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We wanted to do a surprise, and one of our good friends, somebody who just came in the game and just really created a whole different new way for yourself. When we talk about being disruptive, I couldn't think of a better word that describes as gentlemen. Disruptive, legendary, strength center, original. I mean, there's a lot of adjectives, but this dude is definitely one of them once. I don't even want to know, I just want to just bring them out. Yeah. Yeah, I got love, but I hope you make some noise.
One of the dopest artists, man, just the family man, just super creative. He performed at South by Southwest, a few years ago. 100%. Miami, what's going down?
After the transformer, oh man, this guy, did you say Grammy nominated? Grammy nominated. Angel, you don't got to clap. That mean I lost. All right. But no, he wanted to share some special news. He got you stepping into the world of fashion. You got an exclusive deal with Reebok. Yeah. You have to clap it up for that.
I can't understand the light cloud. Some people might not understand. Yeah, I'm an independent artist. I own all my own stuff. I do all my own things. And then, yeah, I got a major, yeah, shoe deal. And I ain't never made it to the league. Yeah. Yeah, I failed at football, but I succeeded. They get my own shoe.
I know you know you're into fashion, but I have this situation where we're talking about. Now watch this. It's going to sound like I'm just trying to do too much, but this is all like honest to God truth. All right. So when I did
transformers, mind you. I had, well, and I feel y'all not clapping for transformers, too. I got you. I got you. When I got the role for transformers, I had, I had zero acting experience. I was a angel. I'm still an independent art. I never did none of that. But a man by the name of Daniel Kaluya,
the buddy with the eyes from get out. Come on, somebody, please. All right, so we was in London doing promo for Transformers. Daniel Kaluya hit me up and said, come kick it now. Before I got Transformers, Daniel Kaluya hit me up. After Transformers of a little road there, Daniel Kaluya hit me up. I went to go highlight Daniel Kaluya at Daniel Kaluya's spot. It's a random guy that I've never met in my life. It's named Gee that.
G-Day says, he sees me in all of my man Kirby stuff from PMOS. I'm like, come on. There ain't no curve. There we go. Thank you. Come on, support Black designers. All right. All right. So I got all curves on PMOS down. This the first thing that I seen from Reebok, I'm like, oh, man, that's incredible, right? And he got Black designer, and he was like a niggany.
So I was like, oh, wow. No, you know the difference. You're like, oh, okay. You know what I'm saying? You see somebody that designed, and then you hear him talk. He's like, oh. But he was like, you know what I'm saying? All right, cool. So I'm wearing all curvy stuff, and G-Day C, and he know curvy. He's like, hey, yo, I'm a real big fan of what you do musically. Do you want to do something with Reba? Yeah, that's it. And I said, yes. Yeah. So this is the thing.
Gee, they had, he had no clue that when I was in school at the University of North Texas, I really took, like my major was fashion merchandising. And I took textiles, all this stuff, and I love fashion, and I have been designing stuff for my entire family, everybody on the team, for like years. But he never knew that. He was just into the music, and what it is that I did, and offered me a partnership with Reba.
And it worked out. We were kind of talking about it backstage, how every step, every obstacle for the next one. So people didn't know that you were training for fashion. But if we watch your content, it's very evident. Before they knew who you were, they probably remembered, you know, as the guy with the mint colors. Talk about being intentional, being original, but preparing yourself every step of the way for this moment to get where we go. So this is the thing.
Every step of the way has been preparation, but it wasn't like, I had division the whole time to just be, you know what I'm saying, let this step prepare me for this step for this. No, no, no, no. Went in, I was doing fashion merchandising in college. Mind you, I'm like 1920. And when buddy asked, the original major was football. We ain't gonna play around. He asked me what classes, what do you want your major to be? I said, it's gonna sound terrible.
I say, what major or what classes has the most? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to know where they at. That's what I wanted to know. Yeah. Sociology, psychology, psychology, psychology. Yeah. Yeah. And I was the only straight brother in my class. You gonna learn today?
Yeah, so, but I went through all of the basic, all of the everything and I graduate. That's the way. You graduate. You made some money in Bitcoin yesterday. Come on. There we go.
And I got about four big coins. Come on, somebody should shop you some love when they happen. Come on, thank you. Thank you, folks. Come on, somebody support me. All right now, see? So it's one step too far.
