Wayne "Stay High 149" Roberts, 1950-2012

“When Wayne re-emerged some time in 2000, the story goes that he went to a gallery opening. It was if he’d been frozen for years. He saw that what he’d done for fun as a young man had turned into a cash cow. When folks figured out who the quiet blackman in the room was, the excitement in the air was thick like good pizza. It was if James Brown Moonwalked across the Atlantic Ocean straight to Sierra Leone, West Africa.”
 — Awl pal Sacha Jenkins eulogizes graffiti legend Wayne “Stay High 149” Roberts for Mass Appeal magazine. Go there and read it, it’s great.