Any sneakerhead who’s been paying attention already checked out the footage from Nigel Sylvester’s July 13 Go Ride event, which saw the BMX pro and hundreds of cyclists take over the streets of London and New York to celebrate the release of his “Bike Air” Nigel Sylvester x Jordan 4RM colorways.
To accomplish that, he had to start early in the UK, ride there, then fly across the Atlantic and get back on his bike. He also hosted then-unannounced shock drops of the Nigel Sylvester x Jordan 4RM “Fence Green” colorway in both cities, which both promptly sold out. When that shoe made its official appearance on nike.com on July 20 it sold out there too.
Of course, the “Fence Green” Nigel Sylvester x Jordan 4RM is only the first sneaker the BMX rider cooked up for his “Grandma’s Driveway” collaboration with the brand. Next up, people will get the chance to buy the “Driveway Grey” colorway, which comes out August 8 at nike.com and at select retailers.
In anticipation of that drop, Complex linked with Sylvester earlier this month to discuss what it means to be a BMX professional from Jamaica, Queens, and how that history influenced his creative work on the Nigel Sylvester x Jordan 4RM “Driveway Grey” colorway. During the interview, we learned about the BMX-specific design tweaks Sylvester made to the Jordan 4RM, got the whole story on why his “Grandma’s Driveway” is so important to him and these shoes, and heard what he hopes his legacy to be.
Read through to learn more, then set your calendars for August 8 to cop the Nigel Sylvester x Jordan 4RM “Driveway Grey” sneakers.
You previously did your own Jordan 1 colorway and a friends and family Air Ship. What was different about working on this new Nigel Sylvester x Jordan 4RM silhouette versus those other shoes?
Every time I get in the lab to cook up a shoe, it’s a different experience for sure. You know what I mean? Each one is unique, right? You have this blank canvas and it’s like, “Where do you start? What do you want to do with it?”
This time around, it was very similar, but as we kicked around ideas, we landed on “Grandma’s Driveway.” It felt very good. It felt intentional. It’s a story that’s close to my heart. It’s a story I’ve told a bunch throughout interviews. It’s the first time we were able to tell that story through a product offering and the 4RM just felt like the perfect moment to do it.
Can you just refresh us on that “Grandma’s Driveway” story since it’s so key to this shoe?
Of course, man. So my mom worked long hours and my brother and I would spend a lot of time at my grandma’s house. My grandma had a daycare, plus she lived a block away from my elementary school, PS 132. I came outside one day and jumped on a tricycle. There were always toys and things in the driveway, of course. So I jumped on the tricycle and I was just pedaling around, just being the hyper kid that I was and kind of still am. And for some reason, just out of curiosity, as I was pedaling, I decided to lock up the front wheel, ‘cause you know the pedals are on the front wheel. So I decided just to lock it up and turn the handlebars. And when I did that, the back of the tricycle kind of spun around and it felt amazing, right? Anytime you do a drift or a skid, it feels great.
And my older cousin Jody saw me do it and he was like, “Yo, that’s crazy. Do that again.” So I pedaled super fast and did it again, and he was like, “That’s sick.” So he set up these cones in the drive and he was like, “Do that around the cones.” I started to drift my tricycle around cones at four years old, and I literally fell in love with bicycle riding that day.
That’s the earliest memory I have as a child. I literally remember it happening and every summer after that, it was just like, “What bike am I riding? How do I get my hands on a bike? Am I fixing my bike?” It was just like my summers revolved around bicycle riding and they still do all these years later. Which is incredible.
So we have two colorways coming out, green and grey, which I’m really excited about. The green is the fence that lines the driveway. The grey represents the actual concrete in the driveway. They’re both called “Grandma’s Driveway.”
Then outside of the “Grandma’s Driveway” colorways inspiration, are there any other cool design elements on the Nigel Sylvester 4RM?
Of course. On the Air Ship and on the Air Jordan 1, we added a mini Swoosh. So we carried that design element over to the 4RM. We put “Bike Air by Jordan” on the tongue, which I think is super dope, right? Think about myself as a BMX rider coming out of Jamaica, Queens, and defying those odds signed to Jordan Brand. And then getting that type of cosign on the shoe itself is crazy. And then we have the classic “Nike Air” logo flipped to “Bike Air” on the heel tab, which is insane.