When I had no clue that that step was preparing me for what it is that I do not, what it definitely was. It definitely was giving me familiar with fabrics, with the art of buying, with all of that stuff that I have to talk to these people that are not necessarily like me in these meetings about. Any artists in the building?
So this is important for you guys to understand because this is a partnership between us and United Masters. And Toby, he's probably the biggest artist, right? From United Masters? Blue print? Everything. We answered the problem. I would say probably. Yeah, I would say. Definitely, yes. So it's BX the plug, Toby. And I think what you call it started with United Masters also.
But long story short, you worked your way up through the ranks of independence. And then you started doing everything else. But what you learned from the independent grind still helps you to this day is more than a million market and all that. So talk about that because I think that that's relevant cross platforms and it's kind of helped your mind frame. It's not being a dependent person. Well, 100%, especially when you get with a company like Reebok,
just detached yourself from Adidas and is currently rebuilding its brand with phenomenal people. It's like
A lot of the things I've had to learn and develop independently by doing my own thing and have my own brand and doing my own marketing and writing all my songs and directing all my videos and designing all the blah, blah, blah. It's all, yeah. I appreciate that. That means you actually know what's going on. Yeah, it takes a lot to embrace y'all.
No, I'm talking musically, not specifically me just trying to get y'all to clap and take a lot to impress us because every one of us feel like it don't matter what somebody is doing, man, my cousin could do that too.
So when I do these videos, I write these raps. I do these songs and all that type of stuff. It's a lot of pressure to impress Jesus. It really is. And because y'all put so much pressure on those who
Seek to move the culture it helps those like me Especially when I when it's like the other way it like corporations who are in a rebuild phase who want to partner with people who know how to do they own things
I've learned how to do my own thing through the week. Yeah. Yeah. So you go over to rebut what you're bringing a team and play football. So you know what it is to have a teamwork mentality to understand people's roles. Talk about the success team that you've had being an independent artist, now being a creative in the terms of fashion.
If you have to put people in different roles, if you have to go seek out roles, what's the team though they like to do? And you do have to seek out roles. And because this is a space that I've never been in like that and like floating and watch this though. All right, cool. Yeah, this is good. I just thought about this. All right. So a couple of years ago, Beyonce hit us up. Come on, y'all up, Beyonce. All right, cool. Thank you.
Beyonce hit us up, and we did a campaign for Ivy Park before we was able to do what we're doing now. When we was there, with Beyonce, we met one person who was like, oh, she with us. And it's like, you meet certain people, you'd be like, oh, OK, oh, man, man, it's great that you got this job. Then you meet other people, it's like, oh, you with us. You trying to
Y'all know what I mean? Like, all right, cool. I'm trying to say it, but I'm with Reebok, and that's why I can't just say search. Come on, I'm trying to pass the message. All right, so when we met her, it was like, oh, she with us.
Long story short, that's that partnership with Ivy Park and the biggest kind of shifted and we was able to acquire. Come on, I learned that. Good word. We was able to acquire. I'm going somebody that was with us and she is phenomenal young black lady named Lauren. She couldn't be here today because she got a little sick, but she is phenomenal and she has been leading the way in terms of our
So now when I'm in the meetings with Reebox, then I ain't never been in. I got somebody who really, you know what I'm saying? I got the vision for what it is that I want to do, but I got somebody who speak the language very precisely. Yeah.
How is it like actually negotiating these deals? Because I know you didn't just put your name on it. You work in the actual design, the silhouette. Then it's like points on the front end, on the back end. Like, you know, you heard a variety of different stories where people even call it, right? That comes to an extent, that comes to the front of my body. So going in with that information, how was you as far as your negotiation to make sure that your deal was how you wanted it. So I ain't gonna lie. I really feel like I'm blessed because
I'm a nigga from around the way. But one thing I do, because I'm from the streets, I got the deductive reasoning and I can step into places and pay attention to what's going on. And I don't know how to just flow in a specific space. So when I got with Reebok, because I ain't never broken no shoe deal, I hit somebody who is my friend. Well, he kind of helped me recently.
