Bobbito García’s face beams by means of my laptop computer display, framed by cabinets upon cabinets of vinyl albums. I can’t assist however marvel what basic information are littered all through the room, however this wasn’t the time to ask about his assortment. It’s an early morning Zoom name, and the voice of García comes by means of wealthy and clear. At 58, the New Yorker, clad in a BONG BONG! T-shirt, appears to be like to be in superb form, his eyes lighting up as he adjusts his Shure mic. “People only want to talk to me about the ’90s hip-hop scene or about my sneaker contributions,” he says with a playful shrug. “And I’m like, yo, I’m doing so much, I’ve done so much, and I will continue to do a lot.” My instinct was proper: This isn’t the time for these questions.
It’s a becoming opening for a dialog with a person whose life has spanned and formed a number of cultural actions. García is thought to some as DJ Cucumber Slice, a reputation I wasn’t accustomed to till I began engaged on this text. To myself and others, he is named Kool Bob Love; to many extra, because the voice who helped launch hip-hop’s golden period on school radio. Over the previous 4 a long time, he has been a DJ, radio host, author, filmmaker, sneaker guru, retailer (Bobbito’s Footwork) and record-label (Fondle ’Em) proprietor, streetball participant, announcer, and photographer—a real man of the folks. If he got here up on this period, he can be the multi-hyphenate that manufacturers like to work with. Now, as he sits in his house workplace, a self-described “full-time caregiver” who hasn’t traveled or achieved an in-person occasion in 5 years, García continues to be discovering methods to interrupt new floor. “Life is continuing to evolve,” he tells me, grinning. “And I’m gonna keep on riding this wave.”
To perceive Bobbito García’s drive, it’s a must to return to his roots. Born Robert García in 1966 to Puerto Rican mother and father on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, he grew up straddling cultures. “My father gave me a basketball when I was 7 years old,” García recollects. Young Bobbito fell in love with the sport on the streets of NYC, taking part in in famed playground tournaments by his early teenagers. At 14 he was operating in video games at Holcombe Rucker Park and different citywide tournaments, holding his personal amongst older gamers. The neighborhood legends took discover: Earl “The Goat” Manigault, some of the fabled streetball gamers ever, typically watched from the sidelines of García’s native court docket. “All he had to do was give you a nod … the legend liked me,” García says of these encounters, describing how the legendary Goat grew to become a quiet mentor determine to him and different neighborhood children.
Yet basketball was only one a part of García’s New York upbringing. He got here of age within the Seventies and ’80s, amid the rise of hip-hop within the metropolis’s streets and parks. Graffiti, breakdancing, DJing, and basketball all blended collectively. García attended Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania on a scholarship, then Wesleyan University in Connecticut, however each break he was again house absorbing NYC’s avenue tradition. He even landed a fateful internship at Def Jam Records whereas nonetheless in his teenagers. Shuttling between school courses and Def Jam’s downtown workplace, García soaked up the music trade and met a Columbia University student-DJ named Adrian “Stretch Armstrong” Bartos. The two bonded over their shared love of underground hip-hop and shortly cooked up an concept that will change each of their lives—and the lives of numerous up-and-coming rappers.
On Thursday nights from 1990 to 1998, a small school radio station in Upper Manhattan grew to become the epicenter of hip-hop innovation. That station was WKCR 89.9 FM at Columbia, house to “The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show.” As co-host, García, then in his early 20s, introduced an nearly missionary zeal to the airwaves. “We just exposed a lot of great talent that people didn’t know about,” he says of the present’s philosophy. It was a crude, late-night broadcast with crackling microphones and unpredictable company, but it surely grew to become “a gold mine of hip-hop history.” Each week, Stretch and Bobbito spun obscure B-side information and invited unsigned rappers as much as the studio to freestyle. Many of these hungry younger MCs would later turn out to be superstars: Nas, Biggie Smalls (The Notorious B.I.G.), Jay-Z, Big Pun, DMX, the Fugees, and Wu-Tang Clan all handed by means of the WKCR studio as unknowns. “Mobb Deep came in when they were Poetical Prophets … Big Pun was just Big Dog Punisher… they were all on equal planes,” García recollects. In hindsight, the roster is staggering. In 1998, The Source journal dubbed Stretch & Bobbito “the best hip-hop radio show of all time.”
