Stevens & Kervens LaGuerre: FKU Never Expire
Is it a string of chances or is it the tenuous fibers of experience which, when unwound, we’ve interwoven into a life while hoping the product comes out just like silk? Or is it a resolution altogether different and with us all together, is there something to gain unchanging and that yet also seems reminiscent? Ask Kervens “Smurkz” LaGuerre along with his brother Stevens (a.k.a. Sticke_) who, at much more than half-mast, wave the multi-color of freedom and unity atop a pulpit-like summit on the frontier rolling hills in ever-fringing times. With them, you’ll find what’s knit in their DNA is progress in strands of a line that’s perpetual. These are the kinds that remain unforgettable.
T: ...Stevens was telling me about like back in '07.
K: That shit was crazy how that happened. I mean—
S: I showed him the pictures, too.
K: The way it even came about, like, I was working at a kiosk at the time in the mall and he [Stevens] pulled with An, the Asian kid that you see in this picture. I'm like, "bro, we got to do something because I want to take the shoe thing seriously now, you know? For like a week I was thinking of a name. So the name was originally J.A.F.G.O.D. which is an acronym for "Just Another Fresh Group Of Dudes." That's what we were going to go with, but in my head I'm thinking, like, one of there were ladies that wanted to come in.
T: And you don't know what the acronym for that's gonna be.
K: You don't want to call them dames, you know? But yeah, on the day of, it was just like "it's Friday, we're going to step out as our official day being us and it wasn't anything serious. I mean, like we didn't even care. It was just us. We had a trio. We were going to go out, collect shoes because we liked sneakers. When we got out there, it was near the movie theaters.
S: Nah, Bodega.
K: Actually that was before we got to Bodega. We went downtown first. Park Street.
S: Gotta mention that.
K: Yeah, so the plan was we'd go up Park Street and towards the corner. We make our way down so we could hit a couple shoes from the top, and then go that way. When we went to the movie theaters, we went down towards where Expressions would be. When we hit the corner, four other people hit the corner. It was a guy named Swag, a guy named Be Famous, a guy named DJ Max Payne at the time, right? He's called Young Lion or something like that now. And there was a girl with them named Shakia. So they go, "Yo you guys are fly. We got this thing called Street Snapp's. We take pictures of fly people. Can I take a picture of y'all?" We said "yeah, cool." They ask, "what do you all call yourselves?" And then, like, at first I was going to say J.A.F.G.O.D.s. but I was iffy about it. Randomly, out of nowhere, I was like, FKU. I swear Sticke looked at me like, "that's not what you discussed." They were like, "oh, what's FKU?" I said, "Fresh Kids United."
T: Wow, just right on the spot, huh?
K: On the spot, boom. Fresh Kids United. That happened and then we ended up buying a pair of sneakers, which you see in that picture in front of the ice cream truck. I needed to pop out, you know. 'cuz I was wearing a whole lot of gray and black. So.
S: You had the Dunks on.
K: Yeah, with some plaid paneling on the side or whatever, but I'm like, "this ain't popping enough," you know? I'd seen some Missy Elliot Adidas. I didn't give a fuck if they were women sneakers; those were fly, bro. They were the last pair, too, so I got those. We ended up on Mass Ave. And that's when we ended up walking towards Bodega. We see the same people again right in front of the ice cream truck that you see in that first picture and then that was history right there because when we put that up on MySpace—this is MySpace time—we put that picture up, it blew up. Like, we didn't even know what viral was, but that went viral, that one shot right there. It was blast.
T: And the sneakers are sick.
S: Yeah. Those are some Marshall Amps, some Nike SBs, and some Thrashers. We used to literally camp out for sneakers.
T: I mean, it sounds heroic to the way everyone just followed suit after and vibed with you guys.
K: We had other states involved with us. The New Jersey chapter actually came down to Massachusetts to kick it with us for a weekend. That was big, you know? The fact that they trusted us, like, "oh, we'll meet you at the Greyhound."
T: I think that's extremely professional for kids to do.
