Twenty-five years ago you would have been hard-pressed to find graffiti anywhere outside New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Since then, its influence has expanded around the world. During a recent trip to Paris I was surprised to find that graffiti has taken over. The City of Light is covered with it. Paris has more tags today than New York City did in 1980. The visit confirmed what I’d suspected for the past decade – hip-hop is not a fad. There’s a worldwide infatuation with this subsect of American culture.

Of the four elements of hip-hop – MCing, DJing, and break-dancing being the three others – graffiti has always been the least accepted, for it’s the only one whose public practice involves breaking the law. These days New York-based graffiti is less of a cat-and-mouse game between bombers and police because the art form and its practitioners have grown up.

Unlike its blood brother, rap music, however, graffiti has not abandoned its artistic roots for a handful of greenbacks. And the institutional and critical respect it garners only continues to increase.

Since traditional art venues were closed to graf artists, public installation was always their method of choice. But in the past 15 years most cities have cracked down by expanding their vandalism laws. What was once punishable by a small fine is now a felony with the potential for jail time. Many bombers, therefore, have resorted to other avenues to express themselves.

The New York gallery scene has always been one path to respectability – and maybe some profits – for graf artists. This year alone both the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Cheim & Read Gallery sponsored major exhibits on Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose style and career were contemporaneous with the original graffiti movement in New York. Brett Cook-Dizney, 37, who started his career bombing in California in the 1980s, is now a successful portrait artist represented by the P.P.O.W. Gallery. He still uses spray paint, but his paintings are displayed at institutions like Wesleyan and the Smithsonian. It’s not uncommon for a respected artist to fetch anywhere between $10,000 to $20,000 for his work.

The popularity of hip-hop has been the rage with the suburban youth for the past decade has opened up a new avenue for graf artists, as advertisers and marketing firms formerly resistant to urban art now see its market potential. Last year clothing designer Marc Ecko, who himself started out as a graffiti artist, launched a high-end signature line that featured shirts and a pajama set designed by Espo, a New York graf legend. Activision, the video game company that produces “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” contracted bombers to do set design. Their job was to create wall tags so that the game would reflect a more authentic urban experience. Even Coca-Cola has gotten on the boat. Its ad campaign for the new soft drink Sprite Aruba Jam is overloaded with tags.

A talented bomber can make anywhere from $150 to $5,000 for an advertising project, but the majority of taggers are still in the trenches aspiring to find a way to pay their bills with spray paint. Times have changed, but the battle between insider and outsider rages on. It used to be police versus bombers; now it’s bombers versus corporate America. And, as in any art form, the line between making a living from your art and selling out to the man is as thin as that made by a fine-point Sharpie. “It’s every artist’s dream to be able to make a living with his art,” says 12 Gage, a gifted 14-year veteran from Philadelphia. “I’m just happy I’ve gotten to a point in my career where I can do that.”