A Day in the Life of 16-Year-Old "Sneaker Don" Benjamin Kickz
The sneaker dealer to the stars.
Sixteen-year-old Benjamin Kickz made some waves earlier in the year when it was revealed he was the plug for well-documented sneakerheads Chris Brown and DJ Khaled, just to name a few. Despite still being in high school, the Florida native has demonstrated a business acumen well above his age, and he’s on track to make an impressive $1 million USD in sneaker sales from his online web store sneakerdon.com; not counting his extensive celebrity clientele. NY Mag recently got together with Benjamin to see what a day in the life of a sneaker dealer to the stars was like. This particular day saw him deliver three sneakers to Travis Scott who was waiting in a private jet. Read an excerpt of the piece below and head over to NY Mag for the full story.
Ben only recently met Scott — whose album Rodeo Ben says he once listened to exclusively for 15 days straight — at a party Kendall Jenner was throwing at OUE Skyspace in L.A. “I don’t mind heights, but I’m no fan and we were on the 70th floor. You had to take three different elevators, and they had to scan your credentials at every stop, obviously, because everyone was there: Kendall; Kim Kardashian; Jaden Smith; Drake’s dad, who’s mad cool.” A friend — “who used to work for P. Diddy” — introduced him to Scott, but “he already knew me from before. He was like, ‘What’s good? Ben, right?’ I was like, Ohhhhhh shit.”
At the airport, Scott and Ben walk out into the million-degree Miami summer and hustle toward the private jet, Ben’s legs sticking to his light-gray Balmain jeans. (“Car-payment alert!” he says, then adds, “I don’t need a car because these jeans make me fly.”) Onboard, everyone hovers around as Ben unpacks and presents three sneakers to Scott. The strongest reaction is to the Shattered* Backboards ($425 on sneakerdon.com), a white-black-and-orange Air Jordan 1 named after a 1985 exhibition basketball game during which Michael Jordan dunked so magnificently he shattered the glass backboard. Scott yells. The entourage exclaims:
“Daaaaaamn.”
“You crazy.”
“Boomin’!”
