Fader's Coverage of Reebok Artists Event

Reebok recently held a press conference/party Wednesday this week in New York. Reebok endorsed artists Mike Jones, Nelly, Daddy Yankee, and Lupe Fiasco were all in attendance to premier their respective footwear projects and to answer some questions about their sneaker habits. Fader was there to capture the event, so visit the Fader site to check out more pictures and read about what went down.

Info from [Fader]

From the Fader:

Lupe Fiasco

What where you rocking when you first started skating?
When I first started I just skated in whatever I had. And when I first started buying skate shoes, it was like I-Paths. But after that I skated Vans, which is probably the greatest skate shoe.

Really? Vans over anything else?
It’s a classic!

I mean it’s classic, but how about functionality?
Well as far as durability it’s crap, but they’re cheap so it really don’t matter. You can always switch it up. But there’s just something about it. The feel, touching the street. It’s Vans. I learned a lot of tricks with Vans, like stuff that I couldn’t do in I-Paths. I was like “Oh snap, I can do that now!”

Are you planning on doing shoes with any more-skate-friendly brands? I would have expected you to do something with DC first.
Right, initially I was talking to DC – I’m sponsored by DC – it wasn’t on any level where I could come in and get down and rock. I wasn’t really a full on skater – like how Nike doesn’t really do stuff with artists, it was kinda that same thing. But they were really looking at it – so I still rock wit’em. I might do some projects with them later on, but right now its just Reebok, Reebok’s really opening it up for new stuff.

How hands on were you with the design for your shoe?
Well the kid who designed it is named Kohe Kanada from Japan, he actually designed the shoe. He designed a few other things for Reebok. And I wanted the all white shoe so I could give it to customizers. I’m really linked with a lot of guys in the sneaker community, so I was like “Yo.” All white shoe, it works for regular people cause its all white, you can always have all white shoes. But then on the streetwear/sneaker side, sneaker customizers are gonna love it. I just wanted something plain and regular, but the next one’s gonna be…

Is it gonna be Reebok, the next one?
Yeah, I got three releases. So this was the first one, the second one comes out in October, and then the last shoe of the “OG Campaign” comes out in December. And then inbetween time, I’m gonna have like quick-strikes and stuff like that with different people, limited edition, 25 pair of this. Stuff that’s not really going out to Foot Locker and stuff like that. So I got a lot of designers lined up for that project, I got like fifteen, twenty people that’s gonna come in and really do some crazy, ridiculous things.

What sort of stuff? cause it seems like so much ground has been covered already with customs.
I got like Nathan Cabrera, who designed a lot of toys. I got Ben Drury, who’s famous for doing the Futura cover with UNKLE, that set off that whole Futura craze. I got Maharishi, humongous clothing company. Just regular people. I got RoStarr, who’s an artist, he’s really crazy, RoStarr is gonna do a pair. Just everybody that I know in my crew, in my streetwear crew, that I can reach out to. It’s gonna be fresh. I already got some of the prototypes they sent back.

Alright, I know you’ve already thought this through: favorite sneaker of all time.
John Lennons! The Converse All-Star, Chuck Taylor, but the John Lennon’s, the Peace Chucks, the one’s he designed. That’s my favorite shoe of all time.

You stock-pile them like some people do with Ones?
Yeah, but I’m becoming a minimalist, so I’m actually purging. My closet looks like a damn store-room, some sneaker store room. Everything is just racks and racks. But now I’m giving everything away, I’m gonna start from zero.