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Artist Kehinde Wiley was born in Los Angeles, California in 1977. His father is Yoruban from Nigeria, and his mother is African-American. As a child, his mother supported his interest in art and enrolled him in after school art classes, and at the age of 12, he spent a short time at an art school in Russia. Wiley did not grow up with his father, and at the age of 20 he traveled to Nigeria to explore his roots and meet him. He earned his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1999 and his MFA from Yale University, School of Art in 2001 (Wiki). "Like his former friend-turned-rival Tupac Shakur, Christopher G. Wallace, the rapper also known as Biggie Smalls, burst onto the '90s hip-hop scene with an inimitable persona, talent and style. But a drive-by shooting killed Wallace at age 24, two weeks before his second album was released, and six months after Shakur had suffered the same fate." - NY Times.