The Original Hypebeast

October 09, 2018

Anyone who knows anything about sneakers knows this: Hypebeast is the hype machine bible. Launched in 2005 by Kevin Ma, the website (and now, magazine and online retail shop) has become the go-to space for sneaker heads, Supreme addicts and everyone who wants to know something about fashion. Whether it's where to cop the sold out Off-White x Converse collab, or the latest news on Rick & Morty, Hypebeast always has the scoop—and is pushing culture forward.

Ma's latest venture? Hypefest, a two-day educational experience at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that brings together all of today's most exciting voices in the worlds of fashion and music—and of course, all of this year's coolest collaborations. Think: Jaden Smith x G-Star, Nike x Sacai, Skepta's brand MAINS, LVMH prize winner Ambush and the Clermont Twins, among others.

Interview by Caitlan Hickey
Photos by Nicolò Bernardi

office had the chance to sit down with Ma at the event to talk about his plans for Hypebeast and the future of Hypefest.

Read our interview below, and peep the rest of our photos from Hypefest here.

With one day of Hypefest down, what’s been your favorite part so far?

Just seeing everybody gather from across the world. Literally, people from Asia, people from Europe, I even met some people from Mexico and South America and was like, ‘Oh, you took a plane just to come here?!’ That’s pretty amazing. All of these people gathered here because they love creativity, the brands we’re presenting, the artists, the musicians. It’s a good way for people to connect. We want to make it a platform for kids to meet their favorite designers and artists, where they have a more intimate environment to connect. And hopefully, with this kind of platform, these kids will be inspired to become a fashion designer, or get into a creative field, or become a photographer or the next great ‘whoever.’

I know you’ve said that you wanted Hypefest to be more of an immersive experience and place to learn, rather than just shopping booths. Can you tell me a few ways you’ve done that?

It was more like, ‘Hey, let’s bring all these people together in one place,’ and then organically things happen. You meet up with friends here, reconnect or meet new people, friends refer other friends. These interactions are hard to come by these days, you know, face-to-face ones. I mean, you could go on social media and kind of interact, but that’s very surface-level. To make deeper, more meaningful connections, it’s nice to sit down and have a chat.

I think there’s a certain connotation with hype being flashy, clearly notable trends and logos, but it seems like your personal style is more about quality meeting trends.

When I first started I was a typical hypebeast—I was buying into the hype, honestly. These are limited edition shoes, yes, they look sick and are colorful, but this event is a gateway to this massive world behind it. Here, I think there are ‘hyped’ products, but behind it there’s design or a collaboration with an artist, and suddenly you’re learning about that artist. I think if you use products as a medium of communication, it can be a really great educational tool.

What are you wearing today?

A pair of adidas [white Yung-1’s] and an Undercover x Sacai shirt.

How did you go about curating the event?

Well I had two committee members, Sarah Andelman and Hiroshi Fujiwarai. I respect them a lot. They call Hiroshi the “Godfather of Streetwear.” Without him, I think a lot of us would not exist—a lot of these brands would not exist—so he was the first person I thought of. Then we went to Paris and hit up Sarah, because we wanted a more diverse curation and she’s amazing, and brings a lot to the table. We brought together our different inspirations and took it from there.

Now with the site, a magazine and online retail, how much are you still involved with the curation of Hypebeast?

I check the site everyday. We have a great team who helps curate it, otherwise it’d be impossible to do everything. I definitely rely on creative people to help run everything. But I am still so involved because I started out as a blogger, that was my passion—to find cool stuff and put it on the site. So, I’m definitely still very into it.

I remember in 2005, when Hypebeast first started, as a young sneaker head, there were limited options—we all basically just liked Nike Dunks, Nike SBs and Jordans. Then it seemed like everything grew really quickly. When did you start bringing in a team to help?

Yeah, SB’s, that’s what got me into it! Now, there’s a bigger audience, more people involved. Before, it was very niche, only a small group of people liked this stuff, but with the websites that made it bigger and then social media, boom—even bigger.

I used to work a full time job and my side gig was Hypebeast. It wasn’t even a gig, it was my hobby. But then I would go to work 9-5, come home, update my blog, and after about six months, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m generating income,’ because we had some ads on the site. I was like, ‘This is pretty cool, now I can quit my job, why not?’ I took the plunge and did Hypebeast full time. The income started rolling in even more. I was like, ‘Okay, I need some freelance people to help update,’ and one thing lead to another.It was all very dependent on our budget—we didn’t raise any funding.

Coming from a magazine, I know that it’s always hard to find a balance between working with advertisers and maintaining creative control. You need to be able to sell ads to keep the magazine going without selling out and losing your identity. How much of Hypebeast is curated by what you like, by trends, or by who wants to pay as an advertiser? How do you maintain the balance?