If you look at my career and things I’ve been doing for the entirety of it, I’ve been on my bike in the air. So to have that stamp I feel is so fitting and it makes so much sense. The insoles feature my name on one side and Air Jordan on the other side.
Those are the main design elements that we added to the shoe. And then the colorways of course. We have the green colorway and the grey colorway.
So like you said, coming out of Jamaica, Queens, and beating those odds, what’s it like to put your name on this shoe? You know, to put your name on a fully redone Jordan 4, as opposed to the colorways on the earlier Jordans you worked on?
It’s an honor that the brand trusted me and believed in me to usher in a new era of the Jordan 4. It’s a huge honor, man, huge. The Jordan 4 is such a classic silhouette and the shoe means so much to culture, I think beyond sneaker culture, just culture in general.
So to have this new rendition of the shoe and the brand trust in me to unveil it to the world, it means a lot. I take that very, very serious. And then to be able to tell a story that’s so intimate and so close to my heart, my origin story, on this new silhouette, I think it’s the perfect culmination of a lot of good things.
“To have this new rendition of the shoe and the brand trust in me to unveil it to the world, it means a lot.”
Did any of the changes made to this Nigel Sylvester x Jordan 4RM come out of BMX specifically?
The plastic cage on the upper is inspired by a bicycle frame. And inside the heel tab, there’s a graphic of a bicycle. So this shoe, from a structural standpoint, was designed with biking in mind.
To think about Jordan Brand as rooted in basketball, and all the other sports that the brand has adopted over the years, investing heavily into bike culture, I just salute the brand for being progressive. I think it’s this culmination of me signing to Jordan Brand in 2021, this shoe being in the works, and then being able to unveil this shoe with the bike gear stamp on the back of it. I mean, it’s all of it together, man. It just makes so much sense. I think it’s meant to be.
How did the “Bike Air” logo come about? Is that something you came up with? It just fits with the one-letter change.
So during the design process on the AJ 1, a lot of thoughts came out of that, of course. And all of those ideas didn’t land on the shoe. Shortly after that, the idea of putting “Bike Air” was a thing. Even inside the Air Jordan 1, it says “Jordan Biking Co.” So the idea of putting the word “Bike” on a shoe kind of came after that moment. So then when we were in the process of designing the Air Ship, the back of that shoe says “Nike Air” on the back, and it was like, “Yo, can we put ‘Bike Air’ there?” At first I was like, “Man, the brand might not even go for it,” because we were manipulating something that’s so classic and so coveted. But when they approved it, I was like, “Oh, it’s up.” You know what I mean? It makes so much sense.
Yeah, It’s a great double meaning, because you have the Air technology and you’re catching air on the bike just like how the original Air Jordan technology played out with his basketball style.
That’s what I’m saying, so like that when people see it and they know me and they know the brand, it just makes so much sense. It’s undeniable, man. I think that’s why the reaction to the shoe and to the concept of a “Bike Air” has been so well received. It is authentic. It’s not fabricated. It’s real. It’s something that people have seen for years, you know what I mean? Whether they see me riding in a Jordan 1 or a 3 or 4 or 6 or whatever high-energy shoe I was riding in. You know what I mean? It just makes so much sense.
No, for sure. You have that BMX history personally, as well as BMX culture embracing Jordans in the past, and then coming from Queens and New York City’s history with Jordans.
Of course. Even in LA, you know, back in the mid ‘80s, kids are only riding in Jordan 1s.
“You see how kids come out and they ride in Jordans and they’re getting fresh and they’re getting fly and listening to dope music.”
For sure. I know with this Nigel Sylvester x Jordan 4RM, there’s a unique image on the tissue paper in the box. Can you speak on that?
So during the design process of the box, the packaging team and I were like, “Let’s continue the storytelling as much as possible.” So we decided that we wanted to pay homage to the original Jordan 4 box, but how do we update it and again, dive into that storytelling? So we took a photo of my grandma’s driveway and we replicated that on the box and we added this texture to it, which was crazy. Even the cracks in the driveway and the grout, everything is in there.
Then on the inside of the lid, we put the Go logo. Then on the tissue paper, the photo that was the main inspiration, which is a photo of me on my tricycle at four years old in the exact driveway, we decided to use that photo for the tissue paper. And when I saw it all come together, it blew my mind.
