Before I hit the play button, I started to think about Basquiat the artist but also his intensity, which allowed him to accomplish so much in the short time he was traversing the streets of LES and SoHo. And more specifically, what made him so special (OG Rizzmaster). He disrupted the art world when art was an elitist white dominated arena of steamy, pompous bullshit. In many ways it still is. He was a maverick of sorts living by his own drum beat, ultimately carving out an offbeat route into the glitz of the art world without being consumed pretentiousness.

Even after gaining fame, notoriety, and lots of bloody money, he lived relatively, in the same manner, affording himself the ability to keep creating art. Basquiat was continually painting, whereas we would hang out with friends and shoot the shit. Jean-Michel was observing, interpreting, and translating what he heard and saw drawing influence from everything around him.

As a creative problem solver working as a digital product designer, in the often mundane corporate space. I'm more interested in societal, cultural trends. And the intersection of art and design, how can a series of photographs of people on the street tell us about the movement of an urban dwelling.

Jean-Michel and other innovative black geniuses like him are catalysts that spur me on to create and question things. As a black person, that is always told everything revolves white people, the more we see the Basquiats, Kehinde Wileys, Kanye Wests well maybe the old Kanye. The better off we'll be.