The Only Thing Better Than Singing

“The Only Thing Better Than Singing…”
By Troy Duff

Created as an homage to the “First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald, this monumental three-panel work cryptically embeds one of her most beloved quotes within its surface. Designed to be displayed as a unified composition or as a triptych, the piece commands space both physically and conceptually.

The work is executed on a salvaged section of open hopper railcar—industrial steel carrying the weight of American history. Across this reclaimed surface, Troy Duff applies his signature calligraffiti style, marking a pivotal moment in his evolution from traditional graffiti writer to designer-artist. While firmly rooted in graffiti culture, this piece reflects a refined, intentional shift toward abstraction and compositional control.

In classic wildstyle graffiti, artists use intricate “fills” inside letterforms to create texture, rhythm, and personal identity. Here, Duff isolates those fills—detaching them from their letters—and builds an entirely monochromatic composition from those internal forms alone. The result is a dense, layered field of movement and energy that feels both coded and musical. He calls it callifgraffiti.

Under ultraviolet light, the hidden phrase emerges:
“The only thing better than singing is more singing.”

The quote, often attributed to Fitzgerald, reveals itself quietly within the abstraction—an homage discovered rather than declared. Drawing from more than three decades as a graffiti writer and muralist, Duff transforms industrial steel into a rhythmic tribute to voice, repetition, and creative devotion.