Essentials: Sam Valenti IV (Ghostly International Founder)

Meet Sam Valenti IV, the founder of Michigan-based Ghostly International — home to two world-class independent labels Ghostly and Spectral Sound. Fueled by his passion for electronic and hip-hop music a young age, Sam took up DJ-ing as a teenager under the moniker DJ SpaceGhost and later created the label in 1999 (alongside co-founder Miguel Senquiz) when he was still an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan. His vision as a label head began when he noticed lack of options for American electronic music, which led him to create a platform that attends to the intellectuality and individuality of both artists and audiences. Today, the label houses over thirty renowned and talented musicians worldwide, with names like Matthew Dear, Com Truise, Tycho, Gold Panda, and Shigeto. In this weeks essentials, Sam displays a rather simple set of item — most of which are lifestyle products rather than music ones, perhaps to inform us the prioritization of his position as a label head over his ex-career as a DJ. As you can tell, he is serious about his Ghostly label with the head-to-toe repping of its merchandise, from the AIAIAI-collaboration TMA-1 headphones to the shades to the hoodie, bag, watch and beanie (or as Canadians refer to as “toque.”) The only piece of apparel not from Ghostly is a crisp white shirt from Japanese brand Kamakura. From the above items, you can tell that Sam prefers to abide within a neutral aesthetic with his monochrome palette choices. Let us know what you think.