We have to maintain balance, it’s our responsibility. I think every magazine is different, so there’s no right or wrong way to do this. Some magazines are very ad-driven. That’s cool, they make a lot of money. Some magazines don’t sell ads, and it’s a tougher environment to operate in, but maybe they have other models, like making money from selling the magazine, or they’re actually a creative agency. I think it all depends on the publisher. For us, we try to find a find balance between everything. We have a big team and they have families, they have to keep the lights on. We also just really encourage the advertisers and say, ‘Hey, we want to make something cool together that’s meaningful for your products or campaigns. How can we work together to make something interesting?’ It’s gotta be something the readers are interested in, as opposed to just stuffing things down people’s throats. If you do that long enough they’ll just reject your brand totally. So, for me this started as a passion and I don’t want it to turn into some commercial entity. It’s just constantly finding a balance.

What’s the next move for Hypefest? Another city?

We want this to be a platform for visitors and readers from all over to visit in real life, so it’s a possibility. Hopefully we just get through this first one, though.

View the rest of our photos from Hypefest here.

Culture

The Club Is Coming to the Stage

We enter and make our way to what is approximately front left of the DJ booth, where we’re accustomed to dancing at clubs in New York. “So is this a techno club or a dance performance?” yells an uncertain participant in my boyfriend’s ear. He laughs, bouncing along to Ben UFO, and yells back, “It’s both!” The club has long been a hot topic in European contemporary dance but it is only now making its way into New York performance venues, largely through transatlantic tours. R.O.S.E. follows recent examples like Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1 (May 2024), (LA)HORDE’s Room with a View at NYU Skirball (October 2023), and Gisèle Vienne’s Crowd at BAM (October 2022).

Do these performances compromise the club’s spirit — a space idealized for its anonymity, dark lighting, and thundering music? The notion of the club as a utopian escape is admittedly just that — an ideal — because of how its intense conditions can create barriers to entry. Still, the club remains sacred for many, a place to forge connections and embrace an alternative state of being. Looking at how performances transfer this spirit to new settings reveals what aspects of the club are essential and those that aren’t.

Sharon Eyal, R.O.S.E. 2024. Photography by Stephanie Berger, courtesy of Park Avenue Armory.

Eyal’s dancers make their entrance. The lighting shifts from roving blue to yellow spotlights as Ben UFO’s tracks transition to more melodic beats. Clad in deconstructed lace Dior lingerie with dark red tears painted on their faces, the dancers move cautiously in a tightly maintained pack, slicing paths through the horde with hoof-like steps and jerky leg extensions. After around ten minutes of this controlled choreography, the dancers vanish as the lighting shifts back to blue and Ben UFO picks up his dubby beats. The club, as we knew it, resumes. This cycle of tightly executed movements and free-flowing club-goers repeats several times, each time emboldening the dancers to plunge further into the crowd.

Clubbing in a building once built for the U.S. Army National Guard on Manhattan’s Upper East Side turns out to be surprisingly successful — at least for the audience. What starts as an awkward, scattered group searching for their non existent seats gradually gels into an engaged, bouncing crowd that erupts in cheers each time the dancers enter and exit. Performance patrons who might never step foot in a club find themselves swept up in its potential for communion, moving in unison with fellow ticket holders. But it isn’t until the very end of R.O.S.E. that the dancers finally break free from Eyal’s choreography and join the fired-up audience in a brief moment of improvisatory movement with the music. By keeping her dancers at arm’s length, Eyal seems more interested in the club as a backdrop for her signature movement style than wholly as a space with meaningful stories to be told.

Michele Rizzo, HIGHER xtn. 2024. Photography by Cameron Kelly courtesy of MoMA PS1.

Back in May, I attended Wire Festival, a multiday electronic music event at Knockdown Center that had no shortage of organically united dancefloors. It attracted a crowd of seasoned ravers who were eager to celebrate the start of spring as they danced alongside DJs who played well into the daylight. I left Wire in an afternoon daze to see Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1. My sleepless euphoria only deepened as the performance unfolded, starting with a lone dancer who looked plucked out of the festival.

The dancer, dressed in sneakers, baggy jeans, and a tight tank top, shuffled slowly into the gallery, perfectly in sync with the looping bars of an understated electronic melody. Soon, other dancers, clad in the same staple rave uniform, joined him — each having traveled from Europe for the U.S. museum debut of HIGHER xtn., which premiered at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam in 2018 and quickly became a fixture at kunsthalles and festivals across the continent. As the score’s tempo climbed, the choreography locked into a 16-count sequence, which the dancers executed with precise synchrony. They remained intensely focused, never making eye contact with each other, as they sought release in the endless repetition of synthesized beats. Once the dancers reached their limit, they stopped the sequence and exited the gallery, one by one.

HIGHER xtn. used the focused daylight of the gallery to highlight the meditative release found in the repetitive movements that dominate dark dancefloors. The performance’s restraint brought more consistency and intentionality than Eyal’s all-encompassing club construction in R.O.S.E. Yet both performances offer enticing entry points into club culture for those who may not frequent raves. Rizzo’s ecstatic, hypnotic repetitions reveal how the club can mirror other meditative practices, while Eyal’s interpolation of performance and clubbing helped hesitant audience members blossom by the end. Still, both works overlook one of the most underappreciated aspects of clubbing — its potential for individual expression. HIGHER xtn.’s pristine uniformity especially risks promoting the outdated techno trope that there’s a “right” way to dance to electronic music.

