crave magazine

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CRAVING | NAVN ARTIKKEL

EVERYONE IS AN ARTIST.-Joseph Beuys

NAVN ARTIKEL

LEDER | AMANDUS BJERK

Velkommen til første nummer av magasinet “Crave”. Vi er et urbant hiphop-magasin, som tar vinklingen litt vekk fra selve musikken og mer over til moten og design innenfor hiphop. Du får bl.a. et innblikk i store artister sitt forhold til mote og egen stil og du får møte hiphop-verdens største og fresheste designere. Vi vil selvfølgelig også ha fokus på musikken og vi vil i hver utgave presen-tere alle offisielle albumene til artister som Kanye West, Pharrell Williams og Clipse.

I hver utgave vil vi ha et eller flere intervjuer med kjente personer som gjør det stort på verdensbasis. Vi vil også ha et fast mote oppslag og også presentere en norsk designer i hver utgave.

NAVN ARTIKEL

INTERVJU MED KANYE WEST MOTE: SNEAKERSPESIAL

INTERVJU MED KAWS NORSKE DESIGNERE

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INTERVJU MED

BENGT ENRIQUE

INTERVJU MED KANYE WEST | BENGT ENRIQUE

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How did your collaboration with Louis Vuitton come about?I already knew and looked up to Marc Jacobs. Then Louis Vuitton called me and said they had this idea for me to do shoes. I was really excited about the opportunity. I don’t know if they quite knew what they were getting into asking me to help create something!

How did you work with the teams from Louis Vuitton? We’d fly out there. They’d have ideas. I’d have ideas and I’d start sketching. I just sketched every idea in my head, women’s, men’s, everything. In the end Louis Vuitton had to narrow it down because I had so many ideas that I wanted to get out.

How many sneakers did you design? Ten, but I would have done more. So, I would hopefully design more sneakers for Louis Vuitton in the future.

What was your image of Louis Vuitton before you became so closely involved with the company, and have your impressions evolved in any way as a result of the collabo-ration? They’ve always been my favourite aspirational brand from the day I bought my first wallet. Actually I used to dream of being able to buy their trunks and put them round my house.

How would you define your style? An expression of what I’m feeling today.

Do you feel you’ve got your look ‘down’ perfectly? Actually I’m constantly trying to learn what looks good on me. It’s kinda hard. It takes a while to really get it, to figure out your style. Most people I know who dress ‘A Plus’ are 35 and older. So it’s alot about experience.

Who is an exception to that rule? The singer, Rihanna, who is 21. She’s kind of like a genius because regardless of how many stylists she has, I know she does it on her own. That’s an innate talent, having style like that. It’s kind of like the way people play sport, some people just hit the shoots into the net better. Yeah. Fashion is a sport in a way.

Are you a fashion genius? I don’t think I’ve reached genius level yet. It’s good. But its not good enough for me. I want to be better, the best, hehe.

So you’re saying style-wise, you’re a perfectionist? It’s not so much about perfectionism as creativity and needing to constantly evolve.

How would you describe the experience of Paris / France?Y’know, when I first went to Paris I used to HATE it. Now it’s one of my favourite cities in the world. I compare Paris to a girl that you meet at a bar who is very rude to you, who you end up falling in love with.

What do you like most about the city? I like the heriage, the attitude. The vibe I get from Parisiens is highly educated, highly cultured and very impatient. And I’m into that. Paris forces you to step up your game. It forces you NOT to be ignorant about things.

What do you like least? Nothing. I like it so much I may move there. They used to say if you could make it in New York you could make it anywhere. Well, if you can make it in Paris you can ANNIHILATE the world.

Are you a tough person to work for? In the beginning I didn’t know how to get respect in a civil manner. I didn’t know you didn’t have to scream and jump up and down. I don’t have to be like that now.

Where is your office? For me, the world is my office.

How do you take criticism? There are plenty of people, I notice, who like to criticize you on your blog, kanyewestu-nivercity.com. Well, you have to figure out why people say those things. Like, were they having a bad day or some-thing? Actually, I think it’s kind of fabulous, people saying stuff like Kanye, you’re a faggot, or Kanye, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. That’s a great blog comment! Be-cause of course I’m taking myself WAY too seriously.

Greatest world leader? Obama.

KANYE’S STYLE

LOUIS VUITTON

PERSONAL

INTERVJU MED KANYE WEST | BENGT ENRIQUE

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THE COLLEGE DROPOUT

Deby albumet til Kanye. Fikk strålende kristikker, og er av mange sett på som hans og et av de beste hiphop-albumene gjennom tidene. Innholdt singlene: Through the wire, All falls down og megahitten og første singelen, Jesus walks. Dette var hans store gjennombrud, og første steg til å bli verdens største hiphop-artist. Har solgt over 4 millioner album.

