THE COLLECTOR: BAPE'S NIGO
The man behind the bling...
“The public perception, or at least the hater perception, is that I pay guys like Kanye and Pharrell [Williams] massive amounts of money to be involved with my music,” Nigo says, by way of a translator, a few nights later in his five-story mansion just around the corner. (West features on the most recent single from Nigo’s hip-hop crew, Teriyaki Boyz, and Williams has collaborated with him many times as both a producer and a guest vocalist. The two also have a clothing line together, called Billionaire Boys Club). “But in reality they are genuinely interested in working with me. People in Japan think that because I have a lot of money I can buy my way into anything I want to be in, but in reality it’s based on personal relationships. I think people find it hard to understand how I have such a great lifestyle off of selling some clothes…” he trails off, wringing his hands as he thinks about it. “It’s as if there must be something behind all of this…but I don’t have secret, hidden businesses; there aren’t side hustles going on here,” he continues, earnestly. “I devote all of my energy to the clothing business and the money that comes out of it. This brand is the second biggest independent brand in Japan— everything is very tightly controlled. I know how much stock there is of every item in every country that I have a store. It’s just really successful.”
LUKE CRISELL
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