From Hype Beast Radio, I'm Jeff Staples, and this is the business of hype.

A show about creative entrepreneurs, brand builders, innovators, and the realities behind the dreams they've built.

Shepard Ferry has been someone I've been studying since high school, and I didn't even know it was happening.

Maybe it was because I grew up in the Northeast, but I was immediately noticing in my travels between New Jersey and New York City this Andre the giant sticker that was everywhere.

It was all over the place.

And I remember some of the quote-unquote cooler kids in

school even had the sticker on their book covers. And at that time, I didn't know anything about

Shepard. I didn't know much about Andre the Giant other than his wrestling career. And I sure as hell

I didn't know that he had a posse. I did instinctively know that this wasn't real, though. I knew it was a

creation of someone's. It was a campaign, like a guerrilla marketing tactic. But marketing what?

I had no idea. But I did understand there was something very subversive about it. Kind of like

when you're looking at like Mars code,

you know it means something to someone, but you just can't decipher what it means. Did

understand one thing, though, I understood the effort. I understood that it cost someone time,

money, and energy to make and place these stickers all over the damn city.

And that whole thing intrigued the hell out of me.

Damn, now that I think about it, that sticker might have been an important reason why I operate in street culture today.

Of course, the person who made that sticker is our guest today.

And besides just making that sticker, he's gone on to make other incredible things.

Artwork, brands, exhibitions, and positive causes.

I'd hear him DJing at a cool party, or I'd see him reppping the highly successful brand Obey.

I'd see him creating the artwork that would assist Barack Obama in becoming elected

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