To precede the release of the 'Tongue N' Cheek' Air Max 90, we caught up with Dizzee and Ben, the men behind the shoe, for a spot of Q&A. Which meant geeking out over shoes, showbusiness and design. As a duo, they've obviously got a lot of respect for each other, with a design partnership that harks back to Dizzee's XL debut. On face value, their Air Max is a solid shoe, but with so much detail at work, there's plenty that warrants further elaboration.

Do you both have a common ground when it comes to shoes?

Dizzee Definitely. That's why we did the Air Max.

Did you grow up wearing the Air Max 90?

Dizzee It was about. The other shoe was the Huarache. I remember 2000 when they reissued it and everyone was wearing it. But with this, it's pretty much the street shoe 'init? I like the shape of it. It's quite sporty, but when you get the right colours you can wear it with anything. But with this one we tried to keep it quite plain so it could complete any outfit.

Having worked on album art together, is designing a shoe a similar process?

Dizzee It's not as intense.

Ben It's not at all as intense. Because with the turnaround time on a shoe, we had to be thinking about it before we knew what the artwork was going to be. So the last detail was the tongue. Before that it was a totally fresh, neutral shoe. The shoe was super-plain, but then I began working on the artwork, the logo type was the first thing I got finished. As soon as that was done, I stuck it on the shoe.

Dizzee Tongue N' Cheek ties in with the tongue.

Ben There was only one change made to the sample and that was the tongue. The process with the album cover had moved along and Tongue N' Cheek came the day before I had to send off the amendments. It just made sense. Shoes have got tongues and we had the lettering done.


When Nike approached you about doing a shoe, was it hard to resist throwing everything onto it to personalise it and get the most out the opportunity?

Dizzee Nah, the thing was, to keep it simple and get what I want out of the trainers. Stylish but simple. You see, you get some people that get excited with the colours and they just throw everything on there. That's not stylish. Then there's the suede, the reflector things and the pink tongue, nice little touches. It'll go right within fashion circles, but the kids on the estate, on the street will definitely rock them as well.

Did you have a target audience in mind?

Dizzee Young people, old people, sneaker pimps and me - the everyday person.

It's been three years between this and the Nike 180 released for the second album. What's with the change on the Dirtee Stank logo?

Dizzee Yeah, a lot of people didn't want me to put a piece of sh*t on a shoe. So I changed it to a fly.

Ben I meant to ask you about that. How do you feel about dropping the sh*t?

Dizzee At first I was like, 'Ah really?' But now it's all relative. It's all good.

Ben Shit can be misinterpreted.

Was there ever a meeting discussing the sh*t?

Dizzee Yeah, there was. We spoke about how a lot of corporations wouldn't put it on their stuff, but it's business and i let it go. It's cool. The piece of sh*t did its thing for a few years, before I was signed. People talk about it so it did its job.


Was this was originally meant to be part of a double pack? Ben, you were meant to have an Air Max 90 coming out too.

Ben It still is part of a double pack. The idea is I get to do a shoe and Dizzee gets to do a shoe. Dizzee's is going to be in the spotlight. They're totally crisp. Dizzee gets driven round and gets off straight onto the red carpet so there's no need to worry about wear and tear really. They're not the most practical shoe, whereas mine are more...

Dizzee Wear and tear.

Ben Yeah, mine are about pushing the pavement still. Are you happy with how they turned out? Do they reflect your life, and where you are now?

Dizzee As far as my view of fashion and what a pair of trainers can do to the rest of your outfit. It's expression. It's got a lot of little touches like the pink tongue that you're not gonna see anywhere else. But it's simple enough that you can pair it with jeans and maybe a jumper and still get into a rave. Still get into a party and look alright.

Until someone spills a drink on them.

Dizzee Then I'll get another pair!
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What's going on with the transparent theme on the shoe? You've got the see-through Swoosh and the see-through outsole.

Dizzee I love that on the bottom. The big fly makes it official. No one really sees the bottom but it's one of them little touches that a sneaker pimp would like.

Ben I was saying to Diz earlier on that I was trying to work out my reasons for doing what I did when we were working on the shoe. My idea for extending the whole transparent thing from the Air midsole to make anything I could do transparent was partially a response to what I know about Diz. I've been working with him for years, and I've always found him to be totally transparent in his dealings. He's honest and all those details, in another way, reflect personality traits of him. I know that's going quite deep. I don't know how you feel about that.

Dizzee (laughing) I'm flattered son! Yeah, I'm transparent. I'm clear. I say it like it is. Unless money prohibits me.


