Futura's Nike Breakdancing Sneaker Breaks Ground, Literally
Futura is now aiming his spray paint cans at the Nike Jam sneaker, The Swoosh's first-ever breakdancing shoe that's set to debut at the Paris Olympic Games in July 2024. Trust me, those aerosol paint fumes aren't getting to my head: these are just some good Futura Nikes.
Honestly, I didn't think too much at first about the Nike Jam sneaker or even Futura's Nike SB Dunk Low collaboration when that shoe first hit my feed in May 2024.
Granted the Nike Jam is a fresh new beat that the sneaker giant can break on, it wasn't hitting me like a powerful B-boy stance. And when Futura's latest Dunks rolled in like a 1970s subway graffiti masterpiece, it only left me wishing Nike put the street artist's Off-White™ Dunk collaboration into mass transit.
Yet, there's something to say about Futura being the first artist to grace Nike's first Olympic breakdancing sneaker. This Nike collaboration feels like the perfect shoe to capture a watershed moment for hip-hop culture.
As a pioneering New York City graffiti artist that who started tagging in the early 1970s, Futura was a key figure in the birth of hip-hop in New York City.
Who could have ever imagined that breakdancing, one of the elements of hip-hop ushered in by B-Boys like Crazy Legs in the Bronx, would become an official Olympic sport in 2024?
So it's more than a little head-spinning to see breakdancing debut as an Olympic sport with athletes wearing Nike Jam shoes designed by Futura, an artist who played an integral role in disseminating graffiti and hip-hop culture to a global scale.
Yes, respectfully, this isn't the most eye-catching Futura Nike sneaker collaboration, since most of the artist's embellishments are hidden within the insole and lining of a nearly all-white Air Jam shoe.
For resellers, this shoe isn't likely for the love of money, no pun intended.
Yet the Futura Nike Air Jam is less a hyped Nike sneaker and more-so a shoe that serves as a testament to how far hip-hop has gone. Futura has come a long way since being apart of Malcolm McLaren's "New York City Rap Tour," which brought artists that represented all four elements of hip-hop to European cities in 1982.
Nearly 40 years later, Futura is returning to Paris to revive that same pioneering spirit.
I just hope whoever steps in these is going for a gold medal windmill.
