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Young Jeezy and Greg Lucci, Founder of Gourmet Footwear

Atlanta rapper Young Jeezy ”put on for his city” once again on Thursday June 13th as he hosted a series of events to celebrate his partnership with luxury lifestyle brand Gourmet Footwear.

The celebration started with a private meet and greet at the Wish Atlanta streetwear boutique, which drew fans, tastemakers and a couple of Jeezy’s celebrity friends, including Trinidad James. The afternoon event was as much an opportunity for attendees to experience Gourmet, which launched in 2005 and has tapped Jeezy as its first ever celebrity brand partner.

“The partnership is a really natural one,” Gourmet’s marketing director James Gorecki told The Urban Daily exclusively. “From a brand perspective, we’re not the type to just send [product] to every entertainer, every musician. We seed certain people, but we’re very selective about who we put our stuff on. This is the first one where we’re like, this is a legit, official brand partnership.”

Jeezy echoed the brand’s sentiment in a statement announcing the partnership:

“Partnering with Gourmet just felt like a natural fit for me,” he says. “I’ve been building my own clothing line for the past few years, so it’s only right that I collaborate with a top-tier footwear brand like Gourmet.”

Founded by Greg Lucci, one of the original creatives behind the popular Adidas Originals sub-brand, along with former DC Shoes exec Jon Buscemi and former Supreme and Stussy designer Greg Johnsen, Gourmet’s brand aesthetic represents “the highs and the lows,” Gorecki explained. “We’re the same kid that started from a lower class background and aspired to the finer things in life. And got there. We’ve paid attention to Jeezy, and obviously his music has the same message. A young kid who doesn’t come from the best situations can look to him for that same inspiration. He’s said it in his music a million and one times, whether it’s ‘Thug Motiviation,’ [OR] ‘The Inspiration’ and from a brand perspective that’s the same thing that we stand for.”

The partnership will also grow to include the launch of new lines of product influenced and designed by Jeezy.

“It would be easy just to say, ‘Here’s a Jeezy hightop,’ but we wanna do it really organically,” Gorecki said. “But if we’re gonna partner with him, we want him to have some creative input. And as designers, we wanna work with him to find the best fit. We wanna make things that represent his style and his ideas. And we want our product to also represent the things that he wants to see through it. We wanna take materials, take silhouettes and take styles that Jeezy likes and incorporate them in a shoe.”

“The relationship with Gourmet isn’t an endorsement, it’s a partnership,” Jeezy adds. “I wanted to collaborate with a boutique brand and Gourmet has a style and vibe that just meshes with mine – part street, part sophistication. It’ll be cool to start getting involved with the creative process for new collections.”

While fans continue to await a fifth solo project, which Jeezy has been alluding to since 2012 with interviews and the release of several singles, the CTE CEO has certainly been active on his corporate grind. In August 2012, he was named Senior Vice President of A&R at Atlantic Records. Sources close to Jeezy also tell us that he will also be announcing another high profile brand partnership before the end of the summer.

Get more of the latest music news on TheUrbanDaily.com:

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Young Jeezy Celebrates Launch Of New Luxury Brand Partnership  was originally published on theurbandaily.com