For the Hip-Hop faithful, any news within the past decade of the iconic and avant-garde, yet bashful André 3000 flexing his creative muscle has been welcomed news. Fresh off of lacing the masses with a short-lived sneak-peak at his first verse of 2017, 3 Stacks is keeping the creative momentum going, divulging that in partnership with the Swedish footwear company Tretorn, a new collection of André Lauren Benjamin-influenced sneakers has officially been launched into the sneakersphere.

This week, the perpetually fashion-forward MC debuted the fresh Tretorn capsule collection, labeled “I Andre Benjamin Will Not Draw In Class.” A fitting title, Benjamin recounted his days at Tri-Cities High School in East Point, Georgia where his Tretorn Nylites were a shoe of choice and led to some in-class sketches that were frowned upon by his teachers. Over 20 years later, that young daydreaming ATLien has now taken his sketches and affinity for the classic Tretorns back to the notepad.

Telling Refinery29 that he created these new designs by “just freestyling in a sketchbook and seeing what came from the pen to the paper,” and that “it was all about translating the actual sketch to a Tretorn shoe.” Footwear designer and Tretorn collaborator Jeff Staple noted that Dré was a diligent partner in this endeavor, bearing 15 notebooks worth of designs from the past 20 years, and staying hands-on throughout the entire process.

While the entire assemblage of kicks, made up of 15 different designs, are part of Tretorn’s spring 2018 collection and will be available in whole come February 2018, there are currently six styles available for immediate purchase at Tretorn. Ranging from terry cloth style to rugby-inspired low tops, the capsule collection project seamlessly blends Tretorn’s classic blueprints with the eccentric and ever-fascinating cleverness of the Hip-Hop luminary.

While Hip-Hop Heads found out earlier this year that we seemingly missed out on an Outkast + A Tribe Called Quest joint album, our redeeming consolation comes in the form of both legendary Hip-Hop collectives having a respective imaginative hand in the sneaker world. A.T.C.Q. announced earlier this month that they are releasing their own line of sneakers, as well.

As “Cupid Valentino,” the modern-day cherub, announced on “Happy Valentine’s Day” back in 2003, “Well keep on running, playa, ‘cause I got my good shoes on.”. Maybe we now know, 14 years later, that the pristine kicks he was referring to were in fact Tretorns.

#BonusBeat: More info on Tribe’s Vans collabo from a recent LAST 7 episode:

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