Is the reflective section on the heel there for a purpose?

Dizzee The little things, they add nice. Personally, it's for when I'm onstage, with the lights. Or in a rave, I still like to go out and party, so I've got little effects. The way they've speckled it into the laces, it's just subtle. But it's enough. You don't see many laces like that either. Some people go mad with the laces. To have laces that reflect like that will be a big deal for some people. I like it that they're breathable as well. It's a nice mix. I hope it goes well. I was really impressed when I saw 'em man.

Did you 'road test' any of the samples among your friends to see what they thought?

Dizzee Fuck that sh*t. We know enough about style. I'm an artist. Ben's an artist. We know a good pair of trainers when we see it.

Ben Between us we knocked it into shape. There's technical details too. There's less padding in the heel unit and around the edge. After they've been worn a while, Air Max 90s tend to open up and go flabby. We wanted to just avoid that so we did specify that was taken out. So there was a pretty deep design process involved.

There's a lot going on close up, but from a distance it seems so simple.

Dizzee There's loads going on. But it's functional.


Is that the Dizzee 90s on the 'Tongue N' Cheek' cover?

Ben That's not the same shoe. We didn't have them in time for the shoot.

Letterforms are prominent on the shoe, on the album cover and presumably in the viral. The look seems a lot a lot more knockabout - far more angular. It seemed to fit with Dizzee's sound on those LPs.

Ben It's always partly reflective of the music and the styles that he's working with at the time. And you're right, they were definitely very angular, very clean.

Looking back at 'I Luv U' on the first album, the production was more brutal, whereas now it's a mixed bag, and sounds more self-assured.

Ben It's softened. Now it sounds a lot more clean, and the aesthetic that all the sleeves share is still as clean. The 'Tongue 'N' Cheek' sleeve is as clean and crisp as 'Boy In Da Corner' and even though 'Boy In Da Corner' had some cartoon elements, while this is more playful. And it's a softening of his personality that's being reflected here, but it's still sharp. He's very confident.

Was there any specific inspirations for the letterforms utilised? The first thing that springs to mind is Vaughn Bode.

Ben I'm not going to front. There's a definite Bode influence. I was wary of doing a direct lift. That was never the intention. As designer and letterer, I've got nothing but respect for the whole Bode aesthetic. And if you hold them up next to each other even though they're related, they're not brothers - they're cousins. When I was putting it together I was wondering whether I was going to watercolour it, whether I was going to add other elements. I don't want to rip it off. It's homage.


It's hard to imagine any bubble-style writing that doesn't elicit any comparison. When you were talking about the transparency concept you mentioned that you might be going a bit too deep...

Ben Yeah, and it was a very organic process. Dizzee's input was to say, 'I want it to look as clean as possible so it can go with any look I wear.' That was his main design criteria. I did that and I made it super-clean. There was a concession in that we couldn't make it all white because the suede wasn't available in high white. So we had to go for an overall colour which would accommodate all the materials I'd chosen, which turned out to be that cream which is perfect, because it's a beautiful soft vanilla.

Originally, I'd done this crisp shoe that, other than the Dirtee Stank logo didn't have any particular graphic relationship with the album. When I got the sample, I'd just got the title for the album. I just started to work on the logotype, the main titling, which is what I always do.

That mix of the novelty and the matter-of-fact captures the sound. Were there any Air Max 90 makeups that were a precedent for you?

Ben When I first heard about the double pack, I looked at as many AM90 makeups as I could. To tell the truth, I love the Infrareds or whatever - I love it when it's plain, all white, but Dizzee likes it because of the panels - there's lots of scope to change. When you see people do that it looks kind of messy. There was the pack a couple of years ago that was purple and grey and they did three types. One of those was okay. I didn't feel like anyone had given it a new personality. This makes a statement.

This is a conceptual piece, but when I go to retailers now, everything's conceptual, but in a very clod-footed way. TV Shows and nostalgia seem to be the norm...someone's putting the thought in, but it seems very misplaced. Everything seems to need a story...

Ben Yeah. That's reverse engineering as far as I'm concerned. It should start with the shoe. As soon as I start, people want me to think of a story. Most of these things are in such low runs that nobody's interested in a story. The story doesn't particularly make them want to buy it. It's so prescriptive and set out for you that it almost takes the joy of discovery away from it, finding out and making your own story.

We've been partially responsible for fueling it. Once people pander to collectors with story-led shoes, it's a problem. The Infrared for example, didn't need a story - it's just a good shoe.

