja to be Banksy—or at the very least, the head of a collective of artists doing work in the name of Banksy—citing Massive Attack's tour dates and corresponding mural locations as evidence.

THUMP has reached out to Goldie's team for comment.