 This week’s article about Big Boi and the shoes he wore on stage at the Sneaker Pimps cause quite a stir. Both online and off, questions arose how Big Boi made it to the stage at a sneaker show wearing suspicious sneakers and why he was not questioned on stage like other attendees of the show. Nice Kicks caught up with the Dave Jeff of PHLI and DJ Clark Kent (Sneaker Pimps host and DJ respectively) to ask a few questions. Did Big Boi get a special “pass” for wearing what he wore? Does he even care about the shoes he was wearing? Click here to read their answers and more. |
Matt Halfhill – Nice Kicks: What is your involvement with the Sneaker Pimps?
Dave Jeff – PHLI: I have been the host for the past 3 tours of Sneaker Pimps. I am the MC, I get it crackin’!
DJ Clark Kent: I am DJ Clark Kent, and I am the Sneaker Pimps tour’s resident DJ.
Matt: Jumping right into things that people might want to ask. I heard that someone in the crowd at Sneaker Pimps Atlanta was spotted and identified for wearing fake shoes to the show. Is this a common occurrence on the tour?
Dave: Yes it is. Me being the voice of a lot of hip hop and sneaker shows including Sneaker Pimps, DunkxChange, and other sneaker shows, my tag line is that sneakers are a very important part of my life. They are how I eat and feed my family. These shows are official and real sneaker events and if you see someone wearing fakes to a real and official sneaker event smack their ass. I don’t mean in the literal form, but of course let these people know what they are doing and what they are wearing. So that is what happened in Atlanta. The crowd pointed out this person who was wearing some fake, clear Air Force Ones. The crowd pointed him out, I saw him, brought him to the side of the stage and told the dude “I am going to embarrass you” but 9 out of 10 times we have something special to replace their shoes with. Usually its something that isn’t coming out for a few months. The point of this is to educate people about fake shoes, where they come from, and why they aren’t cool.
Someone from the crowd handed up a lighter to take care of the shoes, but as soon as the flame touched his kicks he got all belligerent, flipped off the crowd, and screamed out that he loved his fake shoes. At that point I told security to get that dude out of the club because that isn’t what we were about.
Matt: Alot of people both in the crowd and online who saw photos of Big Boi had some serious questions not only regarding the authenticity of his sneakers, but why he wasn’t stopped before taking the stage at Sneaker Pimps in what are alleged to be fake shoes?
Clark: I think that I would like to speak for the both of us on that. We were both DJing and doing our part of the show on stage and Greg Street was brought to introduce Big Boi. Now when Big Boi was introduced, Dave and I were not on stage. We were no where near the stage. When Big Boi took the stage, I was alerted by someone via text message that he was wearing shoes that were looking suspect, so I came out from backstage and looked on from the side of the stage. Now I saw that they weren’t right or what I visualized what wasn’t right and Dave and I both were like “nah, these aren’t right”, but at this point the show was already going on. Now my thing is what do you do? Stop him in the middle of performing and say “yo” or do you wait until it’s over and then say something. So we waited since he is a professional who is performing and it’s part of the show for him to perform you wait until it’s over. But what happened was that is after he performed, the club cleared out since he closed the show. There really was no way to rush onto the stage after his set and say “hey man”. There was no one to address it to. He finished his stage, got off the stage, and left. So there really was no way to address the situation at the show.
