For me, there’s never a day that goes by where I’m not worried about the future of Loyal K.N.G. or myself, for that matter. The crew and I continually set a strong vision to guide our choices as we navigate our paths toward our goals, dreams, and ambitions. We’re continually challenging our abilities and pushing the boundaries with our work and art. It’s truly a labor of love where we pour all our time, money, and hard work into. So with 2010 being one of the biggest year for us thus far, I took the daunting task to summarizing the Loyal K.N.G. journey for the entire year. This 2010 year recap will certainly give you a more in-depth insight to our Loyal K.N.G. hustle and lifestyle.
January:
Coming into the beginning of the 2010 year, we worked hard to bring something fresh to our hometown, Longview TX. Our goal was to bring the community together to enjoy something creative and fun.
…And we did that with our first dance competition by pitting the “David’s Ambassadors” crew against a tribute Jabbawockeez dance crew, “Jabbawock33z“. It was definitely one of those crazy times where sleeping became irrelevant as we spent days perfecting the crews’ moves for the big event. To our surprise, the event turn-out was a complete SUCCESS. We had attracted over 250 attendees to come by to watch the performance in our town. It took us by surprise, but it was definitely an experience that taught us the value of hard-work, dedication, and perseverance.
This video was the promotional trailer that we used to promote the “David’s Ambassadors VS Jabawock33z” event. This is the video that launched the Loyal K.N.G. video/recap/documentary series.
As a celebration to the event’s success, I took the entire crew to Dallas for Mecca Dance Center for a work shop with America’s Best Dance Crew’s So Real Crew. It was a great way to cap off the first month of 2010. January was a good start to our 2010 year, and it became the primer for the months to come.
Dance Battle footage: Jabbawock33z, David’s Ambassadors
Posts: Event Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Newspaper Coverage of the Event
Other cool January highlights: Mecca Workshop w/ So Real Crew
February:
February was the month that marked as our first time to visit a BIG sneaker convention, and, in this case, it was the “All-Star Weekend Sneakend” event. I took the crew all the way to Dallas TX, to attend the festive sneaker show. It was a time where we created valuable memories and made new friends. Prior to visiting Dallas TX for this event, I had never known that Texas had any type of street-culture-related event before. So to experience “Sneakend” for all the different collectors, streetwear boutiques, clothing line brands, and celebrities, was something like a dream come true for me. It was the gateway-event that would open the doors of Dallas to us.
One of the coolest highlights of attending “Sneakend” was meeting people, such as Fur Face Boy, Unkommon Kolor, Shogun, Adikt, Centre, Heat Seekers Krew, and so much more who would later play a frequent roll in our brand’s journey to Dallas, and other major cities around TX. In fact, even the kind folks of the Shogun store crew along with THE REAL Fur Face Boy himself, gave us a opportunity to chill with them for dinner at the local Hooters restaurant, and if that wasn’t enough, they even got us VIP passes to the “Michael Jordan Exhibit” event.
Sneakend Posts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Jordan Exhibit Post
March:
March was a month I can honestly deem as one of the most JAMMED packed month of activities and traveling we’ve probably had the entire year of 2010. March was a lot of first-times for us. It was the month we got into the mindset of getting out of our zone and into something completely different and basically defined the rest of the year for us in terms of building brand awareness and networking with folks for future projects.
We first met the Sour Grapes 13 crew, whom we would later work on a HUGE project together during the later part of the year (you’ll see what later in the post), during a private Vitamin Water sponsored graffiti exhibition show. Meeting the famous and talented Sour Grapes 13 crew was a definite honor. They are a crew of brothers loyal to each other, something that rings true for what we stand for here at Loyal K.N.G. We have a lot of love and respect for these guys!
Within the few weeks of March, we were visiting Fort Worth’s Shogun Store for a Manny Pacquiao event. The event was held in celebration for Manny’s fight later on that evening at the newly constructed Dallas Cowboy Stadium. The Shogun event was a major success. People from all over Dallas area dropped through to enjoy the music, good food, and good people.