I couldn’t believe that it looks so good and it ties together so well. I feel like when people get their hands on the shoe and on the box, it is going to make so much more sense to them and they’re going to appreciate it. We took time and energy and a lot of thought went into that to make sure that we’re delivering the best possible product and the best possible story. I feel like for me growing up and being a fan of sneakers and being a part of sneaker culture, it was those types of things that I really appreciated when the collaborator and the brand went deep into the storytelling. I feel that makes for the grails.
Nailing those details is so important to the story here. So, then to celebrate this release of the “Grandma’s Driveway” colorways, I know you have a big Go Ride planned for July 13. It sounds like it’s going to be in a couple different places. I’ve never really heard of anything like this before. Can you talk on that and give a little heads up what’s going to happen? This story will come out after the ride, but just to get your take on it.
That’s why it’s so good. It’s one of those really big ideas people have never heard of. Yeah, so in 2022, I was like, “Man, I want to do an international bike ride. I want to do something that’s going to bring bicycle communities around the world together. But it was like, “Well, how do I kind of pilot the idea? I need to go to two different cities and do a bike ride?” So we landed on London and New York. Wth the time zone change, if I start in London in the morning and do an hour long bike ride, jump on a jet, fly to New York, we’ll get to New York in time to do an evening bike ride. Very big idea. And I’m telling people the idea and people are like, “How are you going to do that?”
But I was able to partner with some of my brand partners and they believed in the idea. We ended up executing the first one in 2023, and it was dope. People loved it, kids loved it. The team and I buzzed off of it for the next three weeks following it, like goose bumps.
Yeah, just charged.
Yeah, charged up. You know what I mean? Being able to have the opportunity to plant my bicycle wheels on two different continents on the same exact day in two different cities, and create this energy around bicycle riding and just bring people together around the love, the exercise that comes along with bicycle riding and just the joy and the endorphins that you feel when you’re riding a bicycle was dope. So this year we’re doing it again. We’re going from London to New York.
Then we’re also doing an early release of the shoe that no one knows about. We’re going to announce it on July 12 the day before the ride. We’re going to do an early release in London and in New York. I think people are going to trip off of that, you know what I mean? Getting early access to the shoe. It’s just a fitting moment to give people access.
So yeah, it’s going to be dope and it’s something I’m going to do every single year. Go Ride is an extension of the Go brand, and I started the Go brand in 2015 with the Go video series. That was me having this really big idea where I’m going to ride my bike around the city, film it from the POV perspective, and I’m going to show all the crazy stuff that I do in a day.
Hopefully we’ll be able to do multiple cities, three, four, five cities in 24 hours in the next few years. So I’m very excited about it. I think it’s just something fresh and something brand new. And I think what I’m doing right now is re-energizing bike riding and bike culture in a way that we haven’t seen in a very long time.
And the cultures of BMXing in New York and London are so different from what people might typically think of with the sport. The cities are crowded and stylish, so it’s cool to see that represented.
Yeah, you see how kids come out and they ride in Jordans and they’re getting fresh and they’re getting fly and listening to dope music. And when it comes to Go Ride, it’s this exchange of ideas and energy and the conversations that happen from it. I think that’s important. And that’s something that I want to continue to do is to create moments and platforms and spaces that breeds that type of communication and creativity.
“I hope that when people look back on my legacy, they’ll be like, ‘Man, Nigel promoted positivity through bicycle riding.'”
That community and creativity can give young people a sense of meaning in their lives. Like, even if they don’t go pro, they have that community, they have this positive thing to do.
Even last year at Go Ride, we had a plethora of different people. All different races, ethnic backgrounds, men, women, boys, girls, kids. It was this amazing melting pot of different people all rallying around having a good time riding their bicycles, man. And seeing that and being in those packs with hundreds of kids on bikes and everyone’s laughing and popping wheelies or doing bunny hops and creating content. To me, man, that means a lot. And I hope that when people look back on my legacy, they’ll be like, “Man, Nigel promoted positivity through bicycle riding.”
For sure. Then before we go, after the “Grandma’s Driveway” colorways, there are some more Jordan 4RM inline colorways coming out later in August. Can you speak on those at all?
There are going to be some inline colorways coming out and then there’ll be a plethora of different colorways. So the brand’s going to continue to push energy into the 4RM. I’m excited to see what its future looks like.
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