Halftime Report | Set Free Richardson is merging hip hop, art, hoops & more to amplify creativity

If you were a baller, or even baller-adjacent, coming of age in the ’90s, you’re familiar with the “AND1 Mixtapes.” The brand itself, founded in 1993, specializes in basketball shoes and apparel and really set itself apart with the evolution of the corresponding mixtapes. The series showcased streetball skills of players like Hot Sauce, Skip to My Lou, The Professor, Dribble Machine, and others set against dope hip hop beats and rap music. “The Mixtape” is one of the most successful promotions in U.S. retail history, selling roughly 200,000 copies in just three weeks.

Creator Set Free Richardson sat down with REVOLT to talk about how the tapes came to be and how he is still merging the lanes of hip hop, art, and hoops at his creative dojo, The Compound.

Get into the exclusive “Halftime Report” chat below.

Taking it back to the AND1 days, how did everything come together?

OK, it started for me as a DJ. I was signed to Tommy Boy Records at the time. I was just in a record store shopping for records, going through crates. A guy from AND1 named Peter Smalls had a book bag. He’s like, “Can I ask you a question?” I said, “Yeah.” He put a pair of sneakers on top of the records and just was like, “What do you think about these?” I was like, “They suck.” Then I told him that doesn’t matter. I said, “If you connect to hip hop” – this is 1996 — I said, “If you connect to hip hop right now, everything’s about to be outta here.” 1996 was one of the most incredible years from the NBA draft to The Fugees album, Black Star was taking off — just a lot of things in 1996 culturally. It was just incredible. So, that was the start of the journey. Then he asked me if I was heading to perform at How Can I Be Down in Miami – to DJ — and he was like, “Do you want some product?” I said, “Yeah.” So, that was the start of the journey.

New York is often credited as the birthplace of the marriage between hip hop and basketball. Would you agree?

Well, I would just say New York is the city of hip hop — for the world and everything. But to me, no matter where people were playing basketball in the Black community, there was music being played. So, if you were in Oakland, they would play hip hop. I remember growing up half my life in Philly. When they play basketball in the park, hip hop was just everywhere. To me, probably even in North Carolina, they were probably playing some type of music in the park. But that bigger culture of New York City — people were dancing on the court, emcees running up and down on the court, you know, DJs, and I think that is where New York gets the real credit of making it like a real thing. But every place where there was a cookout, a basketball court, it was somebody’s car with the radio blaring, or it was a boombox. So you know, I really always say music because it wasn’t always just hip hop. Maybe in the ’70s, early ’80s, it was Gap Band, S.O.S Band, or Earth, Wind and Fire. That music was being played, too, at the courts. Music and basketball always been together, but New York really put hip hop and basketball together.

You teamed up with ASAP Ferg to redesign the court at the historic Rucker Park. Did you ever think you would be working on a project like that?

It’s funny, I mean, from doing games, being a kid and watching games, you know, I never thought that Rucker Park would go into the art world of doing, like, a design on the court. When I got the call, it was… It’s a bucket list item. You know, they sent me the plaque that’s on the gate. I have that now. So now my legacy is that I did something incredible for Rucker Park. I never thought I would ever get that call. And then for me to be able to be the curator and, you know, to pick somebody from Harlem. A lot of people don’t know that Ferg is an incredible artist… painter. His father did the Bad Boy logo.

Wait, what? Timeout. You’re dropping nuggets now.

His father did the Bad Boy logo. So basically, when you think about it, that baby is pretty much Ferg. So you know, I’ve felt like just the pillars of ASAP Ferg once being a kid at  Rucker, him being an artist himself, his father being an artist, and then just the musical side – there’s nobody better that I thought deserved a chance to do work on the court.

Talk about cultivating the Rucker Park redesign and what went into the final masterpiece.

So the NBPA called me; I do a lot of work with the NBPA. They always call me like a special ops person. They told me some of the things that they were looking for, so I went through a bunch of artists, and I landed on Ferg, and then he and I were, you know, going through different color tones, and renditions, and ideas and, like, we wanted this to really mean something. So, Ferg was coming up with some ideas and then he actually reached out to Jaylen Brown from the Celtics, who gave the story about the Mayans who pretty much created basketball. You know, it was like gods of basketball and how this really came about.

So Jaylen and Ferg put the idea together, we all curated it, and then the next thing you know, the magic was on the ground. You know, a lot of times you see these paint refurbishing of courts, and it’s just these beautiful colors and it’s not really a story that connects to history. You know, now I love when people look at this, they can understand like, “Wow, this symbolizes how, really, basketball was started so many years ago and by people of color.” That’s another thing that was great about the story is like, if you want to do something honorable, people of color have to be involved.

There isn’t a single word that can fully describe The Compound. Was that by design? How important was it to have a space that is totally unique?

I think for me, when you think of a compound, it’s about great things coming together. That can be a place, person, feeling, an adventure, ideas. Putting things together that usually don’t go together. So, when it came time for me to create the space… Growing up being in the music industry, the music industry is very separate. Studio was here, but then you went to another studio to do photography. Then you went to another place to get your graphic design. Compound brings all those together. I call it a sparring gym for creativity. So if you do music, you do art, you do design, voiceovers, whatever you do, you can start here and then we can cultivate your ideas.

Speaking of art, you and Jaylen Brown collaborated more recently. Can you talk about your work together?

Yeah, of course, the 7s brought us together, and Jaylen Brown is an incredible scholar mind in just all facets of education, history, basketball, and now he’s on his art journey. I’m helping him learn something, just to keep things up like works on paper, Giclee prints, masters and just helping him on his art journey. One of my goals was to help rookies and athletes. You know, I always say when an athlete gets drafted, they buy three or four things; they buy a house, their mother a house, they buy cars and jewelry. Buy art. If you bought art the day that you get drafted all the way up until the day you retire, it’s gonna be probably one of the most expensive things in your collection of pieces that you bought. I explained that to Jaylen, and Jaylen was like, “You know what? Yeah, you’re doing this with me and we’re doing this together, but I really want to spread this to more people.” So, we came together, did an event with the NBPA, the Rookie One Court, and we presented the top three rookies with a piece from Raphael-Colon. I mean, a piece started at $6,000 when it came out, pieces already at like $25,000 within two to three months since the draft.

So, what’s on the horizon for you?

Compound and Listerine – it will be a very different collab. I’m very proud. That’s gonna be special. Also DraftKings’ “Starting Five” show. It’s coming back. We started the season with me and Jadakiss, so I’m doing that, more directing, more work with a lot of good key brands. Also, The Compound gallery should be here by the end of the year.