A pandemic is not the ideal time to release a huge collaboration that’s been in the works for years. Oh yeah, we’re getting right into it.

You can’t go out and shoot a lookbook, can’t do a launch event, can’t put up billboards. The list goes on and on. Like any imperfect plan, this one has some flaws. Sure. But what you can do when you’re in a situation like this is believe in the creative force that made you want to work together in the first place. And lean into that.

Blue The Great thrives in the unidyllic and sees flaws as a strength; opportunities to overcome adversity and create without the limitations of “perfect.”

In a 2016 interview with us, Blue said, “You’re not buying a Blue painting because it’s perfect, you’re buying it because it’s tight.”

In tight we trust.

So, when you really think about it, there’s never been a better time for this collaboration. Everyone is suddenly stuck at home with a lot more free time on their hands, and you can really only do two things with all that time: chill out and make shit. And this collection is built to do both.

Instead of a traditional lookbook, Blue made one of the most original and relatable ones we’ve seen in ages, all by himself in quarantine. Instead of a normal event, we’re having a Meet & Greet with Blue on IG Live so everyone in the world can come. He’s doing a live painting session on Twitch, and a Q&A with Bobby Hundreds on Zoom. Basically, Blue is taking a deep, dark pit of despair and filling it with colorful plastic balls. Jump in with us.

The artist extraordinaire, who was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Dallas, and then moved back to LA a few years ago, is having the biggest year of his young career. In November, Blue did what was thought to be impossible: He got the entire sneaker world excited about a Jordan 1 Mid. His take on the classic shoe, part of Jordan’s Fearless Collection, was a smash hit, selling out immediately all over the world and bringing millions of new eyes to Blue’s work. The shoe feels timeless, utilizing classic materials like corduroy and Blue’s signature primary colors.

Much of Blue’s work is a statement on time, whether you’re looking back on happier times in the ball pit or looking at the totality of one’s time with his mummified series. Time is both fleeting and infinite, ours to do with what we please. And now, during this quarantine, we have even more of it than usual at our disposal.

We’ve worked with Blue on a number of occasions, but this is the first time we’ve collaborated on a collection, a momentous occasion for both parties. So, ahead of the release of The Hundreds X Blue The Great, I spoke with the celebrated painter about how he’s been coping with the new normal during the pandemic, his growing success, and what this collab means to him.

DUKE LONDON: Well, how are you doing, man? How’s quarantine been? Let’s get a check on you.
BLUE THE GREAT: To keep it a hundred, I’ve been uhh…it sucks. Quarantine has been ass because, you know. This is not supposed to happen when you’re about to drop a collab. But, being as that I’m more of an established artist, at least financially, I have everything I need in the studio. Only thing I have to go get are groceries, just like everybody else in the world. But as far as art supplies, I went and got supplies before it got super crazy. Having to work in the studio, I’m fine. This is really normal, except my friends aren’t here, you know? I’m just locked in, making a lot of stuff and getting to challenge myself. That lookbook was a very fun slash stressful thing to shoot but I love how it came out.

I feel like the lookbook couldn’t be more relatable and you’re showing people future pictures of themselves in the pieces. Does any part of the world being quieter around you — no one outside, no one doing anything — make it easier to create art or has this changed your process somewhat?
First, going into the quarantine, I was like “Oh, I’m going to make hella stuff!” You know, because I’m just going to be at the crib cooking up. But people, and real-life, are the actual inspiration for art. Basketball, for example, inspires so many fucking paintings and drawings and things to come out of that alone, you know? Iverson stepping over Tyronn Lue, so many people made art just based on that one thing. Just real-life interactions with people. But I think, at the beginning, I was definitely not inspired to make much. I was just kind of being lazy, seeing what was going to happen, playing hella video games. I think as it got closer to The Hundreds release, I’ve been painting a little bit more. If I’m bored, my natural instinct is to create art. I found my little rhythm, I would say. In the beginning, I was trying to force art, and then I just hit my little rhythm. Right now, I feel like I’m in a very good place with my art. I have a lot of new drawings and stuff that I really want to put out but I’m going to save them until after this The Hundreds stuff.