Ben It's killer. There isn't any story to it. This is an artist tie-in, but it's one that goes deeper, and it's the reflection of a personality. If you like that personality you will be predisposed towards this shoe. But alternatively, if you see the shoe but you don't particularly like Dizzee it's got its own identity. There's a visual joke in it.

Even though the shoe hails from the States, it feels British.

Ben Yeah. The Air Max 1 felt British too. I thought it was a beautiful, beautiful shoe. Before the Air Max 1, I was all over States and Campus.

Again, they feel British.

Ben When the Air Max 1 came out, I got the red ones and I rinsed them, and I got the blue ones and rinsed them. I knew that shoe so well, and I knew how I wanted to evolve it.

The Air Max 90 is the ultimate Nike 'pub shoe' too, which I don't think is a bad thing in any way. Do you like the fact that it's a genuine UK street shoe...you can push the AF1 as much as you want, but the 90 wins. If you go a stone's throw from our current location there's gonna be kids wearing the 90 in black-on-black.

Ben Air Force 1s are comfy, but they're not my culture. I love walking around Fulton Mall and checking them out. I can't lie - last time I was there I bought some all whites with a clear gum sole. Which kind of informed this shoe from my own reference library. That's really my sole concession to the hip-hop aesthetic.

New Yorkers love the ice sole.

Ben And again, that's the first time I thought of that - like I said, it's an organic process. But that's where it must have come from.

New Yorkers pull off Foamposites and even duck boots, and it's hard to imagine it working anywhere else...even though they're great shoes.

Ben Yeah, I've had Jordan XIs in white and with patent leather. They're works of art to me. But you have to wear them with the right thing.

You see American pics of kids wearing them for weddings and proms.

Ben They're great wedding shoes - ready-made spats.

You need to see the Air max 90 in context. I feel that Britain does it best. How did the original hookup with XL take place to do the Dizzee artwork?

Ben Well, I've known Nick, Dizzee's manager for about 16 years. He was a label manager and distributor. I was working for a friend's label. I had to deal with him on a production level then. We were both into the same thing. Mainly techno...that early '90s thing...Detroit, German, British. He worked in Fat Cat then.

He kind of went underground and surfaced again, much later, after shepherding early Pay As You Go, Roll Deep...producing for them. He resurfaced with grime basically. I used to listen to the pirates. My friend Toby and Nick signed Dizzee to XL. I told them I was really into it and wanted to do the artwork. I don't usually do that, but I felt I should put my head above the parapet. Toby put me in touch with this Nick, and I didn't know which Nick at the time, so we had a conversation on the phone.

For that clinical look on the first album, there's a trillion pitfalls when it comes to urban music's visual identity. Like Brooklyn Kid fonts...there's few great hip-hop album design elements that have held up for me.

Ben Mostly from Eric Haze.

Did you channel any of that?

Ben Absolutely not. It's a wholly British aesthetic, more informed by techno. I've always been more techno uptempo. I've always been more into Mannie Fresh and Swizz Beats than DJ Premier. Always for me, more the machine music than the organic stuff. Jay Dee's the only concession to that.

That's the Detroit in him. Dizzee wants to be progressive too.

Ben There's nothing more progressive than 'Boy In Da Corner' to me.

To me the most regressive moment was 'Fix Up Look Sharp' using the Billy Paul break. 'I Luv U' is just weird and brutal - it proves grime was techno's bastard son. What were your favourite album covers?

Ben I thought of a couple the other day, but these things come and ago. It's not that I hold them to me at all times. It depends on the mood. It could be really bad, but be evocative of a time in your life where you used to sit and study it.

'We Come Strapped' by Compton's Most Wanted is one of them for me.

Ben King Tee's album is f*cking amazing. Front and back.

'Act A Fool'?

Ben Yeah, it's a classic sleeve. That's evocative of a time when I used to travel to London and buy a bit of vinyl. I bought that the same time I bought 'Straight Outta Compton'.

Back to techno, Underground Resistance have an amazing visual identity.

Ben Yeah, I f*cking love all that. White labels are the best sleeves man. If you've got a box full of white labels, every tear, every coffee stain, every piece of wear personalises them. Even the writing - there's a level of engagement. You're not force-fed.

You could get stains on these Air Maxes too! They'll be telling their own story.

Ben That's an angle on it. A friend of mine who ran a label's house bag was white, but printed with a distressed finish, and it just looked amazing. Flipping something that's glossy but pre-loved.

That concept has been horribly abused now in the shoe industry.

Ben I hate pre-distressed stuff. It's cynical. But that bag was a consumerist comment rather than a cynical aesthetic decision.