K: I didn't even have the vision event that I had now. It was more that I wanted to keep a group of people who like the same thing stay out of trouble and just be fly. It served its purpose at that time. On a personal level, my parents split up around it was just me and my brother. He wasn't really hanging out with kids his age no more; he was with me. So I was like "let's make something cool out of this." So we ended up creating this.
T: It's around that time growing into a young adult that people will find themselves connecting with the fashion they like and connecting with others over fashion.
K: You want to identify yourself. Being a black kid, too, automatically, in a group, you are classified as a gang. Automatic. So we stuck by morals. We had a lot of integrity. There was a lot of people that didn't see certain things in life that didn't have to be in the mix of anything violent. I held that rule, don't get into any confrontations in public, because as soon as police get involved and they say, "this group is versus this group," "what's the name of this group?" "Fresh Kids United? Gang."
S: When it came to outsiders trying—
K: They tried to test us. Like, "oh, let's see what we can do. Let's try to fight them and see." We'd just say "yo, this isn't a gang. We're not fighting."
S: That wasn't something we wanted to be labeled as at all. It was so positive. No gang shit.
K: There were kids that were in gangs that joined FKU and stopped the whole gang thing. They stopped all their street activity just to be a part of that. It was an honor to be a part of it. And there were other groups that formed. Other people had their own groups that they made. It was like...I don't know how you can say; we weren't mentors or anything like that. It was almost like you were "in'' if you hung out with us. You hung out with us, it was like "alright, that crew's valid because FKU's hanging out with them." So we did stuff like that. We hung out with other crews and we basically tried to give them the same recipe that we had. We didn't even give labels to anybody. There was no such thing as a captain or something. It was just: "who are you? what sneakers do you like? "what's your favorite brands?"
T: It was like fashion over everything.
K: It was all fashion.
S: We did nothing but fashion, bro.
K: It was just clothes and shoes, man...and girls.
S: I was talking to him about how we used to go downtown...
K: Oh, with the whispers? They act like they're whispering, but they're really, really loud about it like, "oh, FKU's outside!"
MySpace days
T: Heroes.
K: Yeah, I don't know. I didn't really soak it in then because it was more like, "yo, I'm about to go downtown, meet up with my people and we're gonna walk around and it's gonna be cool," you know?
S: Yup.
K: I wasn't like, uh, big-headed over anything 'cause I didn't really feel like a celebrity because at the end of the day it was only—I mean we was known outside of our high school, that was the only thing that was cool. Like, my girl that I'm with now, and for twelve years, she knew about me before she met me. And when we finally met, she didn't know it was me.
S: People looked at it like something so big but we were just chilling.
K: It was getting called names like "hypebeasts". Like, nah. A hypebeast would just go crazy over any sneaker that comes out. We really just liked shoe silhouettes, y'know? Certain colors that go together. We were at a point where we didn't even match, like, we just went out, threw some random colors on and people were fucking with it like "this dude's outfits crazy!" We'd have a bright orange shirt with a flannel, purple jeans, some crazy red sneakers on.
S: People would think that was dope back in the day.
K: They were also just fucking with this, too, like when they would see us at meetings. We would have meetings every Wednesday and then we would link on Friday just to hang out. Like, every Wednesday, boom, we downtown, we have to link up. We just have to talk about like new shoe releases that are coming out or Johnny Cupcakes is having a whole thing. I mean, I never camped out for it. We just hung out with the people that camped out. We'd ask, like, "so where you from?" People'd say from Ireland or Australia just for a Johnny Cupcakes shirt.
S: I camped out for some shoes, bro. That shit was sickening, shit was deadly. It was almost winter time. I only camped out twice, though. That was something you could do back in the day.
K: Nowadays, they got bots.
T: I know, that's not even fair.