Directly after the Shogun x PacMan event, we journeyed down to San Antonio for Sole Boutique‘s Sneaker Palooza event. This was a brand new event which accumulated local and big name hip hop artists, BBOYs and BGIRLs, graffiti artists, painters, fashion models, and so much more. The event headline artist was Wale, which came as a complete surprise for the attendees. Luckily for us we got front row to watch Wale perform. Sneaker Palooza was a blow-out success, and we definitely enjoyed all the different culture that was brought together under one event.
Next up on our lists of events for March was Street Jam 2. This event was special for us, it would actually be the event that opened the door for us to sell at shows. It was great to know that a street-culture existed out in Dallas and other major TX city, but when the idea came about selling our gear at shows came to fruition, that’s when the ball started rolling.
We literally, had no weekend breaks, and for our spring break, we spent it all in Austin TX. I remember clearly how quick everything was just passing by for us. We would hit up Fort Worth for a day, then the next day we would drive down to San Antonio, then head back home for a day to rest, and after the rest we were off to Austin for the big SXSW festival. The following week after SXSW was Dallas’ big Real Street Jam event, and that would mark our first-time to vendor our merch at a show. To some folks this might be a little overkill, but to us, it was living life in an entirely crazy new way. It was a very invigorating time… March made it clear that traveling was our addiction, and for good reasons.
March Event highlights:
Sour Grapes 13 Vitamin Water: Part 1, Part 2
Shogun x PacMan Party: Part 1, Part 2
Sneaker Palooza: Part 1 Fashion, Part 2 Sneakers, Part 3 BBOY
Real Street Jam 2: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
April:
April was a more chill month and not anywhere as hectic as March, but traveling during this month was equally frequent. We started the month coming in by working with our friends at Heat Seekers Krew to exhibit our clothing during the Fort Worth’s “Culture Upon Extinction” event. The event showcased the exclusive sneaker collection from Heat Seekers Krew, breaking performances, along with live-graffiti showcases. It was another fun event for us, and at this point we were giddy to be apart of it all.
Then we spent an insane weekend traveling to Austin TX to visit Johnny Cupcakes, and the following day we drove up to Dallas TX to visit Johnny Cupcakes once again… You can say it was one of those intensely crazy road trip that would be considered more unnecessary rather then beneficial. But I digress, it was A LOT OF FUN, and we made new friends which is ALWAYS GOOD.
After visiting Johnny, we had to prepared our merch to exhibit for an upcoming Dallas BBOY show, “Notorious“. At this point, we were beginning to see the same folks that we’ve met in past events, which gave us a good opportunity to reconnect with.
We capped the month off by exhibiting our clothing at Dallas’ TX first ever “World of Dance” competition. While we lounged around during the event, we met up with the nice Poreotic crew, the winners of America’s Best Dance Crew at the time, which was undoubtedly cool. After the event, we end up kicking with them at the House of Blue for the after party.
April Event highlights:
Culture Upon Extinction: Part 1
Johnny Cupcakes: Austin, Dallas, After Hours w/ Johnny
World of Dance: Part 1, Part 2 BONUS: Clubbing w/ Poreotics: Post
May:
May was the month that led us on our farthest travel yet, all the way to Atlanta, Georgia. We kept our entire month busy with more shows, events, and fun festivals. The first event that we showcased the brand at was San Antonio’s Sneaks Up. Big thanks goes out to Norman @n2tha0 (Sneaks Up creator) for working with us last minute to get us apart of the event. It was definitely a fun time meeting with all the street-wear San Antonians.