LATE REGESTRATION

Hans andre album som ble sluppet i 2005, var et album med skyhøye forhåpninger fra fans og anmeldere. Kanye leverte på ny et fantastisk og gjennomført album, men nådde ikke helt opp til The college dropout. Al-bumet nådde toppen på mange lister, og hovedsingelen, Gold digger, ble en stor suksess og landeplage verden over. Solge 860,000 i første uke.

GRADUATION

Etter 2-års ventetid var Kanye endelig tilbake med albumet, Graduation. Albumet solgte nesten 1 million kopier i første uka i USA og nesten 2,2 millioner frem til i dag. Albumet innholdt flere nummer 1 singler, bl.a., Good life, med T-Pain. Kanye hadde med seg artister som Mos Def, Chris Martin, Lil Wayne, John Mayer og Young Jeezy.

KANYE WESTS ALBUM | AMANDUS BJERK

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GRADUATION

808s & Heartbreak is the fourth studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released November 24, 2008 on Roc-A-Fella Records in the United States. Recording ses-sions for the album took place at Glenwood Studios in Bur-bank, California and Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii during September to October 2008. It was primar-ily produced by West, No I.D., and Jeff Bhasker. Conceived in the wake of multiple events that affected and distressed him during the previous year, 808s & Heartbreak marked a major musical departure for Kanye West from his previous work, lyrically, vocally, and production-wise.

Classified by West as a pop album, 808s & Heartbreak incorporates elements of synthpop, electronica, R&B, and electropop, while its tracks are primarily sung rather than rapped by West and contain lyrical themes such as love, loneliness, and heartache. The album also contains exten-sive use of the Auto-Tune voice processor and the Roland TR-808 drum machine, which was utilized and manipulated by West to produce a distorted, electronic sound. Ap-proaching the album’s production in a minimalist fashion, West intended to contravene the typical sound of hip hop beat and instead evoke a presence of tribal drums.

The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 450,145 copies in its first week, and it produced four singles that attained Billboard chart suc-cess. 808s & Heartbreak became his fourth album to sell 1 million copies in the United States.

MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the fifth studio album by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West, released November 22, 2010, on Roc-A-Fella Records. Recording sessions for the album took place primarily at Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii during 2009 to 2010. Production was handled by West and several other record producers, including Jeff Bhasker, The RZA, No I.D., and Mike Dean, among others. Following a hiatus from his music career, West worked on the album through a com-munal development that involved him and various other musicians and producers contributing collectively to its music. Noted by music writers for its varied elements, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy incoporates musical com-ponents from West’s previous works and features themes regarding excess and celebrity.

The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 496,000 copies in its first week in the United States. It achieved respectable international charting and produced four singles that attained chart success, includ-ing US Billboard hits “Power”, “Monster”, “Runaway”, and “All of the Lights”. Upon its release, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy received general acclaim from music critics, earning praise for its varied musical style, opulent production quality, and West’s dichotomous themes. It was also named the best album of 2010 in numerous critics’ polls and year-end lists. The album has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Ameri-ca and has sold 1,095,000 copies in the United States.

KANYE WESTS ALBUM | AMANDUS BJERK

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MOTE

Alife Public Low Naval Canvas

En perfekt sommersko om du skaltusle rundt i byen eller dra på stranda en nydelig sommerdag.

Pris: 799,-

Nike Free 3.0 v2 black/blue

Skoen som passer for deg som liker å trene eller bare ha noen nydelig og komfertable sko.

Pris: 1099,-

Pointer Debaser White

Pointer med fine og lyse sommer-sko. Lette og gode på foten, som kan brukes til det meste.

Pris: 899,-

Converse All Star Hi green

Klassikeren! Kul sommersko, med mange freshe farger. All Star skoen fåes også i lave, perfekt for sommer.

Pris: 599,-

Nike Toki Premium Birch

En urban modell fra Nike som kan brukes som en hverdagssko til en finere stil.

Pris: 899,-

Clae McQueen Black canvas

Denne skoen ligner litt på Nike Toki, men er en mer esklusiv variant. Clae, med dope design.

Pris: 1299,-

SNEAKER SPESIAL | AMANDUS BJERK

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2011

Whether you’re a fitness fiend or a proud sneakerhead, your end goal is probably to turn some heads, making these two new colorways of the Nike Free Run+ 2 solid options for both camps. Chlorine Blue and Total Orange adorn the first pair, while Challenge Red and Black come together on the second. Both rely on White, ultra-flexible Free soles with Nike+ iPod compatibility.

Pris: 1199,-Fåes kjøpt: Stress og Sole Service.

