Crackhead Barney was born in Jamaica Queens to strict religious parents that immigrated to America from Northern Nigeria. She was raised in a one bedroom apartment with her siblings in an era before wokeness and identity politics ruled the cultural landscape and was always taunted for her immigrant African roots and dark complexion. She studied Fine Arts and Media at Hunter College and was told her artwork wasn’t shit. Rejected from museums and galleries, she decided to take matters into her own hands and use the streets of New York City as her canvass and paint pictures with her body across the landscape without the need to satisfy the desires of the cultural institutions. Her street performances garnered attention and she began to go viral all over the internet with people reacting in confusion, laughter, anger, pity, concern, and all the other emotions available to humans. Rejecting any hierarchies that didn’t feature her at the very pinnacle, she naturally was attracted to social media where she could form a universe centered on her performance art. She began Crackhead Barney and Friends account on Instagram and Tik Tok and began to develop a cult of personality which has been supportive of her creative practice.
