When Life Imitates Art - Wasted Youth x Budweiser
By now, many of you have probably seen the iconic Budweiser can, reimagined by VERDY somewhere on Instagram.
The street scene of today is becoming more and more collaboration-based, but VERDY & his project Wasted Youth don't fail to surprise us with collabs that go beyond boundaries.
To some, Wasted Youth x Budweiser may sound like a combination out of the blue, but to those who know VERDY and WY, it's in fact a full circle moment in many ways. The original Wasted Youth logo samples Massachusetts-based punk rock band Gang Green, who actually sampled the Budweiser logo first. Wasted Youth was created based off VERDY's high school days, and how nothing in his youth was wasted.
So VERDY, who has roots in punk & hardcore, sampled one of his favorite band's logos, which sampled Budweiser, and is now collaborating with Budweiser themselves, the origins of the sample that started it all. Sampleception.
At first when contacted by Budweiser, VERDY thought they were mad at him for sampling their logo. But in fact, they were reaching out to collaborate with him. VERDY, who always had a vision of creating not only apparel but designing the actual beer cans and bottles, told them his plans, and the collab became reality. The beers will be available at stores and combinis throughout Japan, and even Amazon. VERDY states he wants this to be a gateway product for people, a Wasted Youth item that everybody can get their hands on, in a similar sense to NIGO's A Bathing Ape collaboration with PEPSI back in 2001.
If you've seen the official Wasted Youth x Budweiser video, you'll notice the cans being crushed too. This hints back to Wasted Youth's very first popup, where VERDY didn't have the money to even print posters.
But with a strong desire to do some sort of installation, he crushed some empty Budweiser cans, and put some flowers in them. You can see this graphic on many Wasted Youth items today.
