- [[Interviewer] Are you Ready?
- Let's rock and roll.
What's going on GQ,
I'm Nigel Sylvester, professional BMX athlete,
and this is My Life in Sneakers.
[upbeat music]
All-time great.
All white Air Force 1.
It's the best sneaker ever made hands down.
It's a super clean shoe,
love the design.
I feel like anytime with school shopping,
you have to get a pair of all white lows
just to put that in the arsenal.
Growing up in Queens, you have to stay fresh man.
It was part of the regimen.
You know what I mean?
Like whether it was back to school shopping
or going to like backyard parties
or whatever the case may be,
you started like your looks,
which your sneakers and built up from there.
I'll probably go through two to three pairs of the week.
I'd like them fresh.
I mean, my MVP would have to be these Jordan's right here.
This is my signature Jordan 1 means everything to me, man.
This shoe changed my life.
The story that we told him on these shoes
is a story of my life when it comes to bike riding.
So we really wanted to tell the story
of how I interact with Jordan 1s for the past
I would say 10 years,
like the Jordan 1 is the shoe I go to
when it comes to like BMX biking
and all the marks that you see on the shoe.
That's like that's distress
are places that my shoe actually gets beat up
and messed up when I'm out riding
'cause my bike has no brakes on them.
So my shoes are my breaks and stuff.
I'm going super fast down the hill,
or I'm going through traffic.
The only way I'm stopping is putting my foot on the ground
or shoving my foot in the back tire,
and a lot of those times like the shoot gets beat up.
So especially back here,
when I put like my foot in the back wheel,
this parts gets distressed and gets beat up.
Then we have this reflective story going on on this whoosh.
So I'm riding around any type of bicycles, right?
Especially at nighttime,
we usually wear like reflective gear
so that the cars can see us.
So putting that reflective swoosh on there
which is part of telling that story
of being like the first professional BMX athlete
signed to the brand,
it meant a lot to me.
We worked strangely hard to get it, to get to that point,
having Michael himself
and that the Jordan brand family acknowledged me in that way
is definitely a milestone in my life.
Yeah, this is definitely my MVP.
These are the two superstars right here, man.
Hard to decide so we'll talk about both of them.
I wore these for about two weeks straight
when we were shooting Go-London to Paris.
Man, I love these joints.
I just love what they did with like the distress in here
and like, just like them, like the Jordan 1,
you know what I mean?
It's the first time we've ever seen a Jordan 1 like this.
These are super fly to me.
My guy Frank Cook sent me these joints.
The Igloo, which are fine, I haven't worn these yet
waiting for the right moment.
Again you got to see the recurring theme of
how much I love the Jordan 1.
Like with the one man,
it's just been part of like action sports culture
for so long back in the '80s,
like this was the shoe
and to see it like come back around
and just to continue to like to push that forward.
I think it was like super dope.
- [Interviewer] If you had to choose between them
which one's a superstar?
- Can't, I can't decide man, why can't I just take both?
You know what I mean?
I even ain't gon decide
which one is like the true superstar.
Like they're both superstars man.
I think these are around like 4,000 right now
and these may be around 6,000 and some change.
Cool little 10 piece on the table.
You know what I mean?
I think the only time that I get bothered at resale markets,
is when I'm trying to buy a pair of shoes
and they're like an insane price,
I'm like, for real.
Other than that, like it's cool, man.
It's exciting.
It's creating jobs for a lot of people.
Creating an opportunity.
So my most recent project Go-Las Vegas,
which is the seventh installment in the Ghost Series.
I wore these for 10 days straight.
We did everything in these joints.
Travis killed Retros man,
like the reverse swoosh.
I think his fire colorways dope.
Little Velcro inside the super cool.
I'm a big, big Jordan 1 fan.
So, when I seen these, I was super excited,
especially when you got
the fragment collaborations on these.
I think Travis and Hiroshi coming together on that
was crazy bro.
So, and these are super dope.
- [Interviewer] How do you feel about the culture
of not wearing your shoes,
not beating them up?
Not creasing them?
- Look, crease.[laughs]
No man, I mean, to each it's something bro.
