Year 541 (DXLI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Basilius without colleague (or, less frequently, year 1294 Ab urbe condita). Basilius is the last person to be officially appointed Roman consul, since after this year, the office is merged with the office of Byzantine empire. Thus, from the next year forward, the consular year dating is abandoned. The denomination 541 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

PHASE 2 (aka Lonny Wood) is one of the most influential and well known New York City aerosol artists. Mostly active in the 1970s, Phase 2 is generally credited with originating the "bubble letter" style of aerosol writing, also known as "softies". He was also influential in the early hip-hop scene.

Phase 2 is from The Bronx, and attended DeWitt Clinton High School along with a number of other early graffiti artists. Many famous graffiti writers of the early 1970s would meet at a doughnut shop across from the school called the Coffee Shop before heading down to the subway station at 149th Street and Grand Concourse to watch tagged trains on the IRT line pass by. Phase 2 was mentored in graffiti by his friend and neighbor Thomas Lee aka Lee 163d!, one of the pioneers of graf writing in The Bronx.

He began writing in late 1971 under the name Phase 2, a moniker which had a rather mundane provenance. As Phase 2 would later recall, "the previous year we'd given this party. We were getting ready to give another one and I said, 'We'll call this one Phase Two.' I don't know why, but I was stuck on the name. It had meaning for me. I started writing 'Phase 2.'"