Carrots and Maxo Kream Are Cooking Up Something Delicious

For the first time ever, Coachella has linked with StockX as the official Merch drop partner of the festival, setting the foundation for a collaboration program that paired performers with streetwear brands. And for Anwar Carrots and Maxo Kream it was seamless.

Carrots’ own brand is no stranger to collaborations, racking up some of the best cosigns in the industry. From Crocs to DC to bright Puma sneakers, among so many other projects, the list is long and filled with venerable achievements. That much is obvious. And when it came time to work with Maxo Kream’s own brand, Persona, it just made sense.

Persona began as a creative project between Maxo and his brother Money-Du Kream who passed away in early 2020. One of Money-Du’s last wishes for his brother was to continue Persona as a brand, and Maxo has made good on that promise. Not only is the brand still going strong, as evidenced by this collaborative merch with Carrots, it’s also the name-sake of Maxo Kream’s current tour, The Big Persona Tour, that is running through the summer. As a concept and a name “Persona” is a thread that’s woven through Maxo Kream’s career: his 2016 mixtape was called The Persona Tape, his current single with Tyler, the Creator is called “Big Persona”, and he’s even operating under the Big Persona label. Added together it’s a treatise in action about the importance of representing one’s authentic self. And Carrots wants to bring that message through, weaving it throughout this project.

“He’s an actual rapper, even down to this album he just put out, [WEIGHT OF THE WORLD,] it’s more soulful, down to producers he worked with, down to the other artists he put into it,” Carrots explains. “He’s versatile, but yet he still stays himself, he never changes his style. It’s just he’s getting more personified, it’s more projected, more eyes on it. I don’t think he ever needs to change anything or who he is, just the world needs to see more of this persona.”

The collaborative collection also explores aspects of their shared Nigerian heritage. A t-shirt and long sleeve tee share an illustration of a bowl of egusi soup with the classic cassava-based culinary vehicle: fufu. “Which is an international delicacy in the sense, but normal soul food for us,” Carrots explains. “I like to cater to everyone, so even if you didn’t know what it was and you saw, it’s like, ‘Oh, this shit is dope,’ and you saw it and you was like, ‘Oh, I like fufu. That’s a fufu shirt. Oh, fuck yeah. I want a fufu shirt.’” The graphic is made up in an airbrushed style by Carrots’ friend, Japanese designer Ryo. The other t-shirt calls out “End SARS,” the campaign in Nigeria to end police brutality. Finally, the hoodie blends logotypes for both Persona and Carrots using the layout of the Nigerian flag. 

The potential unleashed from these projects is never lost on Carrots, that’s why he’s always up in the Bird’s Nest Workshop on W Washington Boulevard, his creative home in LA, working away on the next big release. “Not to say I’m not supposed to be here, but I’m not supposed to be here, we’re here. We’re working with Coachella, we’re working with StockX,” he says. “That’s the greatest component of it all, to actually even have more of something we were already supposed to do, so that just made it even better. The thing we’re going to do now after this is like a cherry on top, it just made everything better.”

Click here to shop the DropX™ Exclusive Carrots x Maxo Kream x Coachella collaboration on StockX.