Going back to what you said about the internet, what part of all these people being on the internet for way more of the day than normal is changing them and making them go crazy in public view?
We are for sure seeing people go crazy online, out of boredom. And I know, our natural life now is social media, but, it’s just weird watching people do that, you know? I guess they’re just trying to make the best of it but I deleted Instagram and Twitter. I did a little two-day break because I was just over it. I would go on and the only thing people were talking about was the Corona, so I just didn’t want to hear about it for a while. And I think that’s really important, just to be doing other things. I started a painting in the living room that you can see in the background of the lookbook, which is probably going to turn into something else, but that’s the painting I started. I decided to just keep it in instead of doing two blank canvases — I’ve actually been making shit, you know? I think you just gotta step away from the internet for a little while sometimes. There is so much fear being projected by everyone that it’s like, man, sometimes you need to be with your own thoughts for a little while.

Yeah, so much conflicting info around, you just don’t know what to believe so you just chill out and don’t look at it.
Let me just deal with it how I deal with it’ is where I’m at, at this point. I mean, clearly you have to be aware but, you know, shit, man.

Let’s talk about the quarantine lookbook you shot of yourself, what was your original idea for the lookbook? How did it change and what are some of the challenges in making that?
Man, before any Corona stuff happened, I was thinking that I should go to the streets, shoot just ill street shit, you know? But after the Corona thing, I thought maybe I’ll just shoot one of my homies, or a few of my homies, in their quarantine space. I could just pull up to their house, give them a shirt, they could rock a few things and then I’d shoot these different people in their environments, from the less rich homies to some of the more wealthy homies. Not that it would get that crazy, but just showing how they’re living. And then when I was walking around shooting some stuff like that, I felt socially irresponsible just by people looking at me. I felt like I was being judged. I didn’t want to shoot anything outside, having fun, when no one’s going to be outside having fun.

So, then I was like, “Damn, I should just shoot myself in the crib, being quarantined, doing things that I would actually do.” I’ve been playing video games, sleeping, painting and DJing. The hardest part about the whole thing was shooting it on film. I shot it digitally with a Sony a7R IV. And then the film thing is tricky because it gets super technical with these big ass film cameras; I’m using manual joints. I shot the lookbook with a Mamiya Rz67, which is one of my favorite cameras–I shoot a ton with it–with a fisheye lens. I have this little auto-timer, so I have to crank the timer, set up all the shit, measure the light, you know, pre-focus it, and then I start the timer. And I just shoot hella shots.

This was literally my biggest challenge ever. I’m very happy with how everything came out because, man, I developed the film myself. I’ve been developing my own film now for about, eight months? Nine months? Maybe a year? Shit. So, just having the confidence to do all that, having all the tools at home, when all the film shops are closed? You literally learn all these skills and I feel like when you have a chance to display all of them it’s like, why not? Why not?! I’m built for this. I learned all this stuff just in case I was like, in Egypt shooting film and if I wanted to show you guys the film from Egypt, now I could just develop it inside the hotel. It was definitely the most challenging thing I’ve ever done with photos.

That’s the craziest thing about like, how this bad thing can force people into learning new things or like, proving to themselves that they can do certain things and now that you know you can do it, in the future it wouldn’t even seem as daunting.
Yeah, I feel like I’m a person who is constantly learning. I’m always trying to push things to the next level. Or at least learn a new skill that can be useful at some point. I always want to push my art to another level. And I feel like there’s nothing to do right now but either catch up on movies or learn a new skill or practice something. Or you could just do nothing! I mean, that’s cool, too. I’ve been way chilling a lot of the time.

How do you like Warzone?
Oh man, at first I wasn’t fucking with it. But then–I love that Call of Duty game and I do like the battle royale games but, at first, I would just get murdered! I’m like WHY?! I’m good at Call of Duty. You can’t go hardcore on Warzone but it’s fire. I played solo and started getting hella kills. Fire kills. Then I got a solo win and I was like “Okayy! I think I got it.” Now, I play with teams and I do alright. I actually have like four wins and I don’t have that many games in. I’m looking at the rankings and I got homies who have three wins and they got hella games, so, I think I’m doing alright.

The video game shit is tight because now you’re seeing all these people hop on video games like, “You play video games?!” I consider myself a real gamer, I’ve had every single system since–I never had a Gamecube, I skipped those Mario Karts and caught it on the next but I’ve had every system. My dad played video games. We were playing since Sega Genesis. I’ve been playing in a little Faze Clan tournament shit, it’s cool, there’s a bunch of NBA dudes in there. Those dudes are too good, though. I put out a Twitch stream for the first time, I’m about to put another little Call of Duty mixtape out there.

