My goodness, it's quite refreshing to process my thoughts into digital words. (Again excuse my grammatical errors or my poor sentence structure, I have feeling this is going to be a long rant). My lack of updates consisted of a up to no good Summer, a change of academic scenery, pequeño effu drops and of course the Hieroglyphics collaboration. This collaborative effort marked our first collaboration ever in our brand history and its truly a blessing. I've been a Hiero fan since the hooligan days. I first discovered the legendary crew from Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, the video game with the best soundtrack to date. "If You Must" was my track to go HAM on with my custom skater or with Darth Maul. From then on, I've been fans of Hiero and Souls 'til.
For effulgence, I always intended to make my first collaboration memorable. But a few years back, I caved for marketing reasons and decided to link up with another smaller brand and a local designer. Ironically those works didn't fall through. Drop 4 and Drop 5 were later born, personally my proudest work. So I wanted to restock on my oh so popular 3030 tee from Drop 4, but thought to myself how great would it be to make it an official collaboration with Del. I played a scenario of Del and I taking a photo together rockin' the collaborative piece. My brother quickly turn down the idea saying "Don't get your hopes up." My friend used to be homies with the Adapt founder, so I decided to contact him. A weeks passed and no response. So instead of waiting for connects for this dream collaboration to happen, I decided to take the risk and go straight to the source, message Del. And to my surprise he responded a few days later really digging my gear and directed me to his personally brand, Del Hiero. Del Hiero didn't seem interested into collaborating with me from the lack of e-mails. So I remember I e-mailed Hiero's management company a year back for a Dom Kennedy press pass. Igor of Ineffable Music seemed to be more responsive from past experiences. He happened to responded a week or so after and the process was born.
I have to admit this collaboration wasn't the smoothest process in the world. I know I wasn't a huge priority on their to do list. But I stayed persisted since Igor never said no to me and knew this would be a milestone personally and for the brand. A couple months passed and I finally had a meeting with Igor. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to meet up with the Hiero crew during the design process. Management company played as the middleman. I know a lot of effu supporters were disappointed with the outcome since it was just a bucket, but you have to understand this was a collaboration. The crew didn't want a t-shirt or hoodie because they have done many of this before I wanted something different. I figured a bucket hat would be the best choice of garment to utilize their infamous logo. But I was pushing for other pieces all summer but they never went through. After the meeting with Igor, he kind of disappeared on me. For every 3 or so replies I sent, I received a vague reply back. Again, not a huge priority which was understandable. But literally 2 weeks before Hiero Day, I got the official word on the pushing the order with the buckets. I couldn't believe this was real. Although it was only a bucket and I couldn't incorporate much of my effulgence style in the design, I still had an official piece with the legendary Bay Area crew.
My boy Jimmy came through quick on the bucket order and dropped them off the Friday before the big event. The Ineffable crew were really digging the buckets. I had a short meeting with Igor as the rest of the management team went out to get coffee. Pep Love happens to walk in to pick up gear and Igor didn't have any photographers, but noticed my camera. So I had the opportunity to take snaps of Pep with the new bucket. Half of the buckets were sold on Hiero Day at Hiero's merch booth and sold out within in hour. This hectic 5 month process frustrating and time consuming, but was worth it in the end.
In other news, Hiero Day was once again, epic!!! It was much bigger this year with multiple of stages, more vendors, tons of beer and a skateboard spot. I mainly stayed in the front of the main stage to get good shots. I witnessed Kev Choice, Black Opera, Mystic, CMG, Keak Da Sneak, Craig G, Venice Dawn and Hiero perform. You could tell Hiero's performance was emotional for the crew. Pep even started tearing up. Thanks for everything you guys have done to the Bay. Unfortunately Del wasn't in attendance.
I couldn't even imagine having a collaborative piece with Hiero from last year, but it happened and I'm still in awe. There's still a few buckets left on our online shop if anyone is interested. Again a special thank you to the fans that have been holding effulgence down before this milestone. Without you guys this would've never happened. Thanks for supporting my passion and continuing to make my dream become a reality (cliches are the truth).
Pep Love rockin' the bucket on stage during Hiero's performance.
I had the opportunity to thank some new supporters.
Kev Choice, his rendition of Black Skinhead was too dope.
Black Opera, they gained a new super fan. Mixing a theatrical performance with hip-hop.
The old school Craig G. He went to down in crowd and started freestyling with props from the fans.
Keak Da Sneak's medley was nostalgic to the middle school hyphy days.
Venice Dawn aka The Weeknd.
Legendary.
