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USA. Al Diaz is a Brooklyn, NYC based artist who is best known for his collaboration with Jean Michel Basquiat on SAMO©, the ground breaking text based graffiti that was plastered all over NYC starting in the late 1970’s. Diaz first started on the graffiti street art scene in the 70’s tagging his moniker “BOMB 1”. He later met Basquiat in High School they attended in Manhattan. It is said that after getting high smoking Marijuana, they called it “the same old crap”, which was shortened to “same old” and later “SAMO” was born. They started adding the © symbol to their meaningful quotes commenting on everything from their point of view. The quotes could be seen all over NYC especially the downtown gallery area and the Visual Arts School and captivated the city with their witty, satirical, and pensive thoughts. He even contributed on the renowned Beat Bop record in 1983. In later years Diaz has moved to working with WET PAINT signs that the NYC MTA puts up cutting up the letters to create clever, satirical statements that he then hangs back in the NYC subways. He resurrected the world recognized SAMO©…tag in 2016 and is continuing the legend solo.