Kid Cudi to Play Basquiat in ‘JEAN,’ Biopic He’ll Also Write and Direct
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Scott Mescudi, the rapper known as Kid Cudi, announced on Instagram that he is working on a biopic about the oft-mythologized New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. The film, titled JEAN, will be written and directed by Cudi, who will also star as the titular artist. Cudi shared an image of the first page of a draft of his script, dated August 25, 2026, and said that filming is set to begin in 2027.
In his post, Cudi writes that people have been encouraging him to play Basquiat for years but that “no project actually came to be” so he decided to write it himself. He shared a mock-up of a poster for the film featuring a black and white photograph of himself as Basquiat, stylishly dressed in a suit and tie and smoking a cigarette, with a wig mimicking Basquiat’s trademark free-form dreadlocks. “This isnt the final just a rough,” Cudi writes about the wig. “trust me we gon get it perfect.”
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