This work is a reflection on the rise and consolidation of graffiti in Rio de Janeiro. One of the expressions of hip hop culture, graffiti was born in the United States in the 1970s. At first, it comprised only signatures, which later evolved into elaborate drawings. São Paulo was the first Brazilian town to see the development of this sort of urban writing, around the 1980s and 1990s. The activity of painting walls came later to Rio and only became established in the 2000s. Graffiti in Rio began at the hands of groups from the North Zone, the suburbs and the town of São Gonçalo. Then, however, groups from the South Zone youth – some of them design students – took graffiti to the walls of the city’s noble areas, allowing a conceptual change: what was first considered unlawful became legitimate modern urban art. In truth, Rio was witness to a replication of the 1970s New York experience, when underground young artists such as Keith Haring and Jean- Michel Basquiat started painting Soho buildings and subway walls. Thus graffiti gained status and moved into art galleries. Nowadays, this kind of urban intervention has been accepted by the population of Rio, who used to reject it in the past. Not only that, it has also been completely incorporated by the market. Some of the discourses about this culture that has taken over the streets of Rio – such as from the press, advertising and graffiti artists themselves – have been the base for the reflection and analysis presented in this work.