Jean-Michel Basquiat is the highest priced black artist on the art market. Coming to prominence in the 1980s, Basquiat surrounded himself with the who’s who of the moment, Andy Warhol, Madonna, Keith Haring and many others. Although Basquiat’s work might look like the work of a child, the many layers of meaning inherent in many of his art works allows him to make social commentary of the time in which he lived. Basquiat’s was a meteoric rise to fame. And one that ultimately led to his death by drug overdose only a few years after he became famous.