But he's still my friend with my family. I know not too much. That's all right. All right. Let me read the name. I hit one of my friends who has broken shoe deals before and got with his lawyer because I don't have a
Uh, footwear lawyer. I got an entertainment lawyer. You don't want to have entertainment lawyer doing shoe deals because they ain't ever did that. So I got with his lawyer and was able to, you know what I'm saying? I forgot what the question was. I know. But that's important to even say because it's like there's different types of people that you need to work with. It just so happens. Like my son, his teammate on his AAU team, his father,
is a sneaker attorney. Yeah. And he's talking to me. I didn't even know if there was such thing as a sneaker attorney. He was telling me the ins and outs of the sneaker business, trademarking and all that. And he was like, oh, that's what he specialized in. Yeah. So it's like, sometimes we, your God, he said this, we interviewed him. He had a problem with his taxes on his home. Yeah. He called his criminal attorney. Yeah. Because some people think a lawyer is a lawyer. What? You know what I'm saying? It's me at first. I'm not going to lie. If you pass the bar, you can do anything.
That's what I feel like. I feel like that's what I felt like I got multiple lawyers now. Yeah, that's that's important though. Every lawyer can't do everything. So like a doctor, right? You don't go to a cardiologist and your foot's hurt. You got to know specifically which lawyer specializes in which particular industry I support. Yeah.
I want to bring them facts for a second. Because we saw some of the creators that the people are going to see in the near future. What's that creating process like at home, right? When y'all are doing the videos, when you're coming up with some of these designs, I'm going through a creative process right now. I'm building a home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know,
Oh, thank you. Thank you. And so, you know, going back and forth with your significant other, sometimes you can go and have some bumps in the road. Yeah. But we've been on the house and building an actual brand. What's your step-reader process like for y'all? It's phenomenal because
That is one of the people. I feel like it's like the gift and I truly don't care about nothing that we got going on outside of like me and our kids. If we was like working regular jobs, she still be cool.
She interested in it because I'm interested in it whenever I bring it to her. So like every single song that I write, I run it by a fat first, not just cause, but let me say not just cause, not because she's a like songwriter extraordinaire and like she got phenomenal taste in music, but I feel like fat is like every person in the world.
They were there from the hood. They come from like, you know what I'm saying? They come from like the slums and stuff like that. If you ain't really from the hood or like, y'all get fat. It's like every, she's like a good general life foundation to see if people will be able to understand what it is that I'm saying. So I run that by her in music-wise. When it comes to like,
aesthetics, shoot design, clothing design. I get her opinion on stuff like that because I feel like she's a general consensus. Even if I got like these like out of body ideas or whatever, it's like I can want to do her and get like a baseline for what it is I'm trying to do. And she's always, she always don't give me whatever her honesty got you is because she don't necessarily care how I feel about what she's saying. She don't always tell me the truth.
Yeah, she must have knew you was gonna talk about it and she just, you know, I'll wait until she's done. Okay, that's good. So, all right, coming from Houston, but originally, you know, parents from Nigeria, right? Yeah. So, any Africans in the building?
Three, three, three Africans. That's a fact. People will drop the Afro-beats. Walking into these, you know, hot, not reboxed, we say, but you throw stuff on my clear. You throw stuff with very high-end fashion. European fashion houses, right? Before it's known for being racist. You're unapologetically just kind of kind of help me with where we going now.
I want to know your experience as far as like you as far as unapologetically who you are, right? Has there been difficulty navigating that world or have we saw you at parole show in Paris, right? 100%. Has it been difficulty or what has been your experience in the world of high fashion? I'll be honest with you, my experience has been
Yes, smooth. I ain't gonna lie to you. It really has this smooth. Now, hold on, now, hold on. Now, half of it, because, you know, in 2020, you know, we was up. Yeah, now 2020 was real hard to be racist in 2020. Yeah, but then, you know, by 2022, they started letting go of the DEI programs. We couldn't just tell them to let them, hey, show me your board. Let me see who all on your board. You can do that no more. So we had to take those of us who, like,
Once it went back to original racism, all you know what I'm saying? No, no, no, no. Y'all know what I'm saying. It went back to original racism, like 20 into 22, 23, regular heat racism. It ain't just, you know what I'm saying? Now, we might be going to a new place where, yeah, you know what I'm saying? It might be more ugly, but that's right. That's right. I'm carrying on fat, I'm close to them, I'm about to go.
It's been smooth with me because...
I keep the main thing, the main thing, and my ultimate goal is to get in these places and, yeah, I have an agenda. I have an agenda in every single partnership. And I partner with those agenda, those who have an agenda that isn't aligned with mine. But then also people have uplifted you from us like Pharrell, different talk about that. Cause that's been like key, like people have actually helped in a journey that's important too.
