Kickstarter: The Shoe That Got Iamsu! Hooked

Every year, new artists emerge under the CSS spotlight. Over the course of 2014, The HBK Gang’s Iamsu! has become a fixture of the column, rocking everything from hard-to-get Supreme collabs to Air Jordan 16s that most newbies wouldn’t touch. That’s because Iamsu! is not new to this. Having just released his debut follow up, Sincerely Yours 1.5, we caught up with Suzy to hear about the pair of kicks from back in the day that got him hooked and started it all. Peep his story in the latest Kickstarter.

photo via Kixclusive

Iamsu!: “I’ve been into Jordans for a long time, but my mom was not having it with me buying shoes. I had to work to for all my shoes. I got into buying shoes in probably the 10th or 11th grade in high school. I bought a pair Air Jordan 19 SEs. After that I was just buying hella shoes. I would do any job I could do. I’d help family out and I worked at this youth program, it was like a radio station. Every Friday and Wednesday I would go up there and I would make enough money to buy some shoes. Every two weeks the check would be literally the Jordans plus tax and I would just spend the whole check on shoes.”

“The 19 SEs were white, blue and yellow, the ones Gary Payton wore on the Lakers. At that point, everyone was wearing jerseys and Enyce and stuff. [Laughs] I’m not even a Clippers fan so I’m hella embarrassed to say this, but I had a Clippers throwback jersey and I had a powder blue Lakers jersey I used to wear with them — but I’m a Lakers fan at the end of the day. I was a high school kid, so I was wearing them for style. All the of the hoops team had them, but I had them for style.”

“Recently, I actually wanted to pick up the White/Grey Air Jordan 19s. I like more recent Jordans these days, I’ve just been wearing them to throw people off. I’ve got some 16s that I wear from time to time and I wanted some XX8s hella bad.”

Iamsu!’s Sincerely Yours 1.5 is available now on iTunes.