Aminé Wants to Bring Storytelling Back to Sneaker Design

This article originally appeared in ‘Hypebeast Magazine Issue 33: The Systems Issue.’

“I wasn’t that confident growing up,” says Aminé. It’s not what you’d expect to hear from an artist known for his playful flow and easygoing charisma, one with a 3x platinum single (2016’s “Caroline”), a plethora of albums and mixtapes, and even a handful of sneaker collaborations under his belt. But the rapper, born Adam Aminé Daniel, is far from conventional. “In sports, I got cut from teams — nothing had really gone well for me, in a major way, and music was the first time I had felt, ‘OK, this is something I feel I’m good at and it’s actually making me happy.’”

Born to Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants, Aminé didn’t even rap until the end of high school when he started writing verses as a joke contest with his friends. “I found myself working really hard and asked myself, ‘Why am I so passionate about this right now? I don’t even rap,’” he recalls. “It was the first moment that I felt changed by hip-hop.”

Today, Aminé has toured the globe and collaborated with everyone from Ty Dolla $ign and Saba, to Vince Staples and Kaytranada. The latter producer, having discovered his work via SoundCloud back in the 2010s, was an early champion of Aminé’s ability with the pen. Roughly eight years later, the two rented a house in Malibu to collaborate on an album aptly titled KAYTRAMINÉ (2023). The duo blended Kaytranada’s signature synthy baselines with Aminé’s rapid-fire braggadocio, resulting in a record that, like its cover image, doesn’t take itself too seriously and transports the listener to a boozy beachside party. It became a near-instant summer smash.

But now as he prepares to turn 30, Aminé is riding a new wave. Before hip-hop, footwear was the passion he thought he’d dedicate his life to—understandably, as growing up in Portland he was much closer to Nike’s global HQ than the center of the hip-hop zeitgeist. It wasn’t until a recent partnership with New Balance, however, that Aminé revisited his earlier flame by helping revive the 610 silhouette via his “The Mooz” and “Mini Mooz” collaborations, with more releases on the horizon. Between footwear and music, Aminé is feeling more creatively fulfilled than ever, and that shy Northeast Portland kid is now an LA-based creative force — one whose mind is as open as ever.

Asato Iida

What’s your recording process like? Are you freestyling, writing in the Notes app, or going old school with a pen and paper?

It’s kind of sporadic. If I’m in conversation with somebody and they say something that I relate to or find interesting, I’ll jot it down in my Notes app or a journal. Whatever I have handy on me at that moment. A lot of my melodies and ideas just come out of the blue. I can’t explain the exact process, but when an idea comes you just have to record it somehow, even when you don’t have a beat. Those are the moments that I love. A lot of my lyrics have formed from inspiration that came to me in the moment.

Your link-up with Kaytranada for KAYTRAMINÉ was a big moment this past year. What was it like making that collaborative album?

The idea formed from our personal relationship. We first linked up on SoundCloud in 2014. He was one of the first producers to reach out to me. I’ve told this story before, but the idea for the project really came from us doing a session together for my [forthcoming] album. And then we’re like, “Wait, we haven’t really worked together in a while. I think it would make sense for us to do a collab album.” That idea started back in 2020, and we did a couple of sessions together during COVID. We didn’t know where it was going to go or when it was going to come out. But we knew we were excited to work on music together.

On “K&A,” you rap: “You gotta learn to let go,” essentially stating that you can’t be yourself when seeking validation. Letting go is easier said than done. How do you let go and what’s your advice for others looking to do the same?

Honestly, it’s like you said: easier said than done. I don’t have a routine or process to shake myself out of seeking validation. I think it comes with age and time. When you’re younger, 21 or 22, and still trying to make it in whatever you’re trying to do, you just hate yourself a lot more because you’re always so focused on hitting all your goals. Once you get older, you just want time to slow down and realize that you should have enjoyed the journey. The older I got, the more I learned to let go because I wanted to preserve time, preserve these moments, preserve my sanity and my happiness. I think doing what you love is a great distraction. It helps you let go of other things. I believe that’s the answer to your question about my process. Doing what you love and being with who you love.

Asato Iida

What was designing your first shoe with New Balance like? You mentioned that the partnership fulfilled a childhood dream.

I knew I wanted to work on a silhouette that I’d actually wear. When I went into the New Balance office, the team told me they thought I’d really like the 610. They were right. It was a perfect shoe to work on because it felt like Oregon. It felt like how I wanted to be represented. Me doing a basketball sneaker doesn’t really make sense. The silhouettes that I want to be picking are things that I relate to: where I’m from, my performances, what I’m trying to do in my life. So the 610 was an easy choice, and the color scheme was based on my identity — yellow’s always been my signature color. Now that the identity has been established, I’m excited to focus on stories about Oregon and growing up in Portland with my upcoming collabs.

Hip-hop allowed you to home in on your creativity, but sneakers were actually an earlier interest. Do you see parallels between the two creative mediums?

There are many parallels between designing a sneaker and writing a song. You’re creating something from nothing. I also see similarities in coloring a shoe and making an album cover. Color palettes are essential to me, and should represent what a body of work contains. They’re different in a lot of ways too, though. I love making music and doing shows, but it isn’t something that I can touch with my hands. I can’t touch a song, per se, but I can grab that first sample of a sneaker and see what I like about it, actually feel it, put it on, and see how it looks with jeans. That process is so different from making music. It’s fulfilling a different side of me.

Can you describe the sounds, the vibes, the concepts you’re exploring on your next record?

There’s not much I can say, because when you try to explain sounds, it’s never as good as the actual song. It also increases expectations. I can say that I’m really, really excited about it. It’s something that I’ve been working on even before KAYTRAMINÉ, over a few years at a very slow pace. I want to grow as an artist and a songwriter, and become the person I want to be over the next 10 years. That’s what I’ve been thinking about regarding this upcoming album, because it’s my third studio album. TWOPOINTFIVE (2021) and KAYTRAMINÉ (2023) were really more like mix tapes and side projects I was doing to fill time and to give people what they wanted after Limbo (2020).

What’s next for Aminé?

I think you can expect that many of the collaborations I do with New Balance will be heavily story-based, focusing on Portland and where I came from. I’m not really going to wake up one day and create something about how much I love sandwiches in LA. I’m trying to bring back excellent storytelling to sneakers — make them feel meaningful and represent a time in my life or someone else’s life that they can relate to. Music-wise, the next album will definitely drop sometime this year.

Asato Iida

Special thanks to Café Triste for serving as the shoot location for this article.