On Friday (March 29), adidas Originals wrapped their nationwide campaign conjoining art and Hip Hop in Atlanta, Georgia. The event unveiled a three-part creation from artists Morning Breath, Jeremy Fish, and Michael Sieben. Detroit’s Danny Brown was on hand to provide the music as the artists were in-house to view the complete structure at the same time as the attendees.
The artists involved in the collaboration had no idea what the others were painting, they could only work from their own creative palate in building their piece of the structure that was in turn gifted to the city of Atlanta. Michael Sieben of Austin, Texas said that his home base helped in nurturing his artistic side as he was growing up so by the time adidas started asking for his assistance on campaigns, he was well-prepared to offer his services- besides that, he’s a major fan of their skate shoes. “I’ve worked on a couple other campaigns for adidas,” he shared, “I actually own my own skateboard company called Rogers Skateboards. We’ve done some stuff with adidas Skateboarding and some other work with them so I think I was already on their radar.”
Jeremy Fish was the point person amongst the artists and says that the idea for the three-part rotating structure was a sort of childhood relic. “I used to do this all the time with my babysitter when I was a kid,” he revealed, “You fold a piece of paper in three and someone draws the head, someone else draws the middle and someone draws the feet, then we open it up… We took the idea and ran with it, now here we are.”
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The Brooklyn-based Morning Breath duo probably had the toughest job of all the artists, not only having to work on the third portion outside of Fish and Sieben, but having to align their creative goals as a pair. In fact, their contribution only made the cut after a bidding war of sorts. “Puma had been trying to step to us for a long time and so did Nike, then adidas found out that they were trying to get to us so they just threw a harder bid our way and that’s pretty much how it worked out,” said Doug Cunningham. “Music plays a big part [of our creative process], not always what’s always current but just in general. We always need a soundtrack.”
Jason Noto of Morning Breath explains further, “We were really excited. You’re given money, given freedom and adidas is a really great company to work for. They’re doing a lot of things sneaker-wise and we really like what they’re doing.” Noto has had a relationship with the brand even before they knew who he was. Back in the 1980s he copped his very first pair of shell-toes as a young Hip Hop fan.
Nowadays Noto listens to a lot of Dub and Ska music, but he still cites 1980s Hip Hop as having a sizable influence on his musical tastes. He was in the perfect setting on Friday—the East Atlanta Village where adidas Originals succeeded in bringing the lyrical talents of Danny Brown together with the artistic offerings of some of the most exciting visionaries to come out of that industry in recent years.
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