K: I remember Johnny Cupcakes came to our high school my senior year. How that came about was in graphic design class, I was trying to learn how to fix some graphics to put on FKU shirts. So my teacher was like, "who else does stuff like this?" And I'm like, "Johnny Cupcakes has his own T-shirt spot on Newbury Street." He came to our school to talk to us about entrepreneurship and he put us on his blog too. I'm not sure if it's still there, but he put us on his blog as, like, you know, these kids are doing it over here, they're already into the whole entrepreneurial spirit. That always resided with me as far as what I took out of school because I hated school, I'm not gonna front. One of the biggest moments in life was Johnny Cupcakes coming to that school and that's what I kind of want to do now with FKU. I'm kind of already getting my feet wet with it because I just already finished doing what I would call some type of art therapy. I did a canvas with a school in Chelsea and this school gets like a bad rep because it's the kids that were fighting in school, not attending or whatever the case may be and they look at it as like, "oh, this is the bad kid school." Nah, you get the same education you get in regular school. We're just in a more intimate setting, you know what I'm saying? So, I mean, when you walk into the school the first day you go through metal detectors because of the fact that there's some kids that could be very violent and they look at it like a scared straight program. All the walls are white. One of my guys from Unfiltered Imagination, you had a school plug and before I even got into the school, I was going to other schools trying to see if I can get in with stuff like this. They were giving me the whole runaround saying, "you got to do all this, you're not teacher certified." I was like "aight, whatever, man." So my mans from Unfiltered Imagination, he got his thing and we just got cranking at it and it was cool because from where it started to where it finished, you saw the development of the students.
From where they felt like they needed to show out because they were in front of people all the way to really getting down to task. When they come in, they already knew what they needed to do. I never really noticed it myself, because, when you're in first person, you don't really notice too much of what people are noticing outside of you. There was a director of another program that used to come in on Fridays when I was working with the students and stuff. She said that when the students used to get ready to act up, I would still be paint on the canvas and I'd just look up for a second and kind of just stare at them and then go right back in the paint and the whole thing dispersed. I think it's because I didn't give it attention. I didn't try to stop what was going on. I was like, "aight, ya'll go ahead and do that. I'm here for y'all, don't waste my time when I'm here," and they understood that and they got cracking and the piece came out amazing. I'm not sure if you have seen it yet.
T: I haven't yet.
S: I'll pull it up real quick.
K: It's nuts. It's like the whole inspiration behind them. They picked out all the characters that were on there. I did a couple of freestyle characters on there for them. But it was to promote more school spirit; they have a basketball team they're developing in that school and we did it centered on the team. So I did a couple of characters that we grew up with.
T: Oh my God.
K: This is the students, too. They colored all that in and I just put all the detail work in. They took some seriousness in it because it was them doing it, you know? And these were students when they first touched that canvas, they were shaking. I mean, they were mad nervous. I'm like, "yo, y'all put the color on here and I'll just do the details. This is history y'all making. That's gonna be in your school forever."
T: How large is that?
K: I don't know the dimensions, but if you saw the blank canvas, it's huge.
T: I mean, you could look at this for a while and just dissect it.
K: When parents come into the school, they have to enroll them into that school. That school is not cheap. It's very expensive tuition and it's a middle school, elementary school, all the way up to high school and they have adult services for mentally challenged kids so they can get all the intimate help in there. So when it came to the colors, I wanted to make it pop because when the parents come into the school, they're already sold on the school but when they see that it's like, "oh, the students were involved in this type of program when they didn't even know there was programs like that to offer the student." And usually when schools have budget cuts, the first thing they take out is the art programs. When you take art away from students that are not even in college yet—when you take the creativity away, you dull them out. Their mind's not stimulated. They're not thinking outside of the box. Everything's going to be about a book. I stepped out of the book a long time ago. I wanted to do my own thing. Like, I was always hustling as a kid. I cut hair.
S: Boys and Girls Club, bro.
K: I customized clothes since I was a teenager. Most of that money went towards buying clothes and sneakers because I didn't want my mom paying for everything, y'know what I'm saying? It was like, "aight, me and my brother now, we're going to hustle this way." My brother had the whole shoe knowledge down, so it was like "let's get this pair and trade it for two other pairs. Rock this for like a week. We go get another, trade it real quick, I'll sell these ones." He had the whole map of how things would go down. If we had a store as teenagers we would have been killing it.
T: A staple community in your community.
K: It'd be like a Kith in Massachusetts type thing.
