How To Become More Efficient With Your Time
Busy-ness has become the scourge of many an individual in this day and age. Technology has made us accessible and made it easier for us to access so much that we stay perpetually submerged in the noise. This is something I’ve been battling with and trying to make sense of for some years now. It doesn’t help that I am on every possible social platform out there, have worked – and continue to work - in multiple industries, have no less than 5 email addresses, try to be there for my family, regularly have 4/5 projects on the go in addition to my day job and will occasionally get in something I...
Tartan With Tiger Of Sweden
Scotsman Ronnie McDonald is the menswear designer for Tiger of Sweden, the fashion brand started in 1903 by two Swedish tailors, Markus Schwarmann and Hjalmar Nordström, with a focus on suits. (In South Africa, they are represented by Brandgroup International.) In more recent years, they have pushed the idea of the 24/7 suit, something that works for the office and socially at night. They have now partnered with the London Cloth Co, founded by Daniel Harris, to create an exclusive tartan fabric drawing from what is often associated with Scotland. Kilts tend to be made with tartan patterns....
Standing In For The Best T On Radio
In 1994, during my final year of university, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at radio. I duly signed up to participate in campus radio and, on my first time on air, where I was to read out updates on election results, I stumbled over a random number so badly that they had to switch to music. For some reason, in that moment, I didn’t know how to say ‘a hundred and x thousand’… That was the last time I ever tried radio. About ten years later, spending time with Thabo “T-Bose” Mokwele when he was on Metro FM, I toyed with this idea of getting into radio properly again. Thabo was to help...
Wrangler’s Instagram Campaign
When Facebook bought Instagram for about $1 billion in cash and stocks in 2012, the main question asked was ‘why’? I don’t know that there was (or is) a clear answer but watching the evolution of how people use the platform has been interesting. I was drawn to it because I’d already been dabbling in mobile photography – using Flickr to store my images. It’s probably the only real hobby I’ve had over the last couple of years and I now have just under 2000 Instagram posts. In the last year, I’ve been seeing a lot more traction from ‘ordinary people’ in addition to the devoted IGers who have...
Storytelling With Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton fascinates me. I have posted on them before, from the video they did with Yasiin Bey (on Muhammed Ali) and The Trunk, a book of short stories to streaming their fashion shows. They continue to delve into spaces and do things that engage with storytelling in an interesting way. Louis Vuitton is not the kind of brand that one would imagine running conventional ads on a public broadcaster and so their video marketing campaigns tend to be beautifully shot, unpredictable in their content, while still tying into their positioning in subtle ways. For example, I love L'Invitation au...
Who Is The Greatest Footballer Ever?
Every June - July is always one of the hardest periods for football fans world wide, with most leagues winding down in May and kicking off in August. All of a sudden, you wake up on Saturday or Sundays and there is nothing to watch. You end up watching other sports, finding things to do but they don’t quite fill that gap. Every four years, at least, things are a little different and 2014 is one of those. It’s the FIFA World Cup in Brazil - a month of the best football on the planet with some of the best players. This is also a time the debates around who the greatest footballers in history...
Digital Crates: Amerigo Gazaway
I have wanted to do a Digital Crates post on Amerigo Gazaway for a while. I first came across him in 2012 when he was still involved with Gummy Soul Record Company. The Pharcyde’s Labcabincalifornia continues to be one of my all time favourite hip hop albums while A Tribe Called Quest have served as a critical soundtrack for significant parts of my life so when Amerigo created a musical journey, which he called Bizarre Tribe: A Quest To The Pharcyde, that blended these two groups, I was hooked. Bizarre Tribe was described as follows: “Utilizing the original Jazz, Soul and Funk recordings...
Red Bull’s Film On Music
Red Bull has gradually positioned itself at the forefront of sports, creativity and lifestyle, embedding itself in everything from extreme sports and dance to music, football and Formula One. In 1998, they started the Red Bull Music Academy in Berlin as “a world-travelling series of music workshops and festivals” with the main segment attended by “two groups of 30 selected participants – producers, vocalists, DJs, instrumentalists and all-round musical mavericks from across the planet”. It has been held in as diverse places as Cape Town, Sao Paulo, Dublin, Melbourne, London, Seattle and...
