“Chainz is equally a chameleon as he is consistent within his energy,” says Bembury via email.

Indeed, after Bembury’s departure from Versace, Chainz was among the first to see his solo design projects, before they were shared with the press. Chainz remains effusive about Bembury, with whom he has maintained a close creative exchange. That collaboration also brought him into a working relationship with the footwear designer Salehe Bembury, who first introduced Chainz to Donatella Versace, and later co-designed the Chain Reaction with him. This isn’t Chainz’ first entry into fashion - aside from a 2015 line of novelty Christmas sweaters, which raised $2m USD for charity, his 2018 collaboration with Versace produced the ‘Chain Reaction’, one of the best-ever selling sneaker styles for the brand. “I was buying out the store every time they brought out new stuff.” “Everybody in the stores used to call me,” he remembers. His collection is extensive enough, now, to fill eight closets. “I really was f*ckin with them hard,” he says, estimating that he has spent, conservatively, hundreds of thousands of dollars on True Religion products in his lifetime. But he was drawn to the “full-circle” notion of partnering with a label that he had grown up admiring so strongly. The prospect of a retrospective collection wasn’t a natural fit for Chainz - by his own admission, he dislikes looking backwards. “It was for the people that had money, and wanted other people to know they could afford it.” And, most significantly for the artist, it’s the focus of a full-scale fashion collaboration with the denim brand True Religion, which inspired the title of his EP. That record has now been re-released as a tenth anniversary edition, complete with a duo of new songs.

“It was a hustler showing the rest of the world what we got on,” as he puts it now. In its celebration of the community around him, the record acted as a statement of intent for Chainz, and a template for the music he would go on to make over the next ten years. Realigion, the EP which marked his breakout as a solo artist upon its release a decade ago, and which featured guest spots from 90s stalwarts Raekwon and Jadakiss, alongside then-rising stars from Meek Mill to Big Sean. That collaborative nature has been a running thread throughout his career since its beginning.

2 chainz mixtape tru realigion