Last year, Jack Harlow announced his official partnership with New Balance before playing in the Ruffles NBA All-Star Celebrity Game. Last weekend, Cordae rocked Puma in the 2023 Ruffles NBA All-Star Celebrity Game — offering a slice of pizza to Fat Joe mid-game — ahead of unveiling his brand and record label Hi Level is collaborating with Puma.
The announcement came yesterday, February 22, and the collection became available today, February 23:
“In middle school, the public school I went to in PG County, we had to wear uniforms. It was a white shirt, khaki pants, and all-black sneakers, so I always rocked the Puma suedes,” Cordae told Nice Kicks. “It’s been a full-circle moment.”
The Grammy-nominated rapper continued, “I like things to be organic and natural. All the extracurricular stuff they do for communities across the globe is tight. Even though they work with amazing artists, it wasn’t based on past work with artists but on how our relationship has been — a collaborative, cooperative thing. They gave me a lot of creative control and let me bring some of my friends, it turned out dope.”
Cordae has been linked to Puma since 2019, and he founded Hi Level in 2021. His “Hi Level Mentality” TED Talk was the series’ most popular of 2022. In December, Cordae and Puma gave away 200 pairs of sneakers to students at his aforementioned middle school in Maryland.
This isn’t the most exciting Cordae-related announcement of 2023, though. Tennis champion Naomi Osaka, his girlfriend, announced last month that they are expecting their first child.
Cordae and Jack Harlow are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.