The following week we packed our gears and bags for one of the longest road trip of the year. We drove 13 hours east all the way to DJ Gregstreet’s Sneaker Friends event in Atlanta, Georgia. Tons of folks came through for the highly publicized event, even hip hop artists such as Yelawolf and Rick Ross showed up for support. During our stay in ATL, we took the opportunity to take a tour of all the streetwear hot spot locations, such as ATL Wish, the New Era store, and other snazzy places. Attending a show so far away from Texas was a daunting task, financially and mentally. I had no idea if the ATL audience would receive us well, but to our luck, we were getting a great response from all the attendees. The bad part however, was the fact that we didn’t have enough merchandise to satisfy all the customers during the event. Regardless we’ve met new friends, and to this day, we still keep in contact with.
We finally wrapped May up by exhibiting our gear at my friend, Pawflo‘s event, “Ritual Warfare 3“. It was an event that gathered all the BBOY community along with the underground artists, graffiti-folks, and painters, to showcase their skills live.
May Event highlights:
Sneaks Up: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Sneaker Friends: Post
Ritual Warfare 3: Part 1, Part 2
June:
June was our slowest month of the year. We were just as busy as earlier months traveling, but we did less showcasing at events. However, we did have a lot of fun attending different events, such as our first Anime Kon 21, Fur Face Boy Workshop, and Blue Oyster Cults concert.
A-kon 21, Texas’ biggest anime convention, was our biggest trip of the month. We met so many nice folks who had a passion in dressing up as anime characters. It’s easy to say it was one of our more fun trip where we weren’t responsible for any exhibition coordinating. So we took it easy and grabbed as many folks to catch a photo with as possible.
We would later on visit our friend, Ha Mai‘s, creator of Fur Face Boy, t-shirt workshop at the “We Are 197” boutique. Ha gave us a great insight to branding and managing a company in an intelligent and creative way. We are big supporters of FFB, so we are always keeping an eye on him progress with his amazing brand.
And to cap off the slow but fun month of June, we attended a VERY fun “Blue Oyster Cults” concert. I was spazzing when their iconic “Don’t Fear the Reaper” set got rolling. It was a great surprise to see such a prolific band as “Blue Oyster Cults” perform, especially in my hometown of Longview, TX, which is mostly desolate in cool events such as this. It was a great way to end June.
June Event highlights:
A-kon 21: Part 1 (arrival), Part 2 (cosplay & artists), Part 3 (Vinyl, sculpture, toys), and Part 4 (more cosplay photos), Part 5 (finale)
July:
Like June, July was another slow month. We only showcased at one event, but we did keep the month busy. First off the bat, we caught up with the Sour Grapes 13 crew as they put on another successful art show hosted at “We Are 1976“. Afterward we took a much needed break for the first time all year in amidst our intensely busy weekends. It came to the point where the our bodies became restless. Traveling and networking became a habitual ritual for us during the weekend, so I just kept myself occupied designing and preparing things for the later-part of the year.
We then prepared the following weekend to showcase the brand at Dallas’ Kick N Habits. It was another large showcasing of competitive dancers, from BBOYS, poppers, lockers, and all other kinds of unique forms, graffiti artists, sneaker collectors, and live hip hop performances.
We wrapped up July with a nice relaxed trip to San Antonio’s Sea World. Up to this point for 2010, it was pretty much travel, eat, sleep, and design on a repeat session, so a break was well-deserved.
July Event highlight:
Sour Grapes x We Are 1976: Part 1, Part 2
Kick N Habits: Part 1, Part 2, Recap video
Sea World: Post
August:
August can only be expressed in one phrase: “WOW, THAT’S HUSTLING!” With June and July being rather slow for the brand in term of exhibition, August turned a 180 for us, and ended up being THE BUSIEST month of 2010. I seriously had a regular 3 hour sleep night everyday for this month, and there were a lot of days where I didn’t sleep at all. August marked the month we dropped the Summer/Fall 2010 Loyal K.N.G. line. And we were prepared to knock the month out with everything we had at our disposal.
