by Gerald Flores
There are lot of expectations for Kendrick Lamar in 2015. Not only does he have a long-anticipated album on the way, but Reebok is also hoping the Compton, Calif.-bred rapper can bring some new energy to its Classics. The first fruits of the Kendrick Lamar and Reebok era hits stores this week, when the brand drops the a set of Ventilators in original colorways. Not only will the rapper be used in Reebok's campaign's to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the silhouette, but he'll also be designing his own styles for the brand. Here, King Kendrick talks where he used to cop sneakers growing up and what gets the creative juices going in the recording studio.
My earliest music memory would probably have to be Snoop Dogg and Dre and watching ‘Nothing But a G’ Thang' back to back. We used to watch this channel called The Box. That’s definitetly my first seeing them, and I ordered that song over and over.
One style trend that I want to come back is when people used to do the goggles and throw them to the side of their head. You see a few cats doing it now. I kind of liked that. They were cool. I want to see how people flip it these days.
One musician I look up to is Miles Davis for sure.
Next vacation spot is you’ll be so in-tune with work you don’t even think about that. I haven’t been to the Bahamas yet, so let’s start with something simple. A lot of people go to the Bahamas, but I haven’t been though.
The best piece of advice I ever got is to always keep a true value on who you are. We lose sight of that all the time because of so many worldly things. We lose sight of what we hold dear and what we represent.
A friend of mine that has more sneakers than me is Dave Free, my manager. He has a lot of shoes.
One of my favorite sneaker shopping spots in Compton probably would have to be the Compton Swap Meet. These kids would make their own designs and put them into the stores. So say like these Reeboks, somebody will flip their own design and put them in the store. They were doing it a lot with the Reeboks when we were coming up.
One thing I always need with me in the recording studio is a lot of AC and Worldstar Hip Hop. There is a lot of downtime spent on Worldstar. We're all addicted to it. Seeing some crazy random stuff somehow helps the creative juices come up.
The last song I played on my IPod was Mos Def ‘Ms. Phat Booty.’