Decades later, the legacy of Stretch & Bobbito was cemented within the 2015 documentary Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Liveswhich García himself directed. And in 2023, the duo obtained one of many trade’s highest honors: induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame. For García—a younger Latino child who as soon as stood on 104th and Broadway fantasizing about having his personal radio present—it was a full-circle triumph. “I’m still saying the same thing I was saying in the ’90s: I’m trying to expose the unexposed.”
Even whereas Bobbito was making waves on the air, he was additionally quietly revolutionizing a distinct nook of tradition: sneakers. Long earlier than sneaker amassing grew to become a billion-dollar international market, García was dwelling and respiratory the life-style. In 1990, he printed an essay in The Source titled “Confessions of a Sneaker Addict,” well known because the first-ever article on sneaker tradition. In doing so, García successfully invented the style of sneaker journalism. “I’m not a sneaker collector. I’m a historian, a documenter, an ambassador of the culture,” he says.
García’s sneaker evangelism hit its peak in 2003, when he printed the e-book Where’d You Get Those? NYC’s Sneaker Culture: 1960–1987. Part historical past, half memoir, the e-book was meticulously researched, with entries on almost 400 classic sneakers and tales from the fanatics who coveted them. It was in contrast to something the sneaker world had seen; Paper journal hailed it as “the definitive book on the rise of sneaker fanaticism.” Over 20 years later, Where’d You Get Those? is thought to be an important textual content for sneaker lovers, not too long ago reissued in a particular anniversary version. García didn’t cease there. In 2005, he took sneaker tradition to tv, internet hosting ESPN’s It’s the Shoesthe first-ever TV present devoted to sneakers. Each episode, he interviewed celebrities about their kicks and broke down the tales behind iconic shoe designs. “[ESPN] knew what I had done. They wanted that authentic name attached,” García says of being tapped for the present.
Years earlier than my very own YouTube sneaker unboxings or Complex’s Sneaker Shopping sequenceBobbito was the face of sneaker media, trailblazing on behalf of a tradition he helped create. From writing columns for Complex to consulting on sneaker displays, García’s fingerprints are on each a part of sneaker journalism’s basis. It’s no exaggeration to say that many people who write about kicks right now are descendants of his imaginative and prescient. He is the progenitor of sneaker journalism—and that’s “unequivocal, not debatable,” he says with a quiet confidence.
If hip-hop and sneakers kind two pillars of Bobbito’s legacy, the third pillar is basketball—not the sanitized NBA model, however the uncooked, soulful sport performed on metropolis courts. García typically describes himself firstly as a “basketball dude.” He was a scrappy 5’10” level guard who realized a childhood dream in 1987 by taking part in professionally in Puerto Rico, his household’s homeland. Back in New York, he grew to become a fixture within the streetball scene by means of the ’90s and 2000s, each as a participant and because the voice on the mic. In the early ’90s, in the event you attended an underground Nike streetball event or the primary Nike Battlegrounds one-on-one competitors, you probably heard Bobbito’s voice on the loudspeaker, hyping up the group. His high-energy, bilingual commentary (switching between English and Spanish with ease) and deep data of the sport made him a sought-after host for hoops occasions worldwide. He even lent his voice and character to basic video video games—most famously because the animated announcer in EA Sports’ NBA Street Vol. 2a task followers nonetheless rejoice right now.
