of Evolution
Published by SEVENSTORE for Timberland
Author: Millie Throp
Whilst his soundchecks are located presently at a warmly lit studio in London’s E8, it transpires that Lord Apex’s musicianship became ablaze over in the city’s west, proudly amongst White City’s urban corridor. Historically linked to some of the country’s rock and blues pioneers, the district has earned its reputation in nurturing provocative sound, then providing apt home soil for Apex’s own amalgamation of sonic binaries.
For the soloist, whose demeanour radiates curiosity at further glance, seeking a muse knows no genre. But whilst otherwise existing beyond the frame of hip-hop purism, the lyricist references the genre’s early origins in 90s New York as bona fide, honouring the scratched soundscape of its archive, whilst receptive to meddling beyond the common scale.
Waxing up-tempo tracks and flow-state lullabies alike, the 28-year-old’s attire morphs as fluently as his charted BPMs. Shifting seemingly in tow with the trappings of every new release; such reinvention should surely be a rule of thumb for any respective recording artist. Sounding librettos though teeth caged in gold, the prodigy’s layering of thrifted centrepieces with independent designers offers a feverish asset to his hybridity. It appears, Apex is the embodiment of a ‘phase kid’ in final form; eclecticism seeping through every outlet in his belt.
As SEVENSTORE caught up with the musician ahead of his debut Australian tour, in an abode infilled with the kinds of garments – and video games – a young Apex had once manifested, anecdotes of his rise and rise come with ease. A purring tortoiseshell turning in his lap as he considers the names that educated him via mixtape.
All the while, his boots showcase a uniform cultured with their own non-conformity below, platforming the self-expression of bygone rappers and outright originals enveloped in their casing. As saluted in the latter half of his Em3 lyric, “Carhartt hoodie with the Timbs”.
Born Shaeem Santino Wright, the performer was raised on reggae, rap, and bashment, a cacophony he speculates “built in subconsciously”. His father a “conscious spitter” uttering above Caribbean reverberations with a “pitch perfect ear”, his mother crucially taping the music videos of artists like Harlem’s Big L, it can be deferred that his artistry stems from nature and nurture, as equals. Later ushering the unlikely pulses of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ into the mix, discovered on a PlayStation game aged 10, the wunderkind was manifestly beckoned to the auditory since day one.
As far as watershed moments go, for him, whose “memories go back damn near the womb”, it was the school yard that first saw his ideations come to crescendo. Vividly, he recalls a non-uniform day in year two, donning a Sean John (shiny) denim two-piece. “I’m on the playground and it’s starting to rain, everyone’s running inside. I was doing a music video in my head, rapping Eminem”. Hence, channelling creative expression through his own melodies thereafter, styling also arose as part of the package.
Whilst transparently a dreamer, this month sees a decade since Apex’s debut SoundCloud upload came into fruition in 2004: “Bebop” a homemade beat, soundtracking many a Sunday drive since. With his comeuppance compensatory to years spent at the soundboard, he never sleeps on evolution, presently blaring the likes of Limp Bizkit in apprehension of his next auditory profile, with piano tapes from Andre 3000 following closely in tow. Reflecting on his so far prosperity, he clarifies that “it came from experimenting,” hoaxing, “look, I’ll make a country song tomorrow”.
Careful to ascend the confines of the “UK rapper” label, the songsmith calls his audience to stay open to the influx of cross-bred sounds; himself a rare bridge for the US listener. Palatable by his influence of the East and West Coast’s finest before him, once kneeling at the altar of pacemakers like Madlib and Mos Def, Apex praises that any expansions to a category as florid as hip-hop are “just another branch on the olive tree”.
Byway of the taste-maker, Apex lays bare the sisters of spirit, soul, and struggle in his bars, welcoming a further richness into rap’s contemporary psyche. “I’m a Cancer,” he affirms. But while waging forwards with a purer sound, unturned to spoken truth, the lyricist believes that even pushing a new direction should be rooted in education, describing himself, straight-faced, as a “historian” in the subject of hip-hop’s heritage.
Ergo, the aesthete’s choice in planting his feet in Timberland footwear is no accident. Founded in New Hampshire in 1952 as the Abington Shoe Company, the brand has similarly taken evolution in its stride. Renamed ‘Timberland’ after the success of its six-inch work boot of the same name, the label has ever toasted to reinvention, without forsaking function. For many, like Apex, “it’s a quality thing”.
Fusing rubber lug outsoles to leather uppers in 1973, a first in footwear manufacturing, the once family-owned business has thus relied on trial and error throughout its tapestry; an approach clearly embraced by the vanguards who have worn them. And as the signature, ‘161’ model came onto the market a year later, exposing American tradesmen to yellowish, Nubuck leather, the uniform began to secure its belonging in society’s fringes.
Deemed a rugged statement between cultures: the low, ‘Chukka’ silhouette was adopted by the countercultural Paninaro in Italy, before New Yorkers claimed the six-inch as their own throughout the 90s. And with hip-hop quaking from the Bronx as a DIY vibration, the thud of rubber soles saw Timberland offer a cult inlet to a radical community. Worn in customisation with pen markings and laces untied, its footwear became a natural foundation to the amalgam regalia of legendary rappers like DMX, famously pairing a cherry red iteration with a matching jumpsuit on stage – just one of his supposed 1,500 strong collection. Like the genre, the label had become attuned to the frequency of the individual.
Having moved through high-profile collaborations with the likes of Ronnie Fieg and Veneda Carter more recently; toasting also to GORE-TEX outlines and emboldened recolorations throughout, the only constant in Timberland’s timeline, like that of Apex’s, has been regeneration. Not belonging to the 90s or even to the auditory alone, but to the seditionary.
Vacating a time where the UK rap scene lacked visibility, calling Apex to become the visionary he himself had once needed, the artist notes that today, “there’s realms to be anything”, so, “the best thing you can do is be yourself”. Touched by nostalgia with a brand that has long encouraged vibrancy of character, Lord Apex’s stepping into work boots today then proves full circle, priding his fresh, seven track EP, ‘Where’s Your Feet?’, whilst looking back to a time kitted out in class; “the tongues flapping out”. Sporting the boots on stage, “it puts me in an energy; it puts me in a zone. When I put my work boots on, it’s just different”.
So, for Timberland, with its devotees as versatile as its designs, wishing each godspeed in their progressions, its own unorthodoxy can never miss a beat, mutating with those who step into its footbed. New Hampshire; New York; White City, its next fate remains undecided. But one thing is certain: to stay at the Apex, one has to embrace change.