 Many of his peers speculated that his heroin use was a means of coping with the demands of his newfound fame, the exploitative nature of the art industry, and the pressures of being a black man in the white-dominated art world.Following his return from a trip to Hawaii in the last year of his life, Keith Haring reports meeting with Basquiat who was glad to tell Haring that he had finally kicked his dependence on drugs.Despite attempts at sobriety, he died on August 12, 1988, of a heroin overdose at his art studio on Great Jones Street in Manhattan's NoHo neighborhood.