T: Oh yeah, nice. So you guys run Fresh Kinds United, but like you said earlier, it begun in high school as Fresh Kids United.
K: And it's still there, Fresh Kids United. Like, my sons are basically fresh kids, you know? They got their own thing. It hasn't been updated in a while. Super Lag Bros. Kind of like a black spin off of Mario Brothers.
T: With FKU now, you guys are bringing back the clothing brand aspect, right?
K: We're bringing back the clothing—the clothing and the support, everything all together. But as far as the lifestyle, it's more than just the clothing. The clothing is basically like a uniform—like a marker. If somebody comes outside and they have an FKU shirt on and they see you with an FKU shirt on, it's instantly an invitation to network. If you understand what everything is about regarding what the garment is, if you understand what the meaning of FKU and the message is that we're trying to spread—United is in there, you know? Everybody's been divided for mad long, like since the freakin' Mayflower touched down.
T: And messed everything up.
K: It's always been divide and conquer mentality for people in higher positions than us. I'm like, "yo, fuck all that." If this is the United States and we living up to that name, you know, I'm saying like, why the fuck do you have United in your name if we're not?
S: Facts.
K: So what we practice is really uniting people together starting from the communities and really teaching it to the younger generation because the younger generation is taught all the bullshit and they grow up with this mindset "I can't really get along with this person because of religious views or melanin darkness or financial class or whatever." Get all these like get all these lines out of your head. We are all people, we are all beings. For somebody to really dislike somebody because of how much melanin they have in their skin is kind of ridiculous. We always had people from other ethnic backgrounds, you know, white, Asian, Hispanic. I never looked at anything other than you're person. When it comes to FKU, if you understand what being united is about and you want to be involved with something serious—I mean, I take this thing serious. I got a tatted on me. [I'll go into how that story came about. I just want people to come together.
T: It's evident that those that wear FKU desire progress in a new direction.
K: Like real change. I'm not trying to be a president. I'm just trying to make moves for the people who are hesitant. We always talk, we don't always make those actions, y'know? The presidents like, "oh, you know, I'm for change," but nothing's really changed. Everything's really still pretty much the same; everybody stressed the fuck out. And the last thing that we even talk or think about is human interaction—regular, genuine human interaction like, "what's up, how are you?" meeting somebody new for the first time. But this is where these FKU shirts come in. You see somebody with that same shirt on, you know that person is inviting you to talk to them. It's like you're saying, I'm united. If you want to be united, come holler at me.
T: When I see someone with it on, I'm going to run up to them. I'm not gonna to walk. I'm gonna run up.
K: You just talk about what you're doing right now, whatever you are doing.
T: I resonate with this so hard because that's exactly what I see: a better future looking like. This is why I do this.
K: We need these outlets to show some real love.
S: No bullshit.
Phenom_V wearing his cousins’ shirt.
T: We covered so much of what I wanted in all that we've discussed. There's so much presence of your collective mission in everything you communicate.
K: You can get the interpretation of what it is just by hanging out with everybody.
T: To touch back on clothing, it's so powerful because it's transformative. When you put on the gear, you assume that role.
K: Exactly. It's all intention. I mean, every piece that's ever been sold, I touch it. It's not manufactured outside by people banging it out. I touch every single garment. I do all the quality control.
T: In the last interview I did, I spoke with another artist from Boston. The last thing we were talking about in the interview, she brought up that we're still looking at cave paintings, you know, and what's being communicated is not just in that moment, but for thousands of years.
K: I was thinking about that the other day. I started painting, I think, three, four years ago when I started working with Visuals Paris. I was kind of getting back into the whole clothing thing when I was working with this collective called Visuals Paris. That goes back to the dude named Swag that we seen for the first time we had FKU; that's his brand. I was an artist for his brand so I painted a couple of jackets for him. Jackets looked fire or whatever, but that's when I built more confidence brushing. I never really painted before. I only did pencil. I didn't like painting because you couldn't really control what you were doing with the brush and how much you needed to use. I didn't get that, y'know? In high school, I just wanted to color it in. When I realized that I can actually bring shit to life on canvas, no matter if it's denim or regular paint canvas. I started doing more portraits and stuff like that, like I do rap artists that I listen to.
