Rad Collector: People in my Neighborhood – Anwar Carrots
When I first met Anwar, he was a 15 year-old kid hanging out around Melrose and Fairfax, and he seemed to be really into his gear game and had a blog named after orange and green vegetables. With a tall, lanky frame topped with an unmistakable crop of dreads pouring out of his cap (Tyler, the Creator raps about them in his song, “Yonkers”), Anwar was pretty much a staple around the neighborhood at all the fly events and party’s. Over the years, I realized, this dude isn’t just aimlessly hanging out. He has been patiently cultivating his plan to create and be a part of his own movement. A movement that involves, branding and marketing the lifestyle of him and his mates. Now, at the age of 21, he can finally see the vegetables of his labor coming to fruition. His artist, Casey Veggies is about to re-release his first album, Sleeping in Class on Delicious Vinyl, and they just embarked on their fist major Summer tour which, according to Anwar, is “Wavy as fuck”. Peep the tour dates and catch the wave in city near you! Tell the folks out there about you and your brand Yo, I’m Anwar Carrots, half of Peas and Carrots International / Arrogant Veggies International. Basically, our brand is about growth—life is like a garden. You start from the soil, from there you start bearing fruit and when you get the ripe fruit you start the picking. So it’s like, start, progress and have patience, which is a virtue. It’s like all the life lessons I’ve been learning from the OG’s, my mother, father and my friends. What influenced your fondness for vegetables? Basically from the age of like, 14, 15, I was always into good health, my dad always had me into nutrition. I liked learning about different vitamins. I always had good nutrition scores in high-school. How long have you been tending this proverbial garden? We’ve been doing this since high-school. Me and Joshton Peas been going at it since ’07. We had a blog and was just posting up shit that we like—our tastes, our opinions of what people should fuck with. Basically making people conform to what we fuck with… basically just following suit. I wanted to start with clothing but it didn’t go that way. We also have an artist by the name of Casey Veggies so we do like a whole marketing team, management and all that shit, too. So it went from a blog to marketing and producing product? Basically, we just selling the swag, selling the lifestyle—our lifestyle. It’s what we do on a daily basis. I’m a chill cat, a tranquil kid. I just like to take it easy and stay in my own lane and mind my business. My homies be on the same shit. We just trying to progress in life. peas and carrots intl x twelve bar tee How long has this Casey Veggies project been in the works? What’s your main goal here with your brand? I want to attract kids. I want more youth. I’m not really stuck on the whole “street-wear” aspect of things. I wanna reach the world, I wanna change lives. I’ve been getting messages from people saying they’re inspired by the shit we do. That type of shit makes me happy as an individual. Like, who the fuck am I to inspire somebody? So, I wanna touch the world. I wanna help people. What’s your connection with Odd Future? Those are my homies. Shout out to Odd Future, shout out to Tyler, Taco, Syd, Domo, Frank… Shit, I been knew Tyler since the MySpace days! With Tyler’s beats! This goes before even Casey and all them. Me and Tyler had the same taste in shit. I liked his music, I liked his style… he’s a very creative mind. He would throw you beats for Casey? Casey started with Odd Future. So, it went from that because like, it cultivated and shit, making music together. They used to sit in a room together on Mac Books, playing beats, rapping with eachother. One of Tyler’s and Casey’s first shows was with eachother at Hawthorne high-school. You probably have the most famous dreadlocks on the planet right now due to that line from “Yonkers” (which now has over 14 million views on YouTube) Shit… thank god like millions and millions of people have heard about Anwars dreadlocks. I’m appreciative of it. It doesn’t make me big-headed or anything, but… it helps the brand, I could say that. It helps everything. It helps lifestyle, it helps all that shit. I have the most famous dreadlocks in the fucking world right now (laughs). I keep it G. After that line dropped, did you notice a change in the weather so to speak? Yeah people started looking at me different I guess based on perception, but aint shit changed and im gonna be the same cat since I was born. I’m that same nigga. I don’t know how to not be Anwar. I’ll be the same cat, humble as fuck. Come up to me and say whats up or whatever. Ain’t shit changing. Those views did not get me a Bentley, it did not get me a motherfuckin’ driver and a Maybach. For all the people out there who might not know, explain this whole “Wavy” phenomenon The whole Wave came from Max B… Gang Green… Coke Wave… shout out to French Montana. But yeah, the whole Wave shit came from Max B. Its like there’s no wave in LA so I just started saying wavy. My boy put me on to it. We was just over on Fairfax. We was just like “wavy, wavy… like man, throw that out to the people, throw it to the people”. And we just made a whole positive connotation of the word, “wave”. You got a big following, if its swag, its wavy instead of saying swag. Everyone wants to be different. Its all about creativity. Ain’t shit original. Shits wavy. Wavy’s the new cool. What brands out there are dope to you? One of my favorite brands right now because I feel it matches my lifestyle, is Hall of Fame. I like store brands, if that makes any sense. I like Commonwealth’s shit, Deadline, SSUR, I love the OG’s of this shit. J Money, he’s one of my favorite graphic designers. Lafayette out of Japan, 5th Column. The OG shit. I pay homage, it’s like who am I to fuck tradition up. I love tradition. I love the classic shit. They got mad stories, shit you might not even now about, like them growing up in NY, they’re whole heritage. Dude, Ssur Russ, he’s Russian, he has a whole different story. That guy Jason who does 5th column, he’s Sicilian, grew up in NY, lived different places, traveled and seen the world. I love traveling. I love culture. Culture and learning… and listening. Any last thoughts? Keep swaggin’… Keep living… keep thriving… go hard… all love. I love you, mom. http://radcollector.com/columns/jefftakemoto/2011/07/02/people-in-my-neighborhood-anwar-carrots/
Shit… around the same time we was doing the blog shit. Since he was like, 13.
