Basquiat’s Art Broke Through the Canvas—His Music Blew Out the Speakers
Before he became a legend in the art world, Jean-Michel Basquiat was making avant-garde noise in a No Wave band called Gray.
Before Jean-Michel Basquiat became a global icon of contemporary art, he was immersed in New York City’s vibrant downtown music scene as a founding member of the experimental band Gray. Named after Gray’s Anatomy, the medical textbook that fascinated Basquiat, the group embodied the raw, chaotic energy of the No Wave movement—a reaction to the polished norms of punk and pop.
Gray was less about melody and more about atmosphere. Their music was intentionally dissonant, industrial, and improvisational, blending guitars, found objects, and tape loops. Basquiat’s presence brought a mix of frenetic creativity and intellectual curiosity, and he often performed using unconventional instruments like a clarinet he couldn’t actually play.
Though Gray never reached commercial fame, they helped define the sound and texture of a radical New York underground. Their music resurfaced decades later in art spaces and documentaries, offering a rare glimpse into a different dimension of Basquiat’s creative life—one that’s just as boundary-pushing as his art.
As Gray co-founder Michael Holman says, “It was like we were painting with sound.”