García’s creativity can’t be contained to 1 medium. Over the years he has spun his passions into movie, literature, and even music manufacturing. After his radio heyday, García pivoted to filmmaking to doc the cultures he liked from a contemporary angle. The Stretch & Bobbito documentary whetted his urge for food for cinema. Three years later, he launched Rock Rubber 45s (2018), an autobiographical documentary whose title itself nods to basketballs (“rock”), sneakers (“rubber”), and vinyl information (“45s”). In it, García opened up about being sexually abused as a toddler, a revelation that shocked audiences used to his upbeat persona. “I haven’t done anything in my career to just tickle curiosity,” García says. “If it’s an opportunity for people to heal, then it’s worth it.”
And now comes maybe his most anticipated work: Bobbito’s Book of B-Ball Bong Bong! (Edge of Sports/Akashic Books), launched July 1, 2025. Subtitled A Memoir of Sports, Style, and Soulthis memoir is the fruits of García’s journey, weaving his private historical past with cultural commentary. “It’s truly like a three-part memoir,” he tells me, hinting that the e-book threads collectively his tales from basketball courts, sneaker hunts, and DJ cubicles. For García, the e-book is an opportunity to replicate on a unprecedented life. “I really hope that the book opens up a new door, just the same way I just did the Sneaks movie,” he says, referencing one more new enterprise.
García gives a personality’s voice (appropriately, based mostly on himself) in an animated function movie known as Sneaksa sneaker-themed journey starring the voices of Anthony Mackie, Martin Lawrence, and Laurence Fishburne. For a child from the playgrounds, seeing his identify in lights subsequent to A-list stars is a surreal milestone. It’s additionally symbolic: Even after constructing legendary careers in different fields, Bobbito continues to be pushing into new inventive territory.
Despite all of the accolades and adventures, lately García’s most demanding position has been a non-public one: Dad. Five years in the past, García stepped again from the journey and nightlife grind to deal with household. “My whole surroundings have changed drastically, bro,” he says with a chuckle. “I’m a full-time caregiver, the primary caretaker of our child. ”He speaks proudly of being “home every day,” watching his baby develop. Fatherhood has not dimmed his creativity—if something, it’s refocused it. Ever the innovator, Bobbito started channeling his experiences into new artwork. His youngsters’s e-book Aim High, Little Giant was one product of this period. His memoir Bong Bong! was largely written throughout late nights at house. And he’s continued to drop content material for his loyal fanbase by means of Patreon and social media, underneath his enduring nickname @KoolBobLove.
When I ask García how he stays impressed with out the fixed suggestions of stay occasions, he leans towards the digital camera and spreads his arms animatedly. “I’m just figuring out ways to be creative and still impress upon people and inspire them in ways I couldn’t have imagined prior,” he says, with ardour in his voice. “There’s a lot of other people I passed the torch to … I don’t need to be the backbone of [sneaker culture],” he notes, completely satisfied to see youthful aficionados thrive. The similar goes for hip-hop—he cheers on the brand new “indie hip-hop people” doing work he says he couldn’t do right now as a 58-year-old. Rather than clinging to previous glory, Bobbito is gracefully stepping apart in some arenas, whilst he breaks floor in others. The steadiness of humility and hustle is hanging: He’s fast to credit score others, but in addition unafraid to acknowledge his affect.
Before we log off, I ask García what retains him motivated in spite of everything these years. He pauses, maybe deciding if he ought to drop yet one more jewel of knowledge or hold it mild. Ever the thinker, he opts for the previous. “The through line is exposing the unexposed,” he says thoughtfully, returning to the mantra that has guided him because the ’90s. “No matter what culture, what community, that’s what I do … I just hope that affinity comes back my way.” At that second, I spotted that Bobbito García’s story is not only about private reinvention—it’s about group. It’s about lifting others up and staying true to the love that sparked all of this: love for music, for the sport, for the artwork, for the folks. As we are saying our goodbyes, García’s phrases grasp within the air: “I’m still here.” Indeed he’s—and we’re all the higher for it.