SNS: You had dreams of playing ball but ended up building a successful brand, can I get a recap of that journey in short? The highs and lows? BG: I think I’ve had a singular vision right through grade school, right through high school, right through college even. I left college my third year to go to Italy to play professionally. I couldn't get a European passport, so it didn’t work out. So I went to Germany and then back to Sweden, and basically, that career just ended for me because of many variables, but most of them were practical. I couldn't get the European passport that I needed so I couldn’t sign any contracts in Europe.

You could probably describe that as my lifetime low because it was shattered dreams. It was just that realization that the way I imagined things happening was not going to happen. But something exciting came out of that because it forced me into re-inventing this idea of who I was as a person and my capabilities. So from this very low place, I decided to move on and began thinking about what I could do, more as an identity more as an exercise of like… person and self-respect and confidence. It was less about career choices it was more about that I had lost a big part of myself.

I enrolled in Stockholm Art School where I did a year to explore creative medium because the only thing I felt, going to college and even high school was, that the only thing that REALLY woke me up was creative fields. So I did this very general course in arts which was in painting, photography, sculpture and art history and so on. At the end of that year, I’ve met a perfumer by chance. I didn’t even know that a perfumer was a job really at that point in time. I talked about the connection between memory and smell, and he seemed to convince me that all these things can be translated. That scent was this amazing, invisible but powerful medium that could evoke emotion, like the aesthetics of what I was trained in or what we lived in. So, I convinced this guy named Pierre to help me translate a few memories of these smells, and that’s where I started.

At the time I imagined perfume because it was accessible as a product and I imagined it was a good way to share these ideas, but it was also hugely an industrialized market which meant production was tricky, and the minimums were high, so I learned online how to make fragrance candles. I found a space out in Telefonplan by the art school, and I bought a water jacket melter that could melt the wax and made my own candles. During the evenings, nights and daytime I would try to sell them to different stores.

SNS: You have said that you started Byredo from a naïve place, what do you mean by that? BG: I think I had a creative idea. I know very little of anything associated with running a business or building a business and what it entails: Workwise, expertise, the people, the finances. When you say purpose driven, It was all about moving forward. I would consider myself relatively pragmatic because the last eleven years has been about solving problems and finding new ways to do things and navigating the route forward. But it was naïve in a sense that I didn’t have an idea of what I was getting myself into. It was just about the belief that creatively the work I was doing could be important and could relate to people.

SNS: What is the creative process behind a Byredo scent? Does it all stem from your initial ideas? BG: I still have the luxury to have a singular vision where this company is going creatively. Then I have 230 employees so, it is a machine, and beyond anything, I can do myself. But, creatively when it comes to fragrance I’m still putting together a brief, I’m still sitting with the perfumers in New York or Paris, and I’m still doing the campaigns, creating the narratives. Still don’t use focus groups, still, It smells exactly the way I want it to smell.

SNS: Does that vision go for all things under the umbrella Byredo? BG: I like beautiful things. I aspire to luxury. Fragrance and beauty became my entry because it was very little interesting stuff within that segment. I wanted to pivot the brand into multiple categories. I applied the same sensibility of developing a project over a long period of time, meticulously. I aspired to brands like Hermés and other luxury brands, and I realized that I couldn’t create their history but if I put in enough work, I could probably match a portion of their quality when it came to the product. At the same time, I felt that there was space for a brand in the luxury goods arena that had relevance and resonance to young people. So that was a focus it was not a prestige of that old heritage/luxury world. It was really about a new version of it.

SNS: What are your thoughts on the status of sneaker culture today? BG: I think emotionally this wasn’t for us. The idea of hype, this idea of sneaker culture as it exists today. That always existed it was just that our community was extremely small. It’s not a phenomenon. Now in terms of scale, it is fascinating. Of our generation its probably one of those really iconic products that tied together culture and unified people. I have thought the way it’s going, anything that grows too fast, has volatility in my opinion. Anything that becomes so outrages usually have an autocorrect. When you look at pricing and reselling, we are still talking about two big companies controlling the larger part of the market. I’d be more interested in seeing that shift over the next few years.

SNS: Do you consider yourself as a collector? BG: When I was younger I did. I probably represent that 90% of us that used to say – Yo, I have all that stuff! [laughs] That OG OG stuff! But no. I’ve gotten rid of sneakers in waves.

SNS: How big is your collection? BG: The collection is not that big… 50 to 100 pairs and now it’s pretty much focused on Jordan 1 and Air Force 1

SNS: Why is that? BG: Because I can't keep up I think it’s age [laughs], but within that, you could be the one that gets it all or you go in and get your slice and get that shoe that speaks to you and those two styles they’ve always been there for me. I got into Jordan round 4’s, 5’s?

SNS: What’s in your current weekly rotation? BG: Jordan 1 "Union", the blues. I’m still into Virgil’s last drop... Air Force 1’s, I like the black colorway, there is something about the iconic black. Then there are some fashion sneakers that are making it in n out in my rotation. The “Converse –style” Diors. The recognizability touches the sneaker culture.

The "Unions" The black Off-White Air Force 1’s The Converse-style Dior

SNS: How important is music in your life? BG: I think it’s still important. It’s not as important as it used to be when we grew up but just like with sneakers you could know the words of every hot song. The share volume of music and artists on all streaming services nowadays is so much, so you’re forced to kind of edit there too. And then there’s also the thing of being a dad between the cartoons, homework, and activities that space doesn’t exist like it used to. So, traveling gives me that time to catch up on music and basketball games.

SNS: Top three albums or songs. BG: Nas – Illmatic, The Notorious B.I.G. – Ready to die, Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

SNS: I remember you telling me that you had met Biggie back in the day. BG: Yeah... I was in D.C. for Howard homecoming and… Wu was there, and the whole Bad Boy crew, Craig Mack and all these guys and I met this big guy, it turns out that it’s Biggie. I met him through RZA and Busta who was right there. It was a big deal at the time but as it turns out that he became one of our most iconic figures. Oddly enough I have the last living portrait of Biggie it was taken by the Swedish photographer Martina Haglund who was living in NYC. I would tell my daughters as they were growing up, that the man on the picture is their grandfather for many many years. [breaks out laughing]

SNS: Any of the new generation rappers on your playlists? BG: I like Travis. He’s a smart and talented dude. I like my guy, Drake. I would describe my time in Toronto like a lot of people would; Pre Drake. There’s really a before and after.

SNS: How was Toronto like Pre Drake? BG: It was exactly as he describes it in his songs. All those clubs, all those people, the west-Indian influence. It had it’s own juice completely. When I grew up black American culture, and hip hop was the aspiration. You would have guys in Canada not speaking like Canadians. Every year they had this Caribana festival at the end of summer you’d get tons of people that would come up from New York to party over the weekend. It took a while for Canada to be put on the map. I think basketball helped, the Raptors and obviously the artists, The Weeknd and Drake of course.