Sole BLVD will be teaming up with a variety of tastemakers and industry veterans over the next few weeks to give their thoughts on the game, and what’s really good. Hopefully they’ll throw a few linesheets and some free shit our way! First up is a little one man chat from Ryan Babenzien, the Director of Entertainment Marketing at Puma North America. When you see a famous person rocking Clydes, or get invited to one of those Puma dance parties, its probably because of him. Anyway, here’s his take on life as of this morning:

“I should probably take this opportunity to let you know who I am. I run all the Entertainment Marketing at Puma. And my brother, who’s also supposed to be contributing to the fine site that is SOLEblvd, is the Creative Director of Supreme. We run in the same game, although at very different ends of the spectrum.”

Hit the jump to read some thoughts on why you might want to switch your Dunks out for a pair of Puma Baskets, and why ripping on the kids is passe.

“Moving on. My brother and I were having a talk the other day as we do every day, a few times a day. I’m out here in L.A. and he’s back in NYC. We were talking about a few dudes, who as far as the general population knows, are the leaders in the Sneaker Retail game. Guys who have a long history of doing really dope shit and have probably influenced every person reading this site in some way or shape or form.

So getting to the point. These dudes were talking about how “kids today don’t know what’s up” and how, you basically had to rock Clydes or shell toes to REALLY know the shoe game and from where it came, and all this other shit. Now the Clyde is for sure a shoe that helped shape the sneaker game, no doubt. And, it was one of the first endorsement deal shoes to a black NBA player AND it helps pay my bougie ass life! But, these so called EXPERTS, are now in their 40s and have forgotten what shit is really about. Kids today as they call them, don’t want to be TOLD what to wear. They want to interpret what has a heritage, maybe even want to know a little about that heritage, and then rock that shit as they see fit with what’s happening today. It’s been that way forever and the second you start saying, “kid’s today don’t know what’s up”, you’re a fucking dinosaur on your way to Jurassic Park, which is exactly where these fine gents are heading.

So look, all I’m sayin is, you don’t need to rock a nylon Puma windbreaker in burgundy and grey, with matching creased grey Lee’s and Clyde’s with fat laces to “know what’s up!” That was a relevant moment in the game but it was a moment, and it’s in the past. Do your thing. Wear your skinny jeans and Dunks (really though? Really?) or even better, skinny jeans and Baskets and do your thing. Just don’t let some dude you might respect because of his time in the game tell you what you don’t know. Cause the reality is, it’s likely the other way around!

My name is Ryan Babenzien and I wrote this shit.”

Posted under Guest Blogger, Ryan Babenzien