T: Yeah, I've been following you for awhile on Instagram. Stevens shared something of yours one time and I said "I like this." I've seen all those. I really liked the Freddie vs. Jason ones.
S: Oh yeah, the Fabolous and Jadakiss. Fire.
K: They had that mixtape Freddie vs. Jason, so I'm like "I have to do this" Every artist that I've done—I mean, I want to do more and I'm going to end up doing more—but every artist I've painted is people that I listen to while I'm painting. The Griselda pieces, I had to do them first because Griselda has been a big part as far as music for me and it's not really much of a subject matter because I never live like that but it's the sound. I get the art, and it's not like trash. It's almost like a breath of fresh air. It brings me back to the 90s type thing, like when people were really rapping.
T: Old school rappers had the whole story. You can listen to one after the other.
S: You could paint that shit in your mind. The shit was fuckin' dope.
T: I like new school shit too, though, y'know?
K: I do, too. I do, too, but I'm real picky.
S: Yeah, I'm picky as shit, too.
K: I gotta get impressed like...
S: No bullshit.
K: The beat and the way it sounds is nice, I fucks with it.
T: I was going to ask you about music because I had seen how you had drawn those rappers. It was clear that it's an influence.
K: I won't rap but I'll definitely brush them up, you know what I mean? Two rappers actually showed love, too. Westside Gun and Benny the Butcher both showed love on the pieces that I made. They commented that it was fire.
S: I was telling him about the Juelz Santana.
K: Oh, the Juelz Santana. I did Juelz Santana jacket piece and I was contacting him for a little while and that was before he went into jail. That piece came out crazy. I ended up putting that in a raffle because I didn't know how to get it to him. I was talking to Vado for a little bit and Vado was one of my favorite rappers a long time. When he first came out with Cam'ron back like when we was still in high school, that's when I started listening to him.
T: Do you see yourself working with other artists and designers?
K: Hell yeah. That's a part of my whole method on living life, you know what I'm saying? I want to collaborate. There's power in collaboration. I want to be introduced in to everybody's network as well as them being introduced to mine. That's the only way things can actually circulate, especially for Massachusetts. We don't have an established creative hub out here. I think just a lot of people have ego and it's like people need to understand. I mean, I have a different palate than somebody else. No one is going to have the same exact style right nor look at things the way I look at things, so if I can collaborate with somebody and they put their own spin on things to how I put things together or whatever and we create some magic like that, there's a chemistry there. It's almost like talking without even speaking. That's how I communicate, straight through art. I don't really talk much, but like, if you see one of my art pieces, you're going to stop and be like, "wow, this dude did that?"
T: I think that all the time when I'm listening or I like seeing artists because I get that same mentality. So when I see an artist and I look at it and I go, "oh wow," I smile for them too because I know they wanted me to get something out of it.
K: Meanwhile, that artist probably hates the piece that he or she showed. There's sometimes I come out with pieces, I'm like "yo, I don't really like it like that." My girl goes "put it up. That shit's fire." People end up fucking with it. That's cool. I ended up selling the Nipsey piece.
S: You already sold it? How much?
K: 70. It was a birthday gift but it was to the person that recommended it on the comments when I put, I think, the Frederick Douglass piece up or something. Now he's asking for Malcolm X piece which was already something I was in line with doing. Another thing, too—This even landing on Juneteenth that we're talking on this day—we don't get too much black history taught to us. I mean, we hear names like Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman and stuff like that but there's deeper history that, not just black, I mean, like Hispanic people, too. Some of them don't even know their real history, you know? We need to teach this more, especially to younger people, because they're impressionable. If every hero to them is somebody that they put in a history book and it's not the whole truth about that person. There's partly some of the truth like "Columbia did this."
T: There are hardly any heroes in the history books.
K: There's craziness all up in it, but I feel like we need to stop sugarcoating stuff to the kids.