G-Star Presents RAW Episodes
Brands have now realised that, beyond simply selling to us, they need to tell stories. As a result, more and more are building interesting platforms to create and curate content that both reflects their values as well as speak to the desired customer base. The Dutch denim brand G-Star has been building a presence in South Africa and recently launched a store in Cape Town. As an urban clothing brand that draws inspiration from vintage military apparel using raw denim, G-Star has been collaborating with individuals it sees as fitting its brand essence, including in the series RAW Episode, the...
Adidas’ Stan Smith Is Back
I have always loved sneakers but my collection has generally been functional. I'd buy a couple of pairs, wear them till they fall apart and then replace. A friend of mine is a serious head though, particularly Air Jordans, and has a wardrobe with boxes upon boxes stacked. In the last two years, I’ve been gradually acquiring a little sneaker game, building a collection based primarily on nostalgia. I tend to lean towards kicks I wore growing up, including the Adidas Samba and Superstar II (shell toes), Nike Air Force 1 and Cortez, Puma Clyde, etc. The list of desired additions to collection...
Digital Crates: Jay-Z – The African Way
It's been a while since I shared some of the things I come across when digging crates digitally for music, mixtapes and the like. One that is in high rotation in my world right now is the audio documentary/ remix project by SA DJ, producer, creative director and consultant Papercutt (Thabang Moloto) has put together called Jay Z: The African Way. Drawing from Jay Z's American Gangster work in accapella, he has created a mashup with iconic South African and Lesotho music from artists like Sankomota, Miriam Makeba, Sipho Hotstix Mabuse, Caiphus Semenya, Letta Mbuli, Jonas Gwangwa and even...
Create Xmas Card With WeChat
While social media has cut into the instant messaging space, apps like Whatsapp and BBM continue to battle it out for a presence on our mobile devices. TenCent, with WeChat, has carved out a significant space for itself in the Asian markets as a social messaging service. Launched in Africa, with its primary base in South Africa (Naspers owns a stake in Tencent), a few months back, WeChat has been aggressively establishing itself in SA and across the continent , firstly with its ad with Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi, and with the WeChat Guy. (See article I wrote on DESTINY Man site:...
Steve Slotow & Kojo Baffoe present The Art of Life
I haven't shared the Art of Life episodes lately - well, in reality, I haven't really shared anything lately. The end of the year is always the most intense from a work perspective and with all the writing and running around I've been doing have left very little room for blogging. I've stopped beating myself up about it. This is something I will continue to do and build on - sometimes, consistently, other times not. It is what it is. To close out the year, check out the last three episodes of the Art of Life. I continue to believe there is a growing space for web series/online programming...
Ken Block’s Gymkhana 6
Ken Block is the man when it comes to precision driving. I have previously posted his Gymkhana Five as well as a clip from when he was featured on Top Gear. Finally, he’s done Gymkhana 6: The Ultimate Gymkhana Grid Course with the guys from Need For Speed Rivals, for which he was the racing consultant. Gymkhana 5 was done through the streets of San Francisco which is probably hard to top but .... I could tell you how dope it is but it makes better sense for you to just watch. http://youtu.be/WUO-lPubXeI
Kojo Baffoe & Steve Slotow present The Art of Life Eps 11
So Steve Slotow and I are still plugging along - albeit slowly - with the Art of Life web series. We are on Episode 11 and the intention is to keep building. We'll see where the experience takes us. In this episode, Steve talks about the Windows 8 powered HP ElitePad and Telkom Mobile's free wifi offer (in South Africa) which is running till December 5th while I try to get the iHealth Wireless Blood Pressure Monitor to work properly. We are now running the series on a Vimeo Channel and is also running on AlternaTV. [vimeo]https://vimeo.com/76800880[/vimeo] As always, a thank you to 21Tanks...
Win A R500 Stylemology Voucher
Online shopping is becoming increasingly accessible both in terms of stores that deliver to South Africa as well as South African stores. Buying clothing online is a challenging one because of sizing but different platforms are finding different ways of dealing with this. The major problem with buying from international sites lies both in the cost of delivery as well as the taxes and duties you have to pay. I recently bought something from the UK and had to pay R580 just to get it released for delivery. Right now, my favourite online store for clothing is Stylemology, which I came across a...