Some people like, these are my girls
and I don't wanna wear these.
I wanna keep them in a box,
wanna look at them.
Other folks such as myself, like I wanna wear them,
To me like sneakers, it's like art.
Putting on a shoe like this
while we were creating Go-Las Vegas
it just added an extra element to what we were creating.
Is called the SOMPs, which stands for standing on my pedals.
Like this shoe takes me back to the man,
at that point in time I was rocking like dunk highs,
like religiously, that was it.
Like when I'm riding,
it was just in dunk highs
and had the opportunity to collaborate on this shoe
and worked with DJ Clark Kent like to design them.
So we used like this super premium new black here,
gum bottom, again, like for me like that connection
from my foot to my pedal is super important.
So this gum bottom came from that
and then when we use like the safari print here
black on black joins.
So that just was like a oh
to just how crazy New York City is,
being like this concrete jungle
and me navigating through that,
be riding through that
and figuring out this BMX thing of mine.
I mean like sneaker culture
has definitely changed over the past 10 years.
You know what I mean?
Like when I was signed to ESPN man
and like dunk highs were like, you know what I mean?
Just dunks in general.
Like those were it.
You know what I mean?
I was riding those all the time, bro.
When I was coming up,
like I remember like leaving Queens
and like going slow
and just pulling up in different sneaker stores
and seeing what they had.
It wasn't like it was coming on your phone
and you knew what what was dropping
at certain points in time things would just pop up.
and like that was super exciting at that point in time
to like, not know, you know what I mean to now?
To not like, we'd know what's coming out like all the time,
which is still cool.
People can prepare for them.
Kids can save up their money
or whatever the case may be.
I'm curious and excited to see where
like where it goes next.
Seeing like what new designs come out
and how people continue to like just push the game forward.
It's like in a sense it's limitless.
Sixth Men.
If I had to wear one shoe forever
it would be this one right here.
Jordan Bred 1, it's beautiful.
Bred is the best cutaway hands down, bro.
These in particular are very close to me.
So when we were filming Go-Dubai,
I jumped out of a plane with my bike
and I wearing these shoes right here.
So these legit man,
and I also shot Go-Tokyo in these as well.
So these had definitely been around the world man and back.
This Air Force 1 here,
which is the Nike by Nigel joints, all patent leather
and this was like a really cool Air Force 1 do man.
The pallets consists of like for velour here patent leather,
had to get multiple swooshes here.
Have a mini swoosh back there as well.
We created this pallet that was super inspired
by just New York City in the '80s.
I feel that time period
was one of the most progressive time periods
which comes to like culture fashion, like music,
like all those different things
and I wanted to like tap into that.
Design and it's just pushing the bar,
just remix and different things
like that was super cool to me.
I wanted to tell like that story
and kind of how it influenced me.
So top five, right?
Definitely all white lows, Bred,
Bred ones,
my ones,
94 Barklay's, white prevalent black colorway,
crazy Bred 4s.
I just feel like those shoes,
like we have those five right there for me.
I'm complete I'm good.
- [Interviewer] I need you to take away two.
- Do I have to?
If I had to take away,
if I had to do the top three out of those five,
I would do a all white lows.
I'll do my joints and Barklay's.
- [Interviewer] You're gonna have to pick one right now.
- I mean, come on bro.
Like I have to, I'm biased got to.
'Cause you know why?
This is the reason why,
my bike is an extension of me.
If I'm riding my bike,
I'm gonna ride it in these.
It's the reason why I'm sitting here right now.
I definitely feel the things I've done
throughout the course of my career
has shed a light on BMX culture.
There's still so many things that we're fighting for
and like pushing for like breaking down certain stereotypes
through the content that I create,
through the collaborations that I've done.
I've been able to position BMX
and again like the sport of BMX
in a way that just creates more access points
for just the culture.
A lot of us grew up riding bicycles
and then that experience ends there.
And for me it's like man,
this is what I do every single day.
How do I continue that on?
And that's what we've been doing.
And we've got a lot of more work to do.
Yo GQ thank you for having me.
It's been a pleasure.
See you next time, peace.