Jacquees has pulled back the curtain on a little-known chapter of his come-up in Atlanta, revealing that he once ran a sneaker hustle out of Quavo’s mother’s house.
The R&B singer shared the story with the ease of someone recounting a fond memory, which only made the detail land harder.
The operation had a straightforward origin. Jacquees had a connection to someone who owned multiple Athlete’s Foot locations in Atlanta, and that contact had an artist he wanted promoted.
The arrangement was simple: shout out the artist, get the sneakers. “He’d be like, ‘Jacquees, man, shout out my artist, Natasha Mosley, bro.’ I’d give you the J’s,” Jacquees recalled. “This is when I was in high school, I’d be like, ‘Bet.'”
From there, the inventory moved fast. He described receiving around ten to fifteen pairs of a popular colourway at the time and setting up shop at Lenox, one of Atlanta’s most trafficked shopping destinations. “I remember I set up at Lenox, you feel me? Selling them hoes like, all the strippers and everything at the time,” he said.
The Quavo connection came through a mutual friend. Jacquees explained that a partner of his was already over in Quavo’s circle and put him on to potential buyers.
“My partner used to be over there with Quavo and them, he’d be like, ‘Bro, come and go get that, I want to get some of them shoes,'” he recalled. Jacquees pulled up, made the sales, and the location happened to be Quavo’s mother’s house.
He described the whole thing without ceremony, which seemed to catch everyone off guard. The casualness of the admission was part of what made it memorable.
Here was a detail that painted a vivid picture of two artists who would go on to significant careers, still grinding in the same neighbourhood, connected through sneakers and street-level hustle before either name meant much beyond Atlanta.
Jacquees has spoken before about his deep roots in the city and his relationships with other artists who came up around the same time.
His bond with Quavo, by his own account, goes back to exactly these kinds of moments, shared spaces and shared scrapes during the years before the music took over. “He’s my brother,” he said simply, before the Jordan story even began.
The anecdote is a small one in the grand scheme, but it carries the texture of a real come-up story.
No mythology, no polish, just a teenager with a sneaker connect, a spot at Lenox, and a future Migos member’s front address as a base of operations.
