🗽 1. New York, 1978. Self-destruction as a signature
He was 17. Crashing on friends’ floors, snacking on bodega chips, and tagging whatever didn’t move.
With his friend Al Diaz, he began scrawling cryptic phrases all over downtown Manhattan — each signed SAMO© (Same Old Shit).
🖋 “SAMO© as an end to mind wash religion, nowhere politics, and bogus philosophy.”
These lines read like street spells. No names. No context. Just raw thought, sprayed into the world.
🎭 2. Art on the edge of shock and genius
Basquiat didn’t come from an art academy. His tools were spray cans, markers, and instinct.
He fused anatomy, jazz, slavery, boxing, product labels, and memory into chaotic, electric visual attacks.
His work had doctors fighting skeletons, kings losing crowns, and words scratched like graffiti into canvas.
He painted like the cops were coming.
🧨 3. He met Warhol, but never left the street
By 1981, the art world took notice.
Exhibitions at MoMA, interviews in Vogue, studio sessions with Warhol.
But still:
- He showed up to Armani in paint-stained sweats
- Ate fast food at his own gallery opening
- Painted on the floor
- And told journalists: “They like my work… until they know what it means.”
☠️ 4. He died at 27 — but he’s on every wall now
Basquiat died of a heroin overdose in 1988.
But his voice? Still yelling:
- His crown lives in tattoos, prints, and streetwear
- His lines echo in Kendrick bars and Jay-Z verses
- His style bleeds through every street mural with truth
🧵 Why it matters to us
At Wish Discover, we don’t just print cool —
We print chaos, resistance, memory.
We carry Basquiat’s courage in pixels, paint, and patches.
Because art doesn’t wait for permission.
And neither do we.
→ The crown still drips. And we still don’t ask.
