Babylon and Slowthai Go Their Own Way

If you ever find yourself walking down West Adams Boulevard in Hollywood, California, you may hear the slicing cuts of skateboard wheels scooping up and down a wooden skate bowl echoing above a nondescript black corrugated metal wall. You might hear the screaming lyrics of Trash Talk rumbling under shouted conversation, punctuated by the passing cars. This consonance of sound, wedged between S Victoria Ave and a landscaping firm, is born of Babylon, the apparel brand and community hang-out that features a massive skate bowl that’s larger than the store itself. Babylon was founded by Lee Spielman and Garrett Stevenson as a way to scratch creative itches separate from what they’ve been doing with their band Trash Talk, but over time has become its own entity. “It’s a little bit more elevated than what you can do with just music,” Spielman told Hypbeast in a 2017 interview.

This year, for the first time ever, StockX has linked up with Coachella as the official merch drop partner to present a series of collaborations between streetwear brands and festival performers. Babylon is a part of this unique program, creating a series of pieces in collaboration with Slowthai, the British rapper. Spielman has described basing Babylon on “punk ethics,” based in authenticity and rejecting common expectations, which offers a familiar echo of Slowthai’s narratives and creative journey. Both Babylon and Slowthai (and Trash Talk!) have forged their own paths, pulling from a broad range of influences, to present their best-known truths. Sometimes that means that their messages can be hard to swallow, but it represents a radical commitment to honesty that customers and audience members alike find increasingly attractive.

Slowthai’s performances at Coachella represent just two stops on his “Antisocial Roadshow” tour and the two t-shirts designed by Babylon put the merch in that context. Both shirts feature a graphic of a high-flying jet knotted up in the clouds urging you to “Take a Trip”, while the back designs call out the collaboration explicitly. This is legit tour merch, unique to the two performances at Coachella, but available exclusively on StockX.

Click here to shop the DropX™ Exclusive Babylon x Slowthai x Coachella collaboration on StockX.