Sanki King

Abdullah Ahmed Khan (professionally known as Sanki or Sanki King) is a self-made Pakistani graffiti artist, member of an old school American graffiti crew, BMK - Beyond Mankind Krew (NYC), professional traceur and bboy. Based in Karachi, he is the pioneer of graffiti art in Pakistan and one of the early leaders of parkour and b-boying. Sanki is also the first and only super hip-hopper in Pakistan (a super hip-hopper is a person who has mastered multiple or all elements of hip hop).

Early Life
Sanki was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on June 7th, 1990. His family moved to Karachi when he was a few months old and they have been living there since then.

Graffiti
Like any kid, Sanki loved drawing since kindergarten but he started making extraordinary drawings at the age of 7. In the next two years, he started drawing pictures with more details by copying images from the books of Clip art which his father brought for him, as well as from different books and magazines. From this, he learned to draw on his own as he has never been to any art school or had any formal training.

Sanki has been a student of Hip Hop from the age of 10. He started doing Parkour & B-boying in June 2006 & started graffiti sometime in 2007. Living in a country where hip hop culture is not present in its original form, Sanki had a hard time promoting Graffiti as an art and trying to make people understand the difference between graffiti art/artists and vandalism/vandals. Early on in his graffiti career, Sanki focused more on promoting graffiti then painting on walls; to do this, he started promoting graffiti in and out of Pakistan through various sources on the Internet before starting to paint walls in September 2010. By 2010 he had made hundreds of graffiti sketches on paper and different mediums.

Sanki is best known for his ballpoint pen illustrations and 3D graffiti. He is the only artist in Pakistan who runs his own line of custom-made apparel and shoes/sneakers. Sanki has been teaching Graffiti, Parkour and B-boying since 2008, free of cost, personally and online to anyone who wants to learn it.

Murals
Sanki started painting murals from 2010; the first one was in his own room. After just 2 free murals for friends, he started painting commissioned murals, including the basement for the owner of "Scentsation", a prestigious company in Pakistan, as well as Playhouse Childcare at ActOne Arts & Wellness Center.

Sanki painted his first aerosol graffiti piece on an abandoned part of a bridge in Karachi for his 22nd birthday. Due to the poor quality of paints available in Pakistan, he paints his murals with oil & acrylic paints.

Custom-painted apparel & shoes
Sanki is currently the first and only artist in Pakistan who runs his own line of custom-painted apparel and sneakers. The artwork on the apparel/shoes include graffiti work, single/multi layer stencil work and different spray-paint techniques.

Bboying and Parkour
Sanki got inspired by B-boying at the age of 13 and started practicing after a year. He started teaching bboying to a group of kids in 2008 which later turned into a crew (known as the Unknown Crew) who have been noted for their skill in both bboying and parkour and are arguably the best b-boy crew in Pakistan. Sanki has performed for notable Pakistani channels like Play TV (Pakistan), Style 360, CNBC Pakistan and SAMAA TV. He is currently a part of ActOne, where he is a judge, monitor and DJ for all bboying battles/events.

Milestones

 * First Pakistani, Pakistani graffiti artist, and Muslim in the world to create the first ever groups on Facebook which exclusively promote the B-boying, Graffiti & Street Art, & Parkour culture of Pakistan. These groups are also the only groups of their kind on the entire internet.
 * Worked for Tools for Schools Campaign of Surf Excel as an artist at the Holy Trinity School in Saddar, Karachi
 * Only Pakistani graffiti artist in the history of graffiti art who got a mural painted for him by a foreign graffiti artist. This happened on 7th of June 2011, when Sno, a famous American graffiti artist and co-founder of Lords Crew (one of the largest & oldest graffiti crews in California), painted a mural for Sanki on Hollywood Avenue, Los Angeles, California. It was a birthday gift by Sno for Sanki.
 * Co-monitored and co-managed ActOne Planet B-boy, which was the first-ever b-boying event in the history of Pakistan. This event, called ActOne Planet B-boy Battle, was the first ever bboying event in the history of Pakistan. The event was sponsored by Crocs, City FM 89, The Express Tribune, Express News (Pakistan), Voila & supported by Red Bull as well.
 * B-boying workshop and performance with F.E.W Collective (Fifth Element Warriors) from Chicago which occurred on November 22-24 at ActOne Arts & Wellness Center.
 * Became an official member of an old school graffiti crew, BMK - Beyond Mankind Krew, which was founded by Smend in 1991 in Queens, New york City.

Appearances in Media

 * Performed in a Parkour (free-running) filler with fellow practitioners for Play TV (Pakistan) in 2007 (Producer: Raza Moosavee).
 * Parkour Photo shoot with Tapu Javeri at Zamzama park in July 2008.
 * Performed a Parkour routine with fellow practitioners at the August 23rd, 2008 launch of the channel Style 360 at the Karachi Expo Centre (event management by Wow Factor).
 * Live appearance as a professional graffiti artist on the television show FireStation at AAG on 23rd of July 2010. Sanki is the first graffiti artist in the history of Pakistan to appear live on a TV show. (Producer: Noor-ul-Huda Daudpota).
 * Sanki is the first and the only Pakistani artist yet to do live graffiti on television on the popular show "Chaey Time" of CNBC Pakistan. He painted a wall-size canvas honoring the Pakistani cricket team.(Producer: Rakhshanda Khan).
 * Appeared on the international program “Pakistan This Week” of CNBC Pakistan & International on 10th of June 2011. Sanki became the first Pakistani in the world to represent the graffiti, b-boy and parkour culture of Pakistan at an international level (Producer: Rakhshanda Khan).
 * Performed in a b-boying video on 30th of August 2011 with Unknown Crew for CNBC Pakistan's Eid Special Transmission.
 * Sanki has performed with his crew for the promo of "The Big Show with Fakhr-e-alam" of CNBC Pakistan.