Kid Cudi to write, direct and star as Jean-Michel Basquiat in 'Jean'

Kid Cudi has announced that he will write, direct and star in a film about artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. 

He revealed the project, titled Jean, in an Instagram post on Wednesday, with photos of himself in an early wardrobe test, wearing a dark wig.

Principal photography is planned for 2027.

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“For years people have asked me about playing Jean Michel Basquiat in a film,” Cudi wrote. 

No project ever came together, he said, so this year he decided to write it himself, drafting the script over the summer. 

He called writing a film about a real person “a challenge, but a welcomed one”, and said he drew on a lot of research, books and conversations with people who knew Basquiat. 

“This film will be a love letter to Jean, the 80s and NY city,” he wrote, adding that Basquiat has inspired him throughout his career and that it will be “the biggest honor to tell his story in a way we haven’t seen before”. 

He noted that the wig and look are a rough first attempt, not the final version.

Basquiat, born in Brooklyn to Haitian and Puerto Rican heritage, rose to prominence in New York’s art scene in the 1980s. 

He began as a graffiti artist under the name SAMO and became internationally known for paintings on race, class and power. He died in 1988, aged 27.

Cudi, who also appeared in Need for Speed, Entourage and X, is building a directing career. 

He debuted as a director earlier this year, and his horror film Wrong Number, which co-stars Barbie Ferreira, is in production in Los Angeles.

Basquiat has been on screen before, including in Julian Schnabel’s 1996 film Basquiat, starring Jeffrey Wright, with David Bowie as Andy Warhol.

Other projects include The Collaboration, with Jeremy Pope as Basquiat, which has no release date, and a Netflix documentary co-produced by his sisters that premiered at Tribeca this year. 

One outlet noted it is not yet clear whether Basquiat’s estate will support Cudi’s film.

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