Austin, TX is well known on the music map, home to epic festivals and icons of the rock, country and indie scenes. 512 native Kydd Jones looks to add his face to Austin’s music Mount Rushmore, showing out on a yearly basis at SXSW and opening up on tour stops for the likes of Big Sean and Kendrick Lamar. For this installment of Kickstarter, we caught up with Kydd to hear the story behind the pair of sneakers that started it all for him.
Kydd Jones: “My story is kind of PG-13. My mother was incarcerated and I was probably in fourth or fifth grade. The guys down the street asked me to go up the street to be on the lookout for the law and they said they’d give me some money. I did that and just stayed on top of the hill at the neighborhood that I lived at. Like a week later they gave me $200 and I went and got the Air Jordan 13s. Those were the first shoes I bought with my not-so hardworking money (laughs), but that’s what really got me into sneakers. I was probably like 11.”
“The whole thing about me having the Jordans was that my mother was incarcerated and I was living with my grandmother. She couldn’t afford having us in all the nice shoes that my mother kept us in when she was around. Me having those Jordans was a big deal for me. My grandma would have me in some Payless shoes that I never wore, so I just wore these Nike track shoes for a whole year. Once I got these Jordans I was so happy.”
“I don’t remember my shirt the first day I rocked them, but I remember my jeans. I had those JNCOS (laughs) and you could barely even see my shoes. I used to think I was a breakdancer and at the time the breakers around where I was at were wearing the big JNCOs and stuff like that. I was trying to show everybody my Jordans and I had to flip up the JNCOS. My pants were looking really out of there, but my shoes were tight.”
Check out Kydd live in Austin this Thursday at Sound Select presented by Red Bull. Keep up with Kydd on Twitter and on Instagram.
