Elhadji Mare
Elhadji is a Creative Strategist from New York City. He currently lives in Detroit with his cat, Ollie, and works at StockX. We spoke to Elhadji on a September afternoon over Japanese food at his apartment in Detroit’s West Village.This interview has been edited for clarity and length, but it is still relatively long. For shorter snippets, screenshottable quotes, and additional content, check out our IG.
For those who like to read, enjoy.
Find Elhadji on IG here.
Check out his portfolio here.
Nick: Tell us a little bit about who you are and where you come from.
Elhadji: I’m from Harlem, New York City. I graduated from Trinity College in 2018. Shortly after graduating I interned at this men's clothing brand called Proper Cloth. I loved the people and still keep in touch with some of them. From there, I hustled my way into a job at StockX. It started off as an internship and I moved to Detroit in 2018. That was the start of a lot for me.
Moving to Detroit was a pivotal moment for me, development-wise. It's the reason why I know how to drive now. It was the start of true adulthood for me. I'm still growing and learning. And whether that be professionally or emotionally or mentally, I'm excited to see what type of adult I become later in life, you know?
N: Nah man, that’s the best. We’re going to come back to that later. How do you feel like growing up in New York City impacted your taste in music?
E: In New York City, we have our own style of rap music. It’s very grungy, think early Nas, think Flatbush Zombies, early Pro Era. New York Style rap was a huge influence. Just growing up in New York was so influential.
I like to think I’ve got a pretty diverse palette too. My mom and dad listened to a lot of R&B and soul. In the car with my mom, she’d always play WBLS which is an R&B station. I remember listening to a lot of Luther Vandross, Lauryn Hill, Chaka Khan, Anita Baker, I was inundated in that back seat. My dad listened to African music, but he also liked James Brown and this famous Senegalese artist named Youssou N’Dour .
The first album I bought was a Jay Z album, American Gangster. My brother was a big 50 Cent fan. He was the one who really introduced me to hip hop. He had a booklet of CDs filled with Eminem, 50 Cent, Jay Z, Clipse, Lil Kim. Basically an introduction to hip hop book that he had no idea I was looking at. I’d just sit at home while he was at work and pop every CD in my little CD player. So I’m like a 9 year old listening to hardcore rap, getting an early education on the genre. And I didn’t realize how impactful that was until he gave it away. That really introduced me to music.
N: What are you listening to right now?
E: Are you familiar with Cortex? It’s a French jazz band from the 1970s. MF Doom sampled them for a song. I’ve been listening to the whole album that it’s on, it’s fire as hell. It’s all pretty good. Outside of that, I’ve been revisiting a lot of Lucki, his older stuff when he was called Lucki Eck$.
“I just want to make something
that I admire, you know.”
N: What brands are you into right now?
E: I’m still into A Kind Of Guise. I’m actually looking for a nice pair of cowboy or chelsea boots. That kind of deal, I might head over to Today Clothing soon and get a pair of Our Legacy Camions.
N: You’ve never been there, right Enoch?
E: Wait, you've never been?
N: He dodges me every time I go.
Enoch: I’ve been waiting for you to ask me. You never invite me.
E: Oh we’ve got to go. E is the best. I give him a lot of praise, but I genuinely mean it. The store is fucking amazing. I love going there. I love talking to that man.
He lets me call him Uncle E because of this one time when I saw him at Paramita Sound. I was on a date and we were at Paramita and we were drinking and he came over and bought me and my date drinks. It was just a great time. He introduced me to his friends. I just think he’s such a cool dude.
I think the story he’s creating is amazing.
N: Did you see Asteroid City, the new Wes Anderson movie?
E: Yeah I did, the movie is visually beautiful. Did you like it?
N: I did. I’m going to watch it again though, I think some things went over my head. I didn’t understand why Jeff Golfblum was in the movie for like five seconds.
E: Yeah, he only has one line.
N: I know, wtf. I’m so glad we're going back to the movies. I love seeing movies in theaters. I grew up in a small town where all there was to do was go see movies. Were movies a big part of your childhood in New York?
E: Yeah, I love going to the movies too. I grew up watching a lot of movies with my mom. Going to the movies was a really nice treat. We would go watch movies in New Jersey on Saturdays.
Enoch: Did you have a favorite with your mom?
E: I really loved watching The Hangover with my mom for the first time. We saw it in theaters, and I’ve never heard her laugh so much in my life. The first Hangover is hilarious and I can just remember the sound of her laugh. It’s a core memory of mine.
N: You were telling us about some professional advice you got recently that you were really vibing with. Talk us through it.
