Dr. Frank Richardson
man logo. When you had that, you had arrived.
What kids see in their phones is all they need
to see. Who cares if Yannick Noah wore that
model as long as they can get a picture of it on
ASAP Rocky or Tyler the Creator? Our voices
are now small, in regards to our consumer
worth. Young people are yelling the loudest
with disposable incomes.
I used to go to some of these sneaker conven-
tions in Atlanta because I wanted to look at
shoes. All I saw were long, sad faces of people
trying to hustle their pairs of Air Jordans. I
thought it was tiring because it had nothing to
do with sneakers. It was all about consumer-
ism, masked in what they call a culture. I wish
we could separate the culture from the con-
sumerism. People like to say, “It’s all for the
culture,” and it’s like, nah. It’s for billions of
dollars. It’s no longer for a culture. Even when
they do these sneaker shows, it just seems like
they’re hawking their wares. Culture, my ass.
For me, it will always be about passion and
wearing them.
Any funny stories you would like to share?
12 | Classic Kicks | classickicks.com | Volume 2
Back in 2005, I was posting some kicks on
The Shoe Game, and someone reached out
to me the next day and said, “I want to film
your sneakers.” Now this is how new I was to
the phenomenon: He said that his name was
G-Roc and he lived in Atlanta and wanted to
come through and film me and my sneakers. I
gave him my address and got off the phone. I
called my friend and said, “Come over because
these dudes are gonna try to rob me with this
scam about filming something! When they
come, I wanna have something for them!”
Now I’m from Brooklyn, and I tell them to
come to the garage. Now, they pull up, and
I can still barely see them, and he [G-Roc]
doesn’t even know this, but I put a .357 Mag-
num between a couple of the boxes. Then he
gets out of the car with a camera, and I said,
“Oh shit, I guess this is legit.” I thought they
were going to try to rob me, but obviously it
was something different. They filmed me and
put it on YouTube and everything. That’s when
I knew the sneaker thing was bound to grow
bigger. Sure enough, it has grown beyond any-
thing I had ever imagined.