We started August out by getting our gear together to showcase at Dallas’ “Real Street Jam 3” event. As usual Street Jam gathered BBOYs, BMX riders, Skateboarders, and bands from around the state to compete for the prized trophy. The event attracted a nice crowd, but the inner-sanctum of the event was WAY TOO HOT to handle. I’m pretty sure the temperature was knocking close to 100+ degrees during the Jam.
After the Street Jam event we packed up and drove down to Austin to catch a Chip Tha Ripper Concert. And as expected, Chip killed it at concert. We dropped Chip a few Loyal K.N.G. gear surprises after the show, which he graciously rocked out for the last concert of his Texas Gift Wrap tour in Dallas the following day.
We quickly returned back to Longview, and prepped the new Loyal K.N.G. season for release. We gathered the models together to do an all-out photoshoot and videoshoot. Everyday of August was spent doing inventory, packing boxes, unpacking shipments, shipping, doing more inventory, taking pictures, recording videos, standing at a booth, slinging shirts, smiling, sweating, no-sleeping, sometime eating, designing, driving… a lot, and a whole bunch of other nonsensical things.
After the photoshoot part 1 session was wrapped up, we all packed the gear once again to premiere the new Loyal K.N.G. season in Houston’s bi-annual Sneaker Summit. The event was sadly just as HEATED, and I’m talking HOT, as the Real Street Jam 3 event, but the attendance at the Sneaker Summit was STAGGERING. Sneaker Summit was easily our best show. So many people came through to show Loyal K.N.G. love. It was intense. Every minute we were busting our butts grabbing shirts, taking order, and conversing with the customers, and I loved every minute of it. The show was our biggest success, but the story doesn’t end there…
Returning home from a successful bout at H-town’s Sneaker Summit, we got back to doing inventory of all the merchandise to prepared for another round of shows the following weekend. Literally, when I came home from the 6hr drive from Houston, I went straight to designing the VERY LIMITED & SUPER-RARE Sour Grapes 13 x Loyal K.N.G. collab shirt. At all accounts, I had to wrap up all the design work that Monday to put in a rush order with my shirt printers for the release party on Friday the 13th. It was a tough rush and I only got in 1 hour of sleep that morning, but everything came in timely and we quickly packed everything up that Friday morning for the Sour Grapes 13 x Loyal K.N.G. release party in Dallas. And the fun doesn’t end there either…
The following Sunday of the weekend, we had to rush to exhibit at another sneaker show, this time it was at KIXPO. Ironically, this event was JUST AS HOT as Sneaker Summit & Street Jam. August seemed to be the month where everywhere we showcased at, we had a chance to catch a heat-stroke. The extreme-heat was definitely a detracting variable for customers, and I can’t blame them for leaving early. Overall, Kixpo was another success for us, not as successful as Sneaker Summit was, but it was good none-the-less. And with Kixpo being the final event for August, I fortunately lived through all the sleepless night and endless hustle. Nothing felt better then to take a nice long breather after all the hustle August pushed upon us, definitely a period I’ll NEVER forget.
August Event highlight:
Real Street Jam 3: Part 1, Part 2
Chip Tha Ripper Tour: Post
Sour Grapes x Loyal K.N.G.: Post, A Day with Eddie Grapes: Post, Video Recap
Dallas Comic Con: Post
September:
After what I would deem the craziest month, September came in with ease. It’s not something I would prefer technically, but that’s just how things work out to be. During September we did NO shows at all. There weren’t any events that were open for us to exhibit, but we kept the month busy with unique festivals, release parties, and fun events.
We started September out by heading out to Dallas for Anime Fest, and like A-kon 21, we had a lot of fun just finding cosplayers and grabbing photos. We met up with a lot of our Dallas buddies, and just spent the entire time journeying through all the activities A-Fest had to provide.
After attending Anime-Fest, a few weeks later we headed out to Dallas’ Annual Japanese festival. For me, Japanese Festival was such an out-of-state event. Even though we were in Dallas, the festival successfully transported us to what Japan culture would be like if we had a few acres to fill it up with various cultural Japanese activities, acts, musicians, and food stands.