T: For real. We can't paint this narrative like this is the way things unfolded and it's just right. We need to continue to work on it more than ever. So you're absolutely right, like, stop making history sound like a "good guy, bad guy" type thing. There's a lot of crazy shit. Everyone sacrificed. Some people more than others. There's a whole bunch of people that didn't have to lose anything to get where we're at now while everyone else had to be oppressed.
K: And it's like, "you don't even need to oppress a group of people to do what you're doing," you know? It's just wild. We're Haitian and I didn't know real Haitian history until about three years ago. My uncles would say like "oh, do you know about the Haitian revolution?"
T: The only slave revolution to be successful.
K: The first black republic.
S: January 1st.
K: I never really knew the back story behind it. I just knew there was an Independence Day, but I never knew the whole back story. So I'm like, "wow, why am I learning this now?" It was almost like a disappointment. I didn't even know my people had history like this and how hard people fought and how they try so hard to keep this information away from the United States so they want to revolt out here. There was so much money involved in the south, they couldn't afford to tell them what the hell was going on.
T: That's disinformation. They wouldn't even have ever considered telling them. On another note, Haiti is really kind of messed up right now.
K: Yeah, their financial situation has made things crazy.
T: I was getting in on the news of it recently through suggested videos. Their politics are...I feel really bad.
S: Such a force.
K: It's very corrupted out there. I think all politics are corrupted. I've never really seen one that wasn't. I heard people in Sweden are very happy.
T: They're the happiest, I believe.
K: If they're that happy, I want to know what's going on there.
T: I feel like they just mind their business and they have, like, this beautiful place. If they have to stay inside, it's like "whatever."
T: Can I ask you this goofy question?
K: There's no goofy questions.
T: FKU: Fresh Kids United. How do you stay fresh?
K: How do I stay fresh? It's been a part of us. We was always fly ever since we was kids.
S: Won best dressed middle school, won best dressed high school most years.
T: Oh, so freshness is just in the DNA.
K: Back to when the dads got the taco meat with the unbuttoned shirt on they Rico Suave, hair Jerry Curled and all. I don't know about dad with the Jerry Curls. We always seen like how to really take care of yourself from my dad, my uncles. They always was presentable. Even when I'm bummy, I think I'm fly. I don't really ever have scrubby or bummy moment. A pair of sweats and a t-shirt and hoodie, I go out with the confidence like I'm dressed up like in a three piece suit. It's all about the confidence, really. Yeah. Everything I wear, I'm confident it looks good. I don't buy anything for the purpose of it being bummy. If I like some sweats with the type of fit, I'm going to buy that and I'm gonna wear it on a day that I don't really feel like dressing up. I want to get comfortable. I got three kids, you know? You move around a whole fucking lot, you end up having to change your clothes a lot. You gotta make sure you got clothes that fit your lifestyle so I wear a lot of black. I wear comfy pieces. I wear pieces that last, I make pieces to last and I like longevity, man. I have Ralph Lauren pieces that I had since I worked at Ralph Lauren archived in freakin' vacuum sealed bags. I mean, I love Ralph Lauren. I think a lot of black people love Ralph Lauren. I think everybody loves Ralph Lauren.
S: I got a crazy collection. Probably be like twenty grand, bro. Twenty grand Ralph Lauren collection.
K: But that's our look, you know? I'm getting there and once I get there, it's gonna be a whole heritage lifestyle for FKU, like polos, rugbies, down to suits and all that.
T: What's the legacy that you'll have the kids inherit?
K: I'm definitely going to teach my kids everything I know. I think that that's the biggest thing that billionaires don't do for their kids. Like, they just let their kids get whatever they work for and never taught them how they got it. If I'm working for my last name, it's not going to end with me. It's not going to end with him. These kids are going to learn how to do whatever they got to do in order to keep the last name and whatever is connected to it moving forward. I think everybody who is an entrepreneur who does have a vision, if they start executing and they start making family plans and stuff like that, you should be able to have a plan set up where you want to teach your kids everything that you know. You don't know everything. I don't know everything. But my network has something. I can reach out to somebody in my network like, "yo, listen, my kids interested in this. What can I get? What information can you give me on it?" And that's another purpose of FKU. I love the whole networking thing. I invite multiple collectives. When I told people to get involved, it's not like I want you to, like, stop what you're doing just to be a part. FKU's like the air you breathe, you know what I'm saying? It's not just like putting on an FKU shirt, "I'm FKU today." You can be wearing Hanes or Fruit of the Loom undershirt outside because it's 80 degrees and still have that mentality of FKU." I'm going to go out network. I'm going to say I'm involving what I'm taking serious today."