It ain't enough words that I can think of to describe how
like just what Pharrell did for him. And I'll try to paint the creature real quick so y'all can just get a quick little snapshot. All right, so you know Pharrell charged a lot of money for his bids. Y'all know that right, it cost a lot of money. So when he hit me up and was like, yo, I love what you're doing. I was like, oh man, appreciate it. He like man, the industry been waiting on somebody like you. And I was like, man, thank you man. He like man, it would be an honor if you could come up to Lokey, oh Miami.
to me. And I was like, all right, cool. Came up to Miami, bro. Fat. And I think, no, she was pregnant at the time. And we met for real. And he started making, he started doing for real. When we first started making the beat, yeah. Like real, like, for real life, right? So he started making the beat. Then I do the rap. And then after I do the rap, I'm like, wow, we lead fat. Man, that's crazy. We got a song of good for real.
And then a couple days later, they seen what the song is gonna call. Same voice? Yeah, they sent the info. How much was the invoice for? Yeah, it was crazy.
Now, for people who major-recognized with you, that's, you know what I'm saying? That's a loan that you, I ain't, it ain't nobody loan me nothing. So, it's all coming straight out my pocket. So, when he said it to me, I was like, wow. And I guess he can hear, like, kind of the response. So, he kind of tapered off a bit a little bit. I ain't gonna give you the exact number, but just know it was crazy to me from Independence. Now, watch this. I'm not dumb. I got something that I'm trying to do. I want my music to touch the masses. So, I pay the cost.
the clapping moment. I pay the costs. Two days later after I pay the cost, for real call hit me up and say he designed the jacket with Montclair and that he don't have time to go out there and do the photo shoots and stuff like that for the for Montclair. And if I could stand in and represent for real with Montclair and they paid me almost double what it costs for the song. Yeah.
That's important though. And that's the yourself, right? Yeah. One hundred percent. It came back double. Yeah. And it's crazy. I want to talk about the name. That's on your chest right now. Yeah. Because it's significant. Everything that was intentional. Talk about show cool and what it means. All right. So Chuku is my actual brand that's in collaboration with Reebok. It ain't just my name. So we do them. We do it. And we got an actual brand that's in partnership with Reebok and
I feel like I don't want to do what I did with music in every other industry. I feel like I had to do a lot.
Yeah, being independent and amusing. And now I want to leverage different things, different ways. So it's not so much work and wait to get off what it is that I'm doing. So I'm leveraging this part. Now I don't want to say it like that, because that's going to sound like, yeah, that's not going to sound good.
But this partnership is strategic in a sense that I love Reebok. Reebok is a brand that we've all known had a powerful way move in the 90s. It's a respectable brand, timeless brand. They respect my values with my family, with my heritage, with my culture, with what I'm trying to do. And it's like, all right, cool. I could leverage this partnership with somebody who believes.
what it is that I'm doing and what it is that I stand for to go further with my own brand and do what it is and I'm trying to do my own brand.
I got something for you. Hey, Jeff, whatever the name is, who clap real hard, they can find all the time. Let's get him, get his information, we can get him some shoes. See, that pays off. Here we go. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. Yeah, you, brother, you getting some. Yeah, thank you. Support, support. Support goes a long way.
So before we leave, tell me information as far as like, when does it drop? What's the rollout plan? What's the pieces, color ways? What's the first set going to be, all of that type stuff? Drops, February of next year. By the very side, if we don't got no delays, anything like that. The first colorway. None of my people with the actual colorway on it's called by. The first colorway is going to be, oh, yeah, come on, stand up.
This is Young Brother with the Afro. Yeah, that's Jay Stewart. Yeah, that's the first colorway right there. I've been colorway to traditional. Yeah, it brings up the second colorway to black for people who ain't really trying to do the venting. I'm not mad. I gave you something that everybody can do with this colorway. And then the frames and vents the colorway is going to be the salmon pink colorway. That's for everybody who fat want to have her specific colorway. So everybody ain't going to have that shit.
So the last thing, we got a lot of independent artists here. We got a lot of people in fashion. It's obviously our puzzle. What piece of advice that you wish you would have had coming up that you can give to them right now? Know who you are, what your vision is, what you stand for, and what you're trying to accomplish in the world before you
If you can, before you start taking all them strides forward and realize that you're going in the wrong direction. If you can lock in the foundational stuff first, it'll make your yeses, nose, what you will do and won't do so much easier if you can have those things established in the beginning. But if I opportunity come, don't be like, well, let me get the full vision further. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Make some noise, mommy.