September was by all counts, probably the slowest month for the brand, but the most diverse for us in terms of events we attended.This month also marked a new literary project that I started up to get my more personal thoughts out that I felt at the time needed to be voiced. I entitled the project the “Find Your Love” series.
September Event highlight:
Anime Fest: Post
Japanese Fest: Post
Red’s Pop Shop: Post
Sour Grapes 13 Studio Sneak Peek
Find Your Love: Collection
October:
October was a special month for me, it was probably the most personal month for me out of the entire year. Not only did we continue to travel and attend exciting new events and shows, but it was the month that marked my birthday. So October is that much more special to me.
Out of the gate of October, we gathered most of our crew and friends to travel back to Atlanta, Georgia, for THE BIGGEST leadership conference in the US, the Catalyst Conference. This event was filled with amazing entrepreneurs, leaders, and motivational minds, such as Seth Godin, Francis Chan, Greg Groshel, and so much more. The attendance was filled to the brim of mind-boggling number. So many folks from around the States and THE world traveled to be apart of this life changing event. Catalyst was no doubt life-changing.
Filled with new spirit and inspiration, my friends at Oneighty started a charity project with “charity:water“, and we joined along to help push the cause. It was great to give back in our own way, and up to this point we successfully raised $767 dollars for the “charity:water” project. A good-amount for us that we were all proud for reaching. And it was all thanks to you guys for making it possible.
We all relaxed with our friends from Dallas by attending the Annual State Fair, it was nice to kick it with the homies once in awhile. Times are usually busy for us, so every rare moment we spend with our friends is something I appreciate.
October being the month of my 22th birthday. I was pleasantly surprised that my friends gathered together to throw me a surprise party, and what moved me about this, was the fact that I RARELY voice when my birthday is. I don’t shout it out on the blog, twitter, or have it as an alert on facebook. So the fact that word got around that it was my birthday, and my homies took the motive to throw me a special celebration party brought tears to my eyes. I just love my friends.
Directly after my birthday party, I took the crew down to Houston TX to attend the Annual Korean Festival. The festival brought out so many talented musicians, artists, dancers and performers. The blessing of experiencing a new culture is always welcoming. Like the Japanese festival, there were tents set up selling authentic Korean food, Korean, toys, games, and all kinds of random doo-dads. The festival was a great way to keep our mind uplifted and culturally enlightened.
Of course while we were in Houston for the festival, directly after the event ended, we headed over to our final destination to exhibit at “Breakin The Fall” bboy event. As usual we loved the vibe and the talented BBOYs and BGirls that dropped through to strut their talents on the dance floor.
To cap off the great month October, we joined our friends at Sour Grapes once more for their 10th Anniversary Halloween Eve party. We decided to make Loyal K.N.G. masks for the crew to rock out as their costumes. The event was jammed pack with graffiti artists, painters, musicians, DJs and FOOD! It was definitely a fun time for the entire Loyal K.N.G. crew, and a great way to end October.
October Event highlight:
Catalyst: Post
Charity:Water x Loyal K.N.G.: Post, Limited Edition Charity Loyal K.N.G. shirt
State Fair: Post
Birthday: Post
Korean Festival: Post, Clara C
Breakin The Fall: Post
Sour Grapes 10th Anniversary: Post, After Party
November:
November was an adventure for us, from traveling down to Austin TX to spend the entire night in downtown street surfing, to attending and being apart of Texas’ FIRST streetwear expo, Stitched Up. Along with busy travels, we attempted a new ambitious project that we felt needed to be done to bring our story to you in a more personable form.
We started the month off with some pranking with our newly formed Loyal K.N.G. masked crew, it was a great time to relax with our friends and family. We were equipped with deadly silly strings and mischievous smiles for the night. Spontaneous prank nights always make for a great story.