Maybe this shortcoming is, in fact, a benefit. For habitual ravers jaded by one too many sunrise sets, it’s a reminder to return to the club with more intention. If you pause and peer through the darkness, you’ll see hundreds of people moving to the same beat, each with their own subtle variations. This collective choreography is a ready-made spectacle that doesn’t need validation in a theater or museum. And when the music shifts slightly, you can watch the ripple effect sweep through the crowd while feeling the new beat in your body. Maybe this small bit of magic is best left on the dance floor.

Culture

Real Slick, Jack: Psyche Organic Arrives in New York

Shop Psyche Organic at Happier Grocery and Dimes. Coming soon to @citarellagourmetmarket @unionmarket @gourmetgarage @deciccos @fairwaymarket plus many more.

Culture

Porsche SCOPES Brings Art, Music, and Design to Toronto

The festival was a full immersion into Toronto’s dynamic creative energy. Day one set the tone with DJ collective Living Room, followed by an experimental performance by Claire Rousay that captivated the crowd. Jewelry designer Steff Eleoff unveiled her Porsche Taycan 4S art car installation—a bold fusion of automotive and wearable art inspired by her Sedona ring—while OVO Sound’s Naomi Sharon and DVSN wrapped up the night with powerful, genre-defying performances.

We witnessed SCOPES Toronto bridging underground and mainstream with day two’s lineup. DJ Korea Town Acid’s set paved the way for Angelphroot and Dameer’s debut of BASSMATI, a track blending South Asian influences with bass-driven sounds. Chippy Nonstop’s return to Toronto and Richie Hawtin’s extended set were milestones of the evening, proving that the city’s underground scene has a global resonance.

The final day featured standout performances from local pianist Harrison, Indigenous artist Tia Wood, and hip-hop visionary Sean Leon, who elevated his set with a live choir. Moonshine Collective’s film and musical performance explored themes of African utopia, showcasing art’s power to bridge culture and technology. Rising Toronto star SadBoi, who paused her tour to perform at SCOPES, further underscored the festival’s commitment to nurturing local talent.

Throughout the weekend, we experienced installations from artists like Mitsu Mitsu and culinary creations from Bar Mordecai, capturing the multifaceted creativity Porsche SCOPES brought to Toronto. This milestone 10th edition, open to all, allowed Toronto’s vibrant arts scene to thrive, underscoring SCOPES’ mission to celebrate local talent while connecting it to a global audience.

office had the chance to connect with rising star SadBoi ahead of the event. In our conversation, she shared insights into her creative journey and reflected on what performing and growing up in Toronto means to her and her work.

How are you, and where are you at right now? You told me you were traveling.

Um, I’m good, I’m feeling really good right now. I’m traveling back to Salt Lake City. I had a show yesterday in Seattle. I’m on tour right now with Coco and Claire.

How is touring life treating you? Do you like it?

I love being on the road. To be honest, I feel like I don’t know—like I’ve had good experiences and bad ones—but this time it’s really fun, especially with the people I’m surrounded by. It’s also the longest tour I’ve been on; I have about four more weeks to go. I’m trying not to think about how many days I have left.

Do you feel homesick?

Yes, because when I start thinking about how many days are left, I start to miss my dogs. I’ve just been trying to stay in the moment—I don’t even know what day of the week it is, to be honest with you.

Oh, sweet! What are your dogs’ names?

Jillian and Winston. I know, they’re crazy names.

You’ll be performing at SCOPES in Toronto, which is where you grew up. Do you feel like the crowd is different when you perform in Toronto compared to other cities?

Yes, I mean, Toronto just feels different because it’s home. Every time I come back to perform, something in my career has changed. The last time I performed in Toronto, people just wanted to have a good time, and I’m excited to perform back home again to see everyone’s reactions. I know it’s going to be different from the last time. It’s exciting to see your own growth. Toronto is a tough crowd, though. If we’re with you, we’re really with you.

So, they’re super picky? You have to gain their respect, or what is it?

I think Toronto people are in their own world, but when something really connects with them, they’ll lose themselves in the moment. But it takes something to bring them out of that. Toronto crowds are tough because even if they like you, they won’t show it outright until they’re really vibing with you.

It’s like a vibe check, right?

Exactly. They’ll enjoy your performance, but it’s hard to explain. When people visit Toronto, they often say, “Oh, you guys are so nice,” and I’m like, “I don’t think we’re that nice, we’re just polite.” Like, you can walk down the street, and no one will say anything, but it’s just our mannerisms.

You mentioned Toronto can have a moody energy, especially at night, and that the underground night scene there really inspires you. Can you talk more about what makes Toronto's nightlife so influential for you?

Absolutely, Toronto has this unique energy that comes alive at night. Similar to New York, there are the popular clubs everyone knows, but you need to find your niche—the people who know where the real parties are. I remember going to raves in high school yards, sneaking in because I wasn’t old enough. Events like Baby, Jerk!, and Yes Yes Y’all were pivotal, exposing me to DJs blending dancehall with EDM—something I hadn’t seen before. Toronto nightlife is moody and intense, but when everyone’s out, it’s like the whole city is alive.