The Hundreds: Who are you?

Jamie Storey: I’m a skater. I skated for Zoo, Brooklyn Boards, Supreme, … and then ironically broke my foot and designed a sneaker for my boy Fred Gall, and then bought a computer with that money and started learning all those programs. When my foot was healed, started doing t-shirts for Base Bklyn. That’s it. And then you know Russ...takin’ it from there.

So were you still skating?

Yeah, I actually planned on starting a company – my boy Rodney was gonna start makin’ boards. I was gonna do something through him. And then Vehicle started coming together – started doin some logos and building that, and he actually asked me to be a partner – so it’s me, Rodney, and Gio (Giovanni Estevez). Then I started working for Russ, workin for him as an artist. I always drew, but I was just getting into the computer stuff and goin’ to print.

What were your responsibilities at Vehicle Skateboards?

Me and Gio worked on the design. The overall direction was between all of us. Meanwhile, my boy Neil Santos (Teamworks) was working with Rich King – they worked together at Fat Beats - and were doin a new record label called Magnum and asked me if I’d be interested in doin’ some stuff. They had done all the Diggin’ in the Crates stuff, and all the ill White Label and unreleased stuff that came out through Fat Beats. I ended up doin the DITC single, worked out well, and then that eventually turned into doin’ the Big L album, “The Big Picture,” which was done through Magnum…

At the same time this was happening, Russ had done a shirt with Larry Davis on it which had the scar marks from Bruce Lee, and I really was drawn to it and felt like “Take that and make it a brand” and that’s what became The Cut. At the same time, Gio did Annex for awhile, so we ended up building that. I grew up with Gio and felt that his shirts weren’t representing his artwork well – he wasn’t computer savvy – so we started building that more. And everything just gradually evolved.

When was this?

This is ’99. Through my boy Ben Roo, I met Scott Free, who had done some of the illest records for Loud, and I came up with the logo for his new group IGT.

Also, at that time, my boy Dreddy Krueger rolled with the Wu. He was like “Yo, they’re workin on a new album.” …gave me some names, and I came up with some comps and sent em out but didn’t hear anything. One day, I get a call and Dreddy’s like “Yo, they liked your shit, you gotta go to Loud right now.” So I go up there and they’re like “Where’s the cover?” But I had come up with an ad concept and a direction with where I wanted to deal with the advertising and do the cover last -- a sequence. But the album artwork was 2 weeks late, the people they had workin’ on 10-12 comps – they didn’t like any of ‘em. So I went home that night, re-did the whole thing. I did all these changes for Loud. So they show RZA the changes and he was like “What is this? Yo, where’s the shit I saw?” I showed him my original artwork and he’s like “That’s the cover. That’s the shit I want.”

Which album was that?

"The W." That got me psyched because he rolled with the artwork, not with whatever the record label wanted…

Eventually, Loud was downsizing and let go of their art department and wanted Sony to handle that but keep the work in-house. So I got hired as the Senior Art Director for Loud which was my first corporate experience. Unfortunately, Loud was struggling at the time and it was only for a quarter that I worked there. 90% of the company got let go – Scott, Matty C,… Also, shout out to John Rifkind, Rich Isaacson, can’t forget…

At the same token, dealing with Vehicle, The Cut, at the same time was overwhelming, so I decided I needed to focus on what I was doin’, instead of workin’ for So-and-So Records… I’m much happier working for myself and workin’ with my friends…

...After that, started doin’ some stuff with Prohibit because my boy Dagan was a partner at the time, so I wanted to help him and help their identity…

...Oh yeah, so I was in a relationship with this girl and it ended, and I’m just randomly walkin’ around the city chillin’ one weekend and I end up seein’ this one dude I met randomly through some other heads and it was Hawaii Mike Solomon, the style editor for The Source. He knows Dagan, he knows Free, Matty, the heads, does his homework and gives me a call the next day and wanted to meet to break down what he was doing…making a limited magazine focusing on limited products. That’s what became LTD Magazine. Boom. This is around 2003.

Before LTD, I had come up with the idea of doin’ my own company. I had dinner with someone who had seen my designs, seen what I done, and said that if I did a line, it would be received well. They just wanted me to name it my own name, but I was never into that. I came up with the concept of just doin’ a dollar sign. It was a toss-up between a dollar sign and something else (which I won’t say because it may still be something..!)

Why the dollar sign?

Because people are so focused on money and it seemed like that was always something that appealed to people. I had a few graphics that I wanted to do for other companies I was workin’ with that people wouldn’t necessarily feel. (Also, I don’t want to leave out A-ron the Don, who initially took me over to Russ’ and said, “Yo, this guy needs someone to work on the computer.” The Don, A-ron, aNYthing New York! Hit me up!)