Our good friend, Norman of Sneaks Up, hosted Texas’ First Streetwear exhibition, Stitched Up, and we were proud to be able to attend and be apart of something so monumental to the Texas streetwear culture. We first drove down to Austin TX a day earlier then the Stitched Up event to just visit all the nice downtown scenery, and even visited the Texas State capitol for the first time.
With two hours of sleep under the belt, we traveled down to San Antonio for Stitched Up. The event was AMAZING, so many people came out to show love, and we appreciated the great relaxed environment the event provided. For us it was very enjoyable to converse with the attendees and catch up with all of our brand friends around Texas under one building.
November was the month we launched our self-produced show, “This Is Loyal K.N.G.” documenting our travels and random antics as we journeyed through different cities, states, and events. It was our way of taking y’all deeper into our story and our journey as friends striving to reach their dreams. It was a way for us to stay busy, be innovative, and inspire ourselves to work harder. We’ve been majorly blessed to have the opportunity to branch out and do so many CRAZY things with Loyal K.N.G. and I felt that write-ups and photos couldn’t provide our story with true justice. “This Is Loyal K.N.G.” became our equalizer project, and I love it.
November Event highlights:
Prank: Post
Sonic-Con: Post
Austin Street-Surfing: Post
Stitched Up: Post
This Is Loyal K.N.G.: Season 1 Trailer, Episode 1, Episode 2
December:
December was a very light-hearted month for us. We didn’t have many major shows to premiere at this time around, but we certainly did have some major travels and had a lot of fun cutting up parody videos for laughs.
We started our first big travel of the month all the way to New Orleans LA for Traffic Boutiques x Supreme Street “Sneakerfiend“. The drive was grueling, but the destination was gorgeous. We spent our free time before the event to sight see around New Orleans. There were so much beautiful architectures that were consistently different from all the other building structures. While walking down the streets of New Orleans we ran into many street artists, musicians, painters, and even dancing human robots. It was such a different culture than we were used to back in Texas. I appreciated the contrasting value that New Orleans gave for us.
As for “Sneakerfiend” the event itself was fun and different. Sneaker collectors from all around town gathered their rare collections of Jordans, retros, Adidas, Nike dunks, Reeboks, and more, to show the attendees. Even Curren$y dropped through the event to drop a line for the crowd.
After returning back home from New Orleans, we set off the following weekend for Dallas’ Triple Threat’s Toys 4 Tots drive hosted by Chester Cox. We set up booth, brought toys, and just had a good time. The attendance was amazing, people from all over Dallas and Fort Worth area came through to BBOY and dance.
With Christmas break officially under-way, the entire crew were free to work on extra-curricular projects, and we certainly did just that. We gathered the entire crew to work on a fun-Christmas based project for y’all, and hinted at it through our twitter (@LoyalKNG). So when we finally dropped the project in the form of a parody music video of the Christmas Bed Room Intruder , we couldn’t help but smile at all the goofiness. It took us basically 3 days to cut: first day to write the lyrics and cut the track, second day to film the footage, and the final third day was spent in the studio editing the footage together. It was definitely a different kind of project for us, but it was only a lead in to what became of our NEW YEARS project…
Straight after releasing the Christmas Bed Room Intruder parody video, we went back to the studio to write up lyrics for our New Years project. And after a few days of hard work, we released our parody of Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow” video. This video was a jump from what we did with our Christmas project. We flipped Wiz’s “Black and Yellow” moniker to follow as a black man with yellow friends concept. It was just a light-hearted comedy project that we wanted to bring everybody who followed Loyal K.N.G. into the BRAND NEW YEAR, 2011. And we successfully did so. We certainly capped off the last few weeks of 2010 with a lot of hard-work and fun, a combination of values that I hope we continually stay true too for the years to come.
December Event highlight:
This is Loyal K.N.G.: New Orleans
Sneakerfiend: Post
Triple Threat: Post
Centre x Atama: Post
Christmas Intruder Video
Black & Yellow Video
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