Every day I come back home, I work overnights. Every time I get back, I work on a couple of pieces right before I go to sleep. I still even haven't slept; I work the whole week. I worked the whole week, came back home, worked on a couple more pieces because I'm going to be selling them here, and right before I came out here, I just finished up whatever I had left, came straight out here. Yeah. The grind don't stop. A lot of people sell a couple of things and think they're famous already.
S: You gotta keep going.
K: Keep going. You know what I'm saying? It's not just for the people that know about it right now. There's people all the way in China that don't know about it yet. And they probably have something that will help push the movement forward.
T: Something to offer. Imagine in the streets out there?
S: Fuck yeah.
K: I wanna go out there and Japan badly.
T: I would feel honored, you know, because they have a good sense of fashion.
K: They know the lifestyle.
S: They'll buy that whole shit out.
K: It's all lifestyle out there and all individuality which is why with these recent pieces with the camouflage FKU, I'm encouraging people to do custom.
T: I thought that was tight. And you know what, I looked at the first design and I said "I just want that one," and then I saw all the other ones.
K: I was like, "you sure? You sure?? You might want pick some colors." Because another thing, too, is that when you personalize it to yourself, you're going to want to wear it more. If I customize a piece for me, I'll wear the shit out of that. I wore it because I chose these certain colors because it's my everyday thing. My everyday thing is black, yellow, red, blue, and a little bit of green, like the sport colorway. I think that's—
T: That's my move right here. I got it. And I'm just wearing all black too. Like you say that you just described my daily attire for sure.
K: So you could throw any shoe on with your piece because you have everything that you would wear with it. I think of—who is the millionaire that they like kind of based—Mark Zuckerberg. He has a whole bunch of gray t-shirts or something like that. He's a cartoon character now. you got a whole bunch of the same shirts, but it's like that. You can buy like five, good FKU shirts and got a whole bunch of mixed colors and that's all everything that you would wear.
S: Satisfy the whole weekend.
K: Week! Every day I just touchdown and network with like ten different people just because they see me in the shirt. That kind of goes back when we had the FKU sweatshirt back in high school.
S: The crewnecks.
K: Yeah, the crewnecks. And the little brothers or the siblings of the members that were in high school that were actually in FKU, they would wear it to the middle school like, "yo, let's get mad clout!" If I had an FKU shirt, y'know what I mean, there's no FKU members in the middle school. "How'd you get that?" "Yo, my brother or sister is a part of it." That's the—
T: That's magic.
K: That's the key behind it; that's what I'm pushing for. I want that feeling that, like—I want kids and even adults to really feel like that shirt is a part of them. Those pair of pants is a part of them. This is everything pertaining to my lifestyle. It don't even got to be art. I could be a teacher or I can be a real estate agent or a broker and I have this FKU mentality. Whatever I know, I'm going to be able to teach it to the next generation so we don't fall. The baby boomers are dying and they ain't teaching shit.
S: Nothing at all. Selfish with the knowledge.
T: It's because they [baby boomers] don't even know.
K: Everything I learned in life, I learned from experience. The next generation is the keys to us moving forward.
While it was on Juneteenth that the Palanquin touched down with FKU, this partnership is infinite. It feels like a golden ribbon has been awarded but it’s only the preliminaries. These bonds are ones of joy and of hope that anyone of us is one step from the choice to don and look toward the future and move forward to a better tomorrow. It’s a cheers at the table. It’s confetti falling in the foyer. The good guys are going to keep on winning. If you don’t believe, then please, reread. The Laguerre brothers aren’t just spinning tales. They’re winding up for a home run every time. And the uniform says Fresh Kinds United.
