Across the first weekend of August, thirty musicians, visual creatives, and storytellers from the global Converse All Stars community were selected to attend a three-day workshop in Sydney, hosted by industry leaders. The purpose? To collaborate with one another and forge the ‘next’ in music. During their time together, the All Stars were challenged to fuse their respective cultural influences, music genres, and independent styles to create five original tracks, and a visual expression of the sound.
You may be wondering, who are the Converse All Stars? And what is the All Stars program? The All Stars program is a robust, community-focused ecosystem of more than 2500 creatives from over 56 cities around the world. The community serves as a global network connecting All Stars to each other to unite via digital and physical brand experiences, commissioned brand work, and formal mentorship opportunities. Converse further supports these creatives by funding and supporting their projects via mentorship.
The pinnacle of the weekend was a showcase that offered the selected All Stars the opportunity to present their work to Tyler, The Creator. He offered some words of wisdom to the group:
“If you’re a creative person, it’s easy for people to pigeonhole you. When you branch out and do something different, even your biggest supporters might not understand, as they don’t have the same lens as you…but sometimes, getting out of your comfort level is the greatest thing ever, and that’s what this Converse All Star experience is about.”
Complex AU sat down with Australian music artist BOY SODA at the All Stars event, to chat about his experience connecting and collaborating with other creatives over the weekend, and spending a day in the presence of Tyler, The Creator.
So you’ve been here since Wednesday, what have you been up to?
Well, there’s people here from like 20 different countries. So we’re just meeting all these people that we wouldn’t normally cross paths with in our lives, and we’re all in the same room and everyone’s very like-minded. We’re all aware that we’re only here for a week, and we might never see each other again–but hopefully that’s not the case.
The short time frame has definitely made us form friendships a lot faster, and I feel like we’ve skipped a few of the early stages of friendship because we’ve been doing a lot of shit together and creating ideas together – which I feel like gets to the root of people’s emotions as well–when you’re talking about the shooting and creating. It’s like when you write a song with someone new for the first time, the first hour [of the process] is like ‘what are your deepest, darkest fears’, and then after that you’re like, ‘we’ve only been friends for an hour, but we’re tight now, because we’ve shared shit’ (laughs).
Yeah, I definitely sense that. I was in a couple of the recording studios with the different groups, and it was crazy to think that you guys had only known each other for two days. The chemistry everyone had with one another was like you’d all known each other for ages.
Yeah, I think it speaks to the culture that Converse has cultivated within the All Stars community. Everyone is very, very supportive of each other and I think everyone sees themselves in everyone in a certain way. I don’t know how Converse picks people, but they always pick the right ones. It’s crazy looking back, I’ve been with the community for 3 years now, and everyone that’s been invited into the community since then is doing amazing things now. It’s so awesome to see this and share the space with creatives I wouldn’t normally cross paths with. It’s really, really special.
How did you find being around other creative people?
I think especially in an environment like this, anything that starts to feel too competitive isn’t healthy. I think everyone here respects the process of creating things and turning ideas into something physical, you know. I think everyone is dedicated to the process, and especially having so many experienced artists and creatives here as well, you know when you’re needed, and when it’s okay to step back.
How does the song you’re working on with the other creatives in your group sound? Are you happy with it?
It sounds amazing. Everyone has got very artistic, spiritual lyrics as well. And I think everyone’s had a lot of shared experiences in this group as well. I contributed to the audio side, it’s really cool. It was nice just focusing on one part, and then sitting back watching someone else do another part—truly watching it all come together.
So, I understand you’ve been a part of the Converse community for 3 years?
Yeah, so I went over to LA with them in 2019 and was lucky enough to open for Dominic Fike at a Converse party. I also did some sustainability workshops and I went to the GOLF WANG store. Even that talking point alone, getting to open for Dominic, helped me a lot in my career.
The one thing that stays consistent about the company is their intentions. You just watch them work at a loss to make things happen for us. Like the other day, Converse came up to me with an idea to help me out with my merch, and you know, there’s no incentive for something like that–other than the fact that they really fuck with creatives, and they want to facilitate the next generation. They want to [help] facilitate art, and creativity and inclusivity. I will forever, ever be grateful for them, and wear Cons for the rest of my life, because I see the intention behind everything they do, and it’s so selfless.
Obviously, Tyler has been here over the weekend–what has it been like?
He’s a voice that a lot of our generation can relate to, and he reflects us. His recent talk with Converse in Paris went viral because he just dropped gems. He’s at this point in his life where he’s so wise, and entering his mogul stage as well, you know?
There was that clip of him that went viral where he was like, “I’ve been promoting my album for a year, like you really gonna post about your song [only] once?,” and I think a lot of people resonated with that. You also have more of an incentive to believe what he’s saying because he’s so successful, and obviously [his method] works.
I think that clip also just [captured] the general collective energy of this group, we’re all just like ‘yeah, I did just spend 5k to make this song happen—I’ll post about it twice instead, 3 times even (laughs).
Definitely. I think with Tyler as well, he’s evolved so much over the years and broken the mould that people put him in–he got out of the box.
Absolutely, I think he’s just one of the truest artists to exist at the moment. It’s easy to look at some artists and be like, ‘oh, you’re an artist’, and then sometimes you look at someone else and think, ‘oh, you’re a vocalist’, you know what I mean? But he’s a living, breathing artist. His ideas literally come out in whatever formats they were in his head, and he just bleeds colour into everything he does–his music, or in fucking perfume, or in a pop-up store. Seeing someone have such vision and execute it with taste, and curate the way their life looks, smells and feels—it’s on some Sims shit. You forget how customisable your life is. He puts intention behind everything he does—I fuck with that.
Listen to the tracks the Converse All Stars created and discover more of what went down here.
