Artist Al Diaz joined me in the East Village Radio storefront studio on First Avenue for this EVG podcast.
Diaz grew up in the Jacob Riis Houses on Avenue D. He started writing graffiti at age 12. As a teen in the late 1970s, he and his friend Jean-Michel Basquiat collaborated on a series of cryptic messages seen around the city signed from SAMO©.
Some 40 years on Diaz remains active (check out his Instagram account here).
We covered a lot in 30 minutes, from the early days of graffiti in NYC to Sara Driver's recently released documentary, "Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat," which features Diaz, to the return of SAMO© after Election 2016.
Take a listen... or download it for later...
His work will also be featured in a new gallery via Adrian Wilson coming to 57 Great Jones St. ... where Basquiat lived and worked at the time of his death in 1988.
Al Diaz image via Instagram
Previously on EV Grieve:
The EVG podcast: Red-tailed hawk talk with Laura Goggin
The EVG podcast: Mike Katz and Crispin Kott on the "Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to New York City."
The EVG podcast: A 'Vanishing New York' conversation with Jeremiah Moss
The EVG podcast: More hawk talk with Laura Goggin
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