Blood Brother X River Island Man ft Lady Leshurr, Yxng Bane and Kojey Radical | Design Forum
River Island Design Forum is back for SS18, with an 11-piece ready-to-wear collection designed by British menswear brand Blood Brother. Set up in 2012, Blood Brother fuses contemporary fashion design and construction with comfort and functionality.
Cutting-edge print techniques and fabrications and vintage streetwear references were the starting point for this collection. Think urban-living via street signage slogans, CCTV glitch prints and a muted colour palette with accents of high-vis orange.
Shop the collection in online & in selected stores now: http://riverislnd.co/cfDSlq
To celebrate the release of the RI x Blood Brother collection, we collaborated with a few of our favourite upcoming artists for a series of intimate interviews discussing the ever-changing digital world the collection is inspired by. Exploring their personal relationships with technology and how it’s shaped their lives and careers, as well as debuting the RI x Blood Brother collection, it’s over to Lady Leshurr, Yxng Bane and Kojey Radical…
Lady Leshurr
Rapper, singer and producer, Lady Leshurr is a force to be reckoned with. Learning to rap, produce and mix from her home in Solihull, she produced her first mixtape at 14 and has been on the up ever since. Rapping with a thick Brummie accent, her first real break came after uploading a parody video on to YouTube and in half a day she was offered her first record deal. When it comes to her online persona, she believes it’s important to show your real self and let people know that it’s ok to not be ok.
“A lot of artists prefer to put up this image or façade. If you’re funny off the mic, why don’t you show us that? We want to know you as a human being.”
Yxng Bane
21-year-old east London rapper, Yxng Bane, gained viral attention this year for his cover of Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” and has been riding high ever since. But he is so much more than that. When he first started making music he didn’t like showing his face and took inspiration from Batman’s Bane character, which explains the origin of his name. Stating he doesn’t belong to a genre, he prefers diversity and expressing himself through different ways whether that’s singing, rap, afro-swing or trap. Discussing his personal relationship with technology, he believes privacy is key.
“My online self is probably 80% of me. I think it’s very important that everybody has a sense of privacy that we respect.”
Kojey Radical
Rap artist and poet, Kojey Radical, sits somewhere between grimey hip hop and alternative rap, with a serving of spoken word but he can’t really be defined. He calls himself a contemporary artist from east London and he’s not concerned with genre as long as the music compliments his lyrics and message. He published his first poem aged 9, but it wasn’t until much later that he started taking spoken word more seriously. He started working on his poetry and art in college which lead him to the creation of his three Eps which explore issues of identity, race, class and social unrest. Seeking change, not fame, Kojey believes that your online self should be an extension of your real life self.
“I like to imagine that there’s no difference between my real life self and my online self.”
