{"id":18604,"date":"2025-12-01T16:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T16:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/12\/01\/will-the-latest-basquiat-biopic-hew-to-history-al-diaz-has-his-doubts\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T16:59:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T16:59:01","slug":"will-the-latest-basquiat-biopic-hew-to-history-al-diaz-has-his-doubts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/12\/01\/will-the-latest-basquiat-biopic-hew-to-history-al-diaz-has-his-doubts\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the Latest Basquiat Biopic Hew to History? Al Diaz Has His Doubts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Al Diaz with some of his work in \u201cAn Empire Fallen\u201d at New York\u2019s One Art Space. Photo by Jamie Lubetkin<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three or four years ago, director Julius Onah<\/a> posted on social media that he was making a film called Samo Lives<\/i>. Al Diaz<\/a> saw it and thought, Here we go again. \u201cIt\u2019s called Samo Lives<\/i>. Do you understand what that implies?\u201d Diaz asked. \u201cSamo wasn\u2019t his nickname. Samo was more than just a phrase for \u2018same old shit.\u2019 Samo was the ultimate inside joke. Let\u2019s get that really understood.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Diaz, now 66, is the other half of one of the most influential creative partnerships in downtown New York history\u2014the graffiti duo that became the launchpad for Jean-Michel Basquiat<\/a>\u2019s meteoric rise to art world stardom. Without Samo, there likely would have been no Basquiat as we know him. And without Al Diaz, there would have been no Samo.<\/p>\n

As filming of Samo Lives<\/i> was nearing completion, Diaz spoke with Observer at length about Basquiat, Samo and Hollywood. Seated on a bench amid his latest show of downtown expressionist art at Van Der Plas Gallery, the Lower East Side gallery that represents him, Diaz was thoughtful and measured as he considered how Hollywood writes, or rewrites, history. He said that while Onah and actor Danny Ramirez<\/a> (cast to play Diaz in the film) met with him, they didn\u2019t bring him on board as a consultant and have not revealed how he and Samo will be portrayed.<\/p>\n

In September, Samo Lives<\/i> was filming in Tompkins Square Park, just blocks from the public housing complex where Diaz grew up. As cameras rolled on a scene with Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Basquiat and Antony Starr<\/a> as Andy Warhol<\/a>, Diaz appeared to take a measure of the project. \u201cThey said this was going to be about the origins of Basquiat or something. The origins of Basquiat? I don\u2019t think so. I mean, first of all, they have Andy Warhol hanging out in Tompkins Square Park. When did that ever happen?\u201d<\/p>\n

Production wrapped in October, with Jeffrey Wright<\/a>\u2014who famously played Basquiat in Julian Schnabel<\/a>\u2019s 1996 biopic\u2014joining the cast alongside Dane DeHaan<\/a>, Kathryn Newton<\/a> and others. The film marks the first time Basquiat\u2019s story will be told by a Black director, with Onah stating that \u201cthe complexity and richness of his experience as an artist and child of the African diaspora has yet to be dramatized in the manner it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

To understand what\u2019s at stake for Diaz and the history of downtown art, you need to understand what Samo actually was\u2014not the mythology, but the reality. And on this point, Diaz is unequivocal. \u201cThere is a real lack of understanding of what Samo was,\u201d he said. The oversimplified version\u2014the one that\u2019s been repeated in countless articles and documentaries\u2014is that Samo stands for \u2018same old shit.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Celebrity\"Celebrity<\/a>
Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Jean Michel Basquiat and Antony Starr as Andy Warhol filming on the set of Samo Lives<\/em> in October. Photo by Jose Perez\/Bauer-Griffin\/GC Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here\u2019s the real origin story, as Diaz tells it: In 1977, Basquiat and Diaz began going to a friend\u2019s place in Tribeca to smoke weed with her parents. After a while, this became routine, and the duo referred to it as \u201cdoing the samo,\u201d for \u201csame old shit.\u201d The phrase became part of the local teenage vernacular. The conceptual leap came in January 1978, after Basquiat wrote a satirical short story for the high school newspaper they founded, the Basement Blues Press, about a guy selling religions out of a kiosk. Up for sale in this kiosk was a \u201cguilt-free do whatever you want now, pay later\u201d religion called Samo.<\/p>\n

Diaz, who had been an established graffiti writer since 1971 under the tag BOMB-1, suggested starting a graffiti campaign around Samo. They began writing slogans on public walls:<\/p>\n