So that was predominantly what is the first season. Joe Chan had come up with the idea of doin’ “King of New York” (Joe Chan is an independent filmmaker, watch out for his next shit “Bread Sandwich” ya heard!) and I had the graphic “The Illest.” These are graphics that other people weren’t feelin 100% but I’m confident in ‘em. When I initially started J-Money, it was a side thing for me to have money, because I work and do this and that, but it’s always a struggle, because we have to constantly invest in Vehicle, payin’ bills, everything, it’s not easy. So if I do a side joint, it won’t be such a headache and it’ll bring me some money. Initially, I thought the generation before us would be like “Oh, you’re doin your own thing, you’re on your own” but everyone I deal with – we came up on a different thing, workin’ with each other. Everyone embraced and supported it, which was a really good feeling.

So it was just a dollar sign, and I decided to just turn (the center line) and make it a “J” and those were my initials “J.S.” And I still didn’t want a name for it, but my boy Thomas comes through and saw it and he was like “Oh! J-Money!” And I was like “Boom, there’s the name.” He just saw it and that’s it! Rolled with it. Thomas is also in my braintrust, dealing with ideas and he’s part of the street team. We got the whole street team out there: Sammy the Bull, Santana Doctor Dreidel is the face of J.Money. We got the King of New York Nasty Neal, we got Poo-stiggity. It’s too expansive, I don’t even wanna…

Too expansive!

Is that even a word? I suppose. So I came up with the core, and gave it to my boy who came to me with the initial idea and didn’t hear anything. A year goes by, and Im just chillin’. I’m like “I guess no one’s really feelin’ it.” At the same token, I was just tryin’ to get it out just as a side thing for me, so I didn’t stress it. I dealt with someone who was gonna initially do the distribution, beginning of last year, telling me we’re getting orders, but it was April and we were late. The numbers they told me they were gonna do per design were less then the entire order! If they said they were gonna do 4 designs total, they came and ordered like 3 shirts TOTAL. So this led me to my current distribution, who came correct and I’ve been workin’ with him ever since. He’s the best.

How many stores are you in now? Do you even know?

No…I’m in probably…30? Aside from Japan. I gotta shout out Our Spot in Sydney, Kicks in Hawaii, Situationormal, Union LA, about to be in Brooklyn Projects, Huf in SF, Concepts in Boston, DQM, Ssur, Rival, Union NY, Patta in Amsterdam, Headquarter in Vancouver, and my boy Matt from Goodfoot is jumpin’ off something new, Goods in Seattle, my boy KP’s store in Long Island, my other boys in Queens, my boy Alvie who’s opening a store in Staten Island I’m gonna sell to, and Clientele from time to time. Friends and family.

That’s big to you. Community. Family.

Yeah, that’s one of the best things about LTD - that it’s a media outlet that I can get everyone involved with, and everyone else is involved with other people, and so it expands and grows. But overall, the response is good but I still have to utilize all these things…the response on my line was a lot bigger than I expected it to be, although it’s not bananas, I’m not moving a million units. We’re tryin’ to push Vehicle more into this territory. Initially, we were focusing strictly on skate shops but skating is a sketchy industry. You can only sell so many skateboards in an industry which is monopolized. The market dropped, so all the big dogs are scrambling to keep their market. I really focus on Vehicle and getting that out there, because we get blocked from a lot of distributions, and so we have to take our own route. So if we can push that and take Vehicle to other levels the skate market didn’t really think about, then that’s good…

Word…

Let me sum this up. The industry that we’re all dealing with, we have to all come together and take it to the next level. Because the corporations are gonna figure out how it’s done and how these guys are doin it, or just pay everyone off – all the ill people – and say “Yo, come be a part of this.” But we can really be the ones who take it up and tadao! [Gotta shout out Fut(ura), Stash, all of the heads].

What do you think about the industry as a whole, the state of affairs..?

It’s a great medium for people to get their stuff out. Let’s say “t-shirts.” With J.Money, I’m starting with t-shirts and take steps to grow. I didn’t create this to just be a t-shirt line. But its great…it’s like a Renaissance of creation. That people can have an idea and make 50 t-shirts and people like ‘em and they get a response and it drives everyone to create and keeps everyone on their toes. The correlation between this industry and how the whole sneaker thing has exploded is great, but you have to realize all these people are getting involved because they realize there’s a market. So we have to grasp that market and take it up to the level where we think it should be.

Alright… Is that it?

One more thing. Shout out to The Hundreds, son! Worrrd up!

[ shirt photos courtesy of apollo-nyc.com ]