NIKE FREE RUN 2

SNEAKER SPESIAL | AMANDUS BJERK

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INTERVJU MED KAWS:

SKREVET AV TOBEY MCGUIRE

INTERVJU MED KAWS | TOBEY MCGUIRE

TOBEY MCGUIRE

I’m interested in your backstory—how KAWS came to be. So let’s start there. I was born in Jersey City, and I guess that’s probably where it started. When I was young, I tried sports but never really got into them. I played ice hockey because there was a rink up the street from me, but once I grew out of my equipment, my parents were like, “Are you serious about this?” and I said, “Not really.” I think I got into skating and graffiti mostly because they are both solo activities. You can take it where you want to without needing a team to play.

Did you have a drawing background? Did you take art classes as a kid? In elementary school I was a bad kid—not bad as in bad behavior but kind of illiterate bad. My fifth grade teacher told my mom, “Maybe he can pursue art?” But really, I had no background. Even in high school, art wasn’t something that occurred to me to pursue. It was just a hobby that I had a heavy leaning toward.

So it was more that you were just immersed as a teen in the culture of skating and that led you to art? Definitely. Jersey City is so close to Manhattan. You took the PATH train in for a dollar, so it would only cost $2 for a whole day of skating—from Brooklyn Banks to Tompkins Square Park. I would meet tons of kids from different boroughs, and that parlayed into graffiti. I got mixed into that.

Where did the name KAWS come from? There’s no mean-ing to it. It’s just letters that I liked—K-A-W-S. I felt like they always work and function nicely with each other.

“THERE’S NO MEANING TO IT.IT’S JUST LETTERS THAT I LIKED KAWS.”

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It’s provocative, as in “to be the cause of something.” “To cause.” There was none of that type of thinking when you came up with the name? No, I think I went with that name because I felt like it had no connection. Trust me, editors later had a field day with that. In every article it was like “KAWS and effect” or “KAWS célèbre.”

But let’s stop and think about that for a second. What is your cause? [KAWS laughs] I mean, at that point in your life, were you thinking about becoming successful, making money, or just sharing your art? What were you doing it for? What was your approach? I didn’t know for a long time. The graf stuff was almost like a sport I fell into and was good at. I woke up wanting to do it and fell asleep thinking about it. When I was in school, my mind would be on painting. I guess that’s the only thing I’ve ever really been focused on. When I started painting on advertisements, it occurred to me that the ad really set the work in a specific time. You could look at a dozen walls and an untrained eye might not be able to distinguish the difference between the ’80s and ’90s. When you paint over ads, it clicks—especially with the phone booths I was doing. There were these Calvin Klein ads of Kate Moss or Christy Turlington. I think that’s when I realized it was more about communication. There was a dialogue to it.

A dialogue with other graffiti artists or with a broader audience? Both. It’s strange with graffiti. You put a lot out, but you don’t get that much back because not many people know who’s doing it. You have your peers of about 10 guys who know you are the one painting. Like, this morning, I took my dog out, and I noticed my assistant hit the rooftop across the street on his way out yesterday.

Was that the beginning of a fine-art career? Well, after I took a semester off, I put a portfolio together and went over to SVA to apply. I didn’t know then that they’ll take anyone’s money. Like, if you’re not asking for a scholarship at art school, you can get in pretty easily. I went for illustration. I figured I could get a job doing that and still have my personal work. When I showed a teacher some of my graffiti, I remember he said, “Stop wasting your time. You need to focus.” Obviously, I dropped his class.

Is that the Got Milk? campaign? Yeah. That was in ’97. It was right on Houston where West Broadway turns into LaGuardia. I loved doing that spot. I think another reason why the painting worked so well was that in the ’90s, advertisements started to have a much stronger presence. They started doing those full-building billboards down Houston, taking over walls that had been covered in graffiti for years. It became a focal point for me to take back some of those spots.

But I like that you are actually working with the adver-tisement. You aren’t just ignoring it and treating it like a blank canvas. You incorporated it—a forced collabora-tion. Did you ever get caught by the police when you were doing one? No, not doing graffiti. I once got caught putting up a sticker. I had to do a night in jail—not at Central Booking but at the Sixth Precinct downtown. [laughs] But eventually I got bored painting over ads. I started taking white paper and painting it in, so at night it would almost glow like a gi-ant light box. Remember when Marc Jacobs did that show on Houston and Sixth Avenue [in 2000]? I remember the day before, they were setting up that whole basketball court and I hit both walls there. It was the perfect flood of people. Then I met this photographer, David Sims, who had shot a lot of campaigns I worked over. He invited me to London and had made a lot of prints for me. So I started painting acrylic over actual photos. That led me to doing actual magazine stories. The whole project just started to grow, and I didn’t put any boundaries on it.