E: I had a conversation with this CD at Shinola who’s done a lot of cool stuff and I said “Man, I really feel like I’ve gotta get to a certain level.”
He was like “Man, calm down. Chill out.”
He’s like 7 years older than me and he’s done so much but I’m realizing that I’m 27 and I’ve still got so much time. I still have a lot of time to do things that are invigorating and exciting. I’m so hungry, I just want to do everything. I need to realize that I actually can’t because I don’t know everything and I’m still learning. I think that’s a cool realization to come to but I’m just very impatient.
You know, we’re still so young. Yet I feel like I’m not exactly where I need to be. It’s like “Bro, I can do all this shit, let me do this shit.”
But like also, no, maybe I can’t do all of this shit yet. Maybe I need to pump the breaks, slow down, I’m still learning. I just want to make something that I admire, you know.
N: What have you been up to outside of work?
E: I'm working on reading more. I'm reading this book called Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. She also wrote Little Fires Everywhere, which was adapted into a Hulu series. That book is great. It’s not a physical copy. I just have it on my Nook. I bought the physical copy like a year or so ago, and I never opened it.
N: [laughing] A little bit of irony there.
E: [laughing] Yeah, I bought the book twice.
I need to read everything on this thing because I can’t get through an actual book. It’s intimidating. It sounds silly, but for some reason, the length, the thickness of a book are so intimidating. It feels like more of a task, like I just have to finish this big thing and I have all of these pages left and I know because I’m holding all these fucking pages in my hand. I don't care how engaging this is, I have all these pages.
“I just do everything I can to make sure that my younger self is proud of older me.”
N: That’s funny. How do you feel about AI?
E: I knew that was going to be one of the questions? I don't like it, but I also don't dislike it. It's trying to figure out ways of working smarter and not harder. And I think A.I. does a great job of that, but people will abuse it. It’ll be a useful tool, but I don't like it as a way for people to replace their own sense of creativity. What’s concerning is that AI is only going to get better and make people even lazier than they already are.
N: Why do you think you like the things you like?
E: The environment I grew up in played a big part, whether that was my parents or my high school. High school was where I was introduced to sneaker culture, hype culture, and the internet. Then I found fashion, clothing, branding, and new music and shit like that.
I also think of all the things that little me wanted when I was a kid and wasn't able to get. Like, “Oh, I wish I could get that.” And now that I have the means to get some of those things, I get them and I fully appreciate them. Being able to work in the industry that I work in, being able to have the sneakers that I have, or even being able to have something as simple as the video games I want. I was thinking about this today, I just do everything I can to make sure that my younger self is proud of older me.
Yeah, I might get that tatted actually.
Enoch: That’s pretty good.
“I’m so hungry, I want to do everything.
I need to realize that I actually can’t because I
don’t know everything and I’m still learning.”
N: I love that, now talk to us some more about your life here in Detroit.
E: But it all really started off with this move to Detroit and meeting you and meeting Sam, and then from meeting you and Sam and also Aida and so many people from StockX, it just blossomed into this ecosystem of people that I know now. It’s a really beautiful thing.
There's this guy who is a security guard in my office. He's a black guy with a beard and he's always like, “All right, all right, how you doing? Have a good day.”
So every morning when I would see him, I'd go like, “Hey, what's up? How you doing?”
And he’d be like, “Alright, alright, how you doing? How you doing?”
It always gives me this jolt of energy. But I never recognized it until he wasn't there. He was out recently and I tried to do the same thing with one of the temporary security guards but they didn't really care. But then he got back and I remember I was like, “You're back. How are you doing?” And we started talking.
There was one day where I was feeling like it just started and I was already over it. And then I see this guy and he goes, “How are you doing? Everything good? All right, all right. How you doing?”
Instantly I was like “Everything’s good. How are you doing?” And as I walked away, I got another jolt of energy. That guy helped me get through the entire day. It wasn’t until then when I realized just how heavily reliant we are on other people. If I hadn’t seen that guy, I probably would’ve been in a shitty mood all day. He doesn’t even realize the impact he’s had on me.
I say all of that to say, if it weren't for the friends and the people that I’ve met here; if I didn't meet you, if I didn't meet Sam, if I didn't meet Aida; I think I would have moved away. I’m very much an extrovert and I love having that energy. Being around friends and people gives me so much life. If it weren't for my friends and if it weren't for the little community that I’ve made here, these last five years would be so different. I don't think I would be a fully functional adult if it weren't for the people around me.
So, you know, I want to say thank you to you guys and anyone else that's reading this. You know, Sam, Aida. I love you guys.
N: Man I’m about to cry. I think we can wrap it there.