Our Story

It all started with a sneaker… a nike sneaker. Nike had decided to release a tribute to the 1996 Olympics held in Atlanta. They were going to remake the Bo Jackson model in a unique colorway that represented Atlanta. Bem had heard about these sneakers and immediately got excited. He began ideating around a launch event for the sneaker. And we just so happened to have a direct contact at Nike corportate. Out boy Kaos, was a close contact that we came up with… on some street team ish. And he was working at Nike corporate. So Bem reached out to see what Nike was doing for the release. And the answer was NOTHING! According to Kaos, Nike didn’t see Atlanta as a big enough market to invest money into a marketing roll out for the sneakers. They were just going to release a limited number in market with regular marketing support. But that wasn’t good enough for Bem. And Bem began ranting to his buisness partner, Ian.

At the time, Ian was interested in developing Bem’s civic brand. Everyone was beginning to know Bem as the unofficial mayor of Atlanta. And his brand was growing. Everyone knew Bem. So, Ian was looking for slogan that would represent and galvanize a community around Bem, but nothing had stuck… yet. Also, Bem and Ian had a previous meeting with the City of Atlanta, Office of Film & Entertainment. And from this meeting, the head of the organization had mentioned that Atlanta was looking for a tagline, like New York had “Made in New York”. So while Bem was ranting, Ian was listening closely for something to stand out. And something did… Bem said it… “man f*ck that shawty, cuz Atlanta influences everything”. That’s all Ian needed. He ran with it and designed the iconic logo that is became a movement in Atlanta.

Well, we printed some t-shirts and gave them out to the community, but we didn’t have a plan. And everything started to fizzle and go stale. Then our friend, Tory, approached us about joining the team and breathing some life into the movement. Tory came in with new ideas and new energy and reinvigorated the brand. We accepted him and the rest is history.