So how’s Twitch been?
Twitch is interesting, man, I need to use it for more art-hybrid purposes. I love the fact that I can just share my interests and no longer feel ashamed about all of them. I posted my first little Call of Duty highlight tape and it got so much love, like it has hella comments on it. It’s just me recording my wild Call of Duty kills and little streaks and it’s just crazy to see the response. I just love being able to show these little things that I like. Video games, art, music, you know what I’m saying? And Twitch, I think, is just gonna be another platform for me to flip it crazy.

That’s one of the things I love about this collection, is that you are giving people very unique pieces of you. They’re everything you’ve been talking about and creating, it really feels like it’s your heart and soul throughout this whole collection. I wanted to talk to you about two of the pieces, in particular, the ashtray and the shorts, how they’re kind of new creations that I don’t think anybody’s ever seen before.
The shorts are tight because I have photos of all this stuff. I usually paint in overalls. Throw them on, over whatever. I had these white ones that I’ve had for a long time but got so dingy. I just kept upgrading overalls as I painted and then I was like, “This shit’s tight, I should just get hella different overalls.” I had a pair in black, and I had some shorts, too, these old Levis I’d paint in, just wiping brushes on them and the paint’s on the right side because I’m right-handed. That’s how you can tell any painter’s dominant hand, by which side of the pants have more paint. I went to The Hundreds one time and I was walking into the warehouse and I got these shorts, these black shorts, and I was like, “Oh, these are hard!” First, I was just wearing them, straight black, before it was cold, and then I painted one day. Got some paint on them. Cool, now they officially paint shorts. Started painting in them. But then, they’re still my day-to-days, so people were just asking me about them. So, I actually cloned the shorts from the old overalls.

The paint palette ashtray, that was the last idea we had. I was talking to David like, “Can I make something crazier?” We had finished all the clothes and stuff. He was like, “I don’t know, what do you want to make?” and I was just like, “Man, shit, can I make an ashtray painted like one of my palettes?” I thought of the idea and he said, “That’ll be crazy!” Now, I’m trying to do some more stuff.

What was it like to get your hands on Adam Bomb and do your own version?
The Adam Bomb, to me, is like the Jumpman logo, you know? Not trying to say it’s bigger or anything but, it’s just something that’s so classic. I knew if I ever got to rip that, I automatically knew what I was doing. It’s just an instant assembling of two OGs. Whenever I think of a collab that’s heat, you just want to see the two best, most staple things that both brands do, you know? “You’re known for this? I’m known for this.” Put those together, it doesn’t have to be rocket science. I did the first mock of it and I was like “This is it. This is heat. This is going crazy.” There’s no other way to put it, that was everybody’s intro to The Hundreds and everyone’s intro to me is the mummy.

About the mummies, I wanted to talk about how the internet has changed how we preserve art and how art is becoming even more timeless.
At this point, most people will never, ever see actual paintings or the skill of it. But, they do get to see the art, which is something. Same with graffiti, you see much more graffiti now than you’ve ever seen before because you can just look it up and find it anywhere as opposed to having to go to these places. But if you don’t go to the place, you never smell what it smells like to be at that spot or like, you don’t get an overall sense of these places. So, I don’t know about this internet thing, man. [Laughs] It’s cool and it’s definitely a tool, it’s definitely interesting, like, how we’re moving it forward. But, I don’t know, man.

Think about if Michael Jordan had Twitter. Would you like Michael Jordan?

Right.
[Laughs] You know, it’s just different, the amount of access. I feel like maybe the artists that are doing it right are Kendrick [Lamar] and Frank Ocean. You don’t know what’s going on with those dudes, they’re just making art and being mysterious.

How much access is too much access?
I don’t know, man, I think it’s a very interesting time. The best thing about art and making art is for someone to actually have it and own it and move it to a different spot because they didn’t like it there, appreciate it in real life and see the textures and touch it, if they wanted to. There’s a difference between seeing it on the internet and in real life but I do appreciate everything. Like, the internet is sick, that’s how I survive. I survive off the internet. People buy my paintings and have never seen them in real life. Think about that. I sell paintings that are six-feet tall to people and they’ve never seen it in person.

Do you ever have to tell someone that’s buying it like, “Okay, just warning you one more time how tall it is. You’ve only seen it on your phone.”
Yeah, when I tell them, I go, “You know this is big?” People ask me “How much?” I’ll put the dimension in inches, most of the time. I’ll send them a picture of me standing next to it.

