By Konate Primus

For those of you who wonder what it’s like to work in the SLAMdome, allow me to take this time and explain. Now the situation varies, if you’re Ben, your day might be filled with the stress of writers not turning in work on time or some agent giving you the run around. If you’re Sam, you might be dealing with something down the line of “the search bar doesn’t work”, or “how do I post from my computer? How can I insert this image.” Lang, well Lang is special. Nobody seems to bother him. He just bothers everyone else, and for me it’s pretty much sneaker/lifestyle product research. All day I sit at my computer and look at kicks while being surrounded by a sea of sneakers, picking the cream of the crop before Khalid gives the final ok for our SLAM readers. And I occasionally go to big fashion extravaganzas. Here’s a story about one I thought I was attending.

Its starts off with “Flashing lights” by Kanye West playing in the background of the venue decked out with styled insignias of automotive luxury at Hornburg Jaguar in Beverly Hills. The place is jam-packed with groupies traveling in packs like schools of hungry pirranhas preying on the rich and weak willed. Fellow celebrities, artists, and professional athletes are all here to celebrate All-Star Carmelo Anthony, and Jordan Brand’s launch of the Jordan Melo M4 basketball shoe. There’s crab cakes, lobster tail, caviar, bubbly spilling out the gold bottle, the echo of cameras flashing repeatedly. It’s truly the event of the year for sneaker fiends across the country. Hours go by, tons of networking is being done, and lots of phony laughs are shared. Behind the scenes footage of the national television advertising spot, “Engine” that began airing on Thanksgiving Day, played on plasma screen televisions sprinkled throughout the dealership.

A loud noise! Boom! oh, it’s just my roommate falling of his bed again. I quickly rush back and pick up where I left off.

Now the sounds of Gucci Manes “Freaky girl” fill the air as I walk through doors leaving the black carpet audience speechless with my unreleased and never before seen Olympic Spiz’ikes the beautiful Tamala Jones approaches and whispers into my ears “lets leave now and go to my hotel”. STOP, WAIT! I’ve been in this situation before. Do I choose the beautiful woman who will love me for this one night of passion and lust? Or do I choose the sneakers that will love me forever in sickness and in health, who will take care of my corns and bunions? Who will never judge me because of how my feet look or smell? I quickly changed subjects and blurt out “What a way to close 07? Launching the latest edition of the brand that carries MJ’s name, and man are they doing it big.”

Embarrassed, she had to excuse herself from my presence. Midway through the evening, Melo gets on the mike and addresses the crowd, “please be sure to stop by the gallery featuring all of my inspirations for this shoe. Much thanks goes to Jordan Brand and BNCPR for bringing us all together, thanks to SLAM Magazine for always being the first ones to feature my shoes and much love to Jaguar. This shoe wouldn’t be the same if I wasn’t inspired by 2008 Jaguar XKR Coupe. Thanks to my good friend DJ Driss on the 1’s and 2’s (better known as stinger bell or by his government name Idris Elba). Please enjoy the rest of your night, don’t forget the keys to your new jag in your goodie bag along with you customized pair of Melo 4’s. Thanks for coming out and drive safe.

After numerous attempts, Melo finally gets a hold of me and we chat it up for a bit. Talking about life, how’s the fencing going, asking if he could get a SLAM cover anytime soon. I say to the guy “Look, I don’t wanna talk about that right now. What I want to know is how this car motivated you.” Melo puts his Henny and coke down and this great big deep voice from above says “We designed the Jordan Melo M4 for Carmelo to elevate on-court performance even higher by improving quickness and agility. In addition, Jordan Brand sought design inspiration from the jaguar, both the beautiful jungle cat and the high-performance luxury car. The shoe represents power and strength much like the feline with its stealth-like precision. The bottom of the outsole works similar to that of the jungle cat’s powerful paws providing better traction overall. The rest of the shoe handles like the luxury automobile.”

WHAAAP!

Papers flying everywhere from a wallop across the cranium! Things are starting to look familiar again. The Jags, nowhere to be found, the caviar, the bubbly, the music, my Spiz’ikes all gone! You mean to tell me I didn’t get approached by Tamala Jones? This was all a dream? Currently in my Brooklyn residence lifting my from the keyboard of my computer where I fell asleep reading a press release for the Melo M4 and its launch party. I woke up only to find out this event really did happen days ago but I wasn’t there! This was just my mind playing tricks on me, damn!

Jordan Brand launched the Melo M4 nationally on Saturday,
December 1, 2007 with a suggested retail price of $120. Retailer
information is available at www.Jumpman23.com.