We recently connected with Brandon Hackey and have shared our conversation below.

Brandon, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

i always knew i wanted to pursue an artistic path, i always incorporated my creativity in my daily life. whether it be through drawing, artistic visuals, or clothes. but to pursue it professionally i decided 2 years ago that i would slowly make it my life full time job. its been my mission ever since

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Im from Montgomery County, Maryland, born and raised. I run my creative studio in Rockville, Maryland where i make apparel for my personal clothing brand as well as other brands and organizations. In my studio I customize, restore and repair sneakers. i started restoring sneakers in 2015, and i started my clothing brand during the Pandemic in 2020. My brand “Sleep Wen” came to me when i was envisioning who i was creating the brand for. With myself included, i wanted my brand to be for the Ambitious hustler, who chases their dream regardless of knowing the means to reach them. Relentless grind… Sleep when you finish that project, sleep when you’ve done those reps, sleep when you’ve taken victory. everything I produce is designed and custom by me so that most products are 1 of 1 or are in limited quantity, so products are exclusive and are made with time and detail just like how the trials of success should be taken. One thing about me is I have always stuck to my own path regardless of the hype and its paid off that i can deliver my message to the next person who may just need a little motivation, or inspiration to strive for theirs and i take pride in that intention.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think society should take more pride in the people from their community and share what they have going on more so than people who are famous on social media. i believe that if the attention were to be directed to the community, we would see much more success within the community.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I think NFTs are cool, i believe in the near future you will see more people utilizing them for brands and businesses as a way to have people invest into creative works. i would love to create my own NFT artwork of some kind so that my consumers could potentially have a return just for enjoying and believing in the brand like i do.

Contact Info:

• Website: sleepwen.com
• Instagram: @bhackey_ @sleepwenofficial

Image Credits
Briana Nolan KJ Fraser Brandon Hackey