What was different about designing clothes rather than painting?
It is cool to add ‘designer’ and stuff to my resume. I’ve made clothes before but there’s a different feeling between seeing a finished painting wherever it’s going to be displayed and making a piece of clothing for somebody, and seeing how they wear the clothes. The painting’s always going to look like that, no matter where you put it, but when you see somebody wearing your clothes, it becomes about how someone gets a fit off with something you made, that you knew was tight, and they get it, they have that same energy, but they wear it completely different. That’s the coolest thing about making clothes, because it’s just like, I would have never thought to do that. That shit looks hella tight.

What’s it been like going around and seeing your sneaker out in the real world?
[Laughs] It’s cooler to me when people don’t know who I am. They just think the shoe’s really tight, you know? That’s sick. And it’s cool how many people I’ve been able to meet because of it. It’s just an interesting thing, man. I heard the shoes were re-released in the Philippines a week ago. It just re-released online here two days ago or something like that. It’s cool, man, when you believe in something and you designed it based on how you feel about a thing, and then it comes out and people like it, it’s the best feeling in the world. I didn’t design this for you guys to like it, necessarily, I just designed it because I thought it was really tight.

What’s it like to go from painting sneakers, doing customs, to designing a very successful, actual sneaker for Jordan? When you started doing customs, or working with Jordans, did you ever see your own Jordan down the road?
[Laughs] Not really, shit. I mean, that’s like somebody saying, “Yo, I wanna be a movie star.” Everybody wants to be a movie star. Did I see it happening? Eventually. But, I see a lot of things happening, and a lot of them aren’t happening. Kind of yes and no. It came out of nowhere. I lowkey get emotional, I just do my own thing. I abide by my own rules and believe in the shit and that shit be paying off. And I’m like, “Damn, I can’t believe this shit!” And that’s why I’ll do a collab with The Hundreds after a Jordan thing because The Hundreds may not be the bigger brand but… The Hundreds Is Huge! [Laughs] But it’s OG, you know? I feel very lucky to get the opportunity to do something with The Hundreds.

I remember seeing that The Hundreds was the first brand that you felt a part of growing up. What about the community attracted you to it? You’ve spoken about how important this collab is but, where did it start for you?
So, I was born in Inglewood but I didn’t grow up in California, I grew up in Dallas, mostly. I moved to Dallas in the third grade and I grew up in Vegas before that. All of my family lived in LA but I grew up in Dallas. I went to high school and I graduated in 2005. I didn’t find out really about real streetwear type shit until I was in college. And in Dallas, nobody knew no streetwear shit, everybody was wearing Polo and FUBU. This is like Sean John, Fifty Cent type shit. Then Jay-Z said, “Change clothes.” And everyone started wearing button-ups. Karmaloop was where you had to buy a lot of shit because a lot of stores didn’t carry that stuff. The Hundreds was the first brand that I found out about through this boutique I started working in. Small little store, you know, they had The Hundreds, they had Crooks [and Castles], they had Supras, they had a bunch of shit. I was like 21, I’m 32 now. So, 21 years old, you know, just learning how boutiques and streetwear brands and shit work, seeing brands going from small to gigantic. The Hundreds was my favorite brand. I’d have pictures of myself on whatever the fuck in The Hundreds stuff, so, it’s just a full-circle moment. I don’t know, I always feel like different brands just represented different types of people. I feel like a lot of people feel like they’re Polo people. Or Nike people. Adidas people. I feel like there’s a certain type of person who wears The Hundreds. And I am one of them. [Laughs]

It’s definitely a community and when you see someone else wearing it, you feel like you kind of already know them.
Because you had to know, especially in Dallas. If you had The Hundreds on and you walked somewhere and you saw somebody else with The Hundreds on, y’all were about to have a conversation. Or at least have a moment of like, “Yeah, I see you, bro!” Literally, I have a homie I met because he was on game! He’s my homie to this day, but this was years ago, nobody knew shit about no streetwear shit in Texas. I mean, except for the few people. But like, bro, this is like, Dom Kennedy pullin’ up early type shit, you know? Like, on some Dom and PacDiv shit. A long fucking time ago. If you had The Hundreds on, you were automatically cool.

What did your friend that you made wearing The Hundreds say when you told him about the collab?
Maaaaaaan, you already know! [Laughs] Everyone was just really proud. These people know that this is authentic. This wasn’t something that was like “Let’s make some money.” It’s been a long time coming. And getting to do these collabs, just sets the precedent of what I work on. With collabs, you gotta make something crazy. I got to paint a fucking basketball court for Jordan. It’s gotta be tighter than the last one, let’s not do something that’s like… medium stuff.