How did you first get involved with making toys? I was always really into the pop artists and the editions they would make with Gemini G.E.L. I just didn’t think I’d meet anyone who would actually ask me to do a sculpture. But in ’97, I went to Tokyo and started developing a relationship with some guys there—making stuff with different companies. The opportunity came up to make a toy. There was a com-pany called Bounty Hunter that was making some of the first toys that were a little bit different. Before that, my idea of a toy was, like, Kenner or Hasbro. But they were making small runs of 500 toys.

“THE GRAF STUFF WAS ALMOST LIKE A SPORT I FELL INTO AND WAS GOOD AT. I WOKE UP WANTING TO DO IT AND FELL ASLEEP THINKING ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME.”

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You were giving yourself the freedom not to follow the traditional route to a fine-art career but instead chose to cut your own path. Seems bold. I guess my goal has been just to figure out how to get through life making stuff.

You have your own store in Tokyo, right? Yes. We have accounts with a lot of different places, but we have one flag-ship there. I was doing a lot of different projects in Japan in the late ’90s. There was a company called Hectic and then Undercover, which invited me to design a clothing line. And Nigo at A Bathing Ape asked me to do clothes. A lot of friends at the time said to me, “Why are you wasting so much energy in Japan? It’s a throwaway.” They thought of Japan as a place where people could make some quick money without losing credit, very Lost in Translation–style. But when I went, I met these guys around my age who were just killing it. They were working hard and making amazing stuff. To me that was where it was happening. Then it suddenly started creeping into the U.S. I think that had a lot to do with musicians like Pharrell really getting into it and spreading the word.

And eventually Pharrell started collecting your work.Yes. That’s through Nigo. Nigo is one of my biggest support-ers. The only paintings in his house in Tokyo are mine. Aside from my paintings, what he really collects is Bentleys. He has crazy cars. His house is out of control. Do you know that series of package paintings that I did? That was because I saw that these guys in Japan were collecting toys. I had friends that were spending $3,000 on a Star Wars prototype figure. They weren’t collecting art, they were collecting toys. So I did those package paintings where I mass-produced the pack-aging around the painting, but the painting itself was done individually. That was my way of bridging the gap between those two worlds. Because I realized that these guys are ab-solute connoisseurs of the stuff they collect. They can look at a toy and say, “Oh, this is a ’76. It came out in three versions.” It occurred to me that that kind of obsessive collecting isn’t any different than art.

How many package paintings did you do the first time around? About 40. Before that I really was just painting over ads. But then when Nigo started giving me commissions, I started doing really different large-scale paintings—like the Kimpsons series.

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NORSKE DESIGNERE AV: AMANDUS BJERK

HVER UKE PRESENTERER VI EN NORSK URBAN DESIGNERE. I 1. UTGAVE BKIR VI BEDRE KJENT MED MANNEN SOM HAR GJORT JOBBER FOR BL.A. 5O CENT, NAS OG KINGSIZE OG DESIGNET SNEAKERS FOR ADIDAS.

AV: CHRISTIAN BIELKE

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AV: AMANDUS BJERKNORSKE DESIGNERE

Hva fikk deg til åstarte med grafisk design?Jeg har alltid likt å tegne, ta bilder og å rett og slett jobbe med design, så det var veldig naturlig for meg å gå den retningen.

Du har designet sneakers for Adidas. Kan du fortelle oss hvordan du fikk den muligheten?Jeg kom på første plass i Skandinavia, tredjeplass på verdensbasis, i Adidas og Vice Magazines konkurranse om å customize Adidas sko. Siden dette har jeg jobbet med å designe/customize sko.

Du har i din unge alder hatt mange store jobber. Hva er det morsomste du har gjort?Jeg hører mye på hip hop, så jeg likte veldig godt å jobbe for Skandinavias største hip hop-magasin, Kingsize. Der fikk jeg mye frie tøyler og det er noe jeg trives med. Har også laget rundt 500 konsertplakater og flere CD-covere, blant annet for 50 Cent, Al Green, Madcon og Karpe Diem.




Du har designet sneakers for Adidas. Kan du fortelle oss hvordan du fikk den muligheten?Jeg kom på første plass i Skandinavia, tredjeplass på verdensbasis, i Adidas og Vice Magazines konkurranse om å customize Adidas sko. Siden dette har jeg jobbet med å designe/customize sko. Det er selvfølgelig noe jeg vil gjøre igjen. Har aldri drømt om å designe sko i og med at jeg er en stor sneakersamler. Så det å designe sko for Adidas er helt klart høydepunktet.




COVER FOR CHRIS LEE

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