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\u201cSamo as an alternative 2 God\u201d\u2026 \u201cSamo 4 the so-called avant-garde\u201d\u2026 \u201cSamo as an end 2 mind-wash religion, bogus philosophies & nowhere politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWe were writing on the streets all the time, and our messages were getting more and more sophisticated and philosophical,\u201d Diaz said. They spread the Samo gospel across Tribeca, Soho, the West Village, Chinatown and the East Village. By December 1978, when the Village Voice published an expos\u00e9 revealing the artists behind Samo (paying them $50 each for an interview), their hype campaign had already succeeded spectacularly. Diaz said he felt the joke had run its course, but Basquiat wanted to use Samo\u2019s 15 minutes of fame to promote his art career. He did, and soon, Basquiat was the toast of the art world.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to Samo Lives<\/i>. Diaz reached out to Onah and the two met up in a lower Manhattan diner to discuss the project. He also met with Harrison and Ramirez, but the talks ended when Diaz asked to be paid as a consultant on the film. \u201cThey never answered me about consulting. I didn\u2019t get any call back with a response. And then the next thing I know, they were just shooting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Diaz insists his frustration isn\u2019t about money, though economics are no doubt part of it. It\u2019s really about accuracy. About who controls the narrative when that narrative is fundamentally about a collaboration that lives on only through one surviving partner.<\/p>\n

If the film\u2019s premise celebrates Basquiat\u2019s true origins, it would seem to hinge on a historically accurate portrayal of Samo. And Samo can\u2019t be accurately portrayed without Diaz. \u201cIf they were doing a historically correct thing, they would have wanted somebody who could steer them the right way,\u201d he argues. When Diaz went to his copyright lawyer to see if he could block the film\u2019s use of the Samo name, he learned he couldn\u2019t prevent its use in a film\u2014only on commercial products. \u201cI do have some copyright privilege, but apparently not when it comes to film.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the title itself is misleading, Diaz argues. \u201cIf they\u2019re calling it Samo Lives<\/i>, that refers to a completely different thing than the career of Jean-Michel Basquiat after Samo, right? It sounds like it focuses on one aspect of what he did. And that was a thing that he and I did together.\u201d He added that he suspects the filmmakers \u201cjust seized on that word. It\u2019s very superficial\u2026 It just sounds like they don\u2019t really know what the history of the thing was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julian Schnabel\u2019s 1996 film Basquiat<\/i> used composite characters\u2014amalgamations of real people compressed into fictional stand-ins. Benicio Del Toro<\/a> portrayed Basquiat\u2019s best friend, a Diaz-like character, but hardly a true representation of the Samo partnership. Diaz called that film \u201ca decent work of fiction.\u201d Samo Lives<\/i> could be heading in a similar direction. \u201cIt\u2019s a Hollywood production, so it\u2019ll probably have some bullshit added to it to make the story sellable, whatever Hollywood requires. I don\u2019t have great expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

What would a historically correct Basquiat film look like? \u201cThe fact that there\u2019s already a biopic that\u2019s a work of fiction is enough,\u201d Diaz argues. \u201cYou can\u2019t fiction it again. The answer to that film would be to do something that\u2019s actually historically correct.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a deeper issue at play: the tendency to airbrush Basquiat\u2019s collaborators out of the picture, to simplify a complex web of downtown relationships into a lone genius narrative. At the same time, Diaz is candid about why he and Basquiat eventually parted ways: \u201cJean-Michel was not a good friend. I grew up in the projects, where you had to depend on your friends. You learn who your friends are. That\u2019s a different value system than someone who goes through friends every three years. That was his pattern. That\u2019s his friend history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another persistent misconception is that Basquiat was a graffiti artist. \u201cAs it is, he\u2019s mislabeled as a graffiti artist\u2026 Samo was not tagging. We were making social commentary. We were looking to write for anybody to read it, not just for other graffiti writers.\u201d Traditionally, graffiti is \u201can insular subculture. This is not for your mom. This is for your friends. In Samo, we were doing it for people, including moms. Samo had nothing to do with the graffiti subculture. It got painted with that brush later.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the Village Voice article revealed their identities, Basquiat \u201cran with it. He was like, \u2018I\u2019m the guy, I\u2019m the guy.’\u201d Diaz acknowledges there\u2019s no knowing what would have become of him without that boost. \u201cThat\u2019s the thing that made him, but he might have found other ways to build his career. He was smart and very good at self-promotion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samo Lives<\/i> remains in post-production with no announced release date, and Diaz continues making art on his own terms. He recently closed a solo exhibition at One Art Space on Warren Street, featuring new paintings and sculptures. It\u2019s the kind of steady, unglamorous work that doesn\u2019t fit Hollywood\u2019s narrative of the tortured genius burning bright and fast.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the real legacy of Samo is not merely as a stepping stone to fame, but as a discrete moment of creative collaboration that challenged the commodification of the avant-garde. As Diaz wrote in the original Samo pamphlets: \u201cSamo as an end 2 mass produced individuality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The irony, of course, is that Hollywood is now mass-producing Samo itself\u2014turning a punk rock critique of the art world into a marketable biopic title without the input of the man who created it. \u201cSamo was all about hype. About creating a brand out of thin air and promoting it to the masses. And it was very successful. I guess it\u2019s not surprising that it is now being consumed by Hollywood hype,\u201d Diaz said. Forty-seven years after the partnership last prowled the streets of Lower Manhattan, Samo has a life of its own\u2014just not the one Diaz imagined when he and a 17-year-old Jean-Michel Basquiat first picked up spray paint cans and decided to sell the world a religion.<\/p>\n

More in Artists<\/h3>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Will<\/p><\/div>\n