STORYTELLER BABA DIOP

Last season when I was coaching Storyteller Benji Yombi De Yombi there's was always a young kid on the bleachers. I recognized him, but couldn't wrap my head around from where I've seen him. After practices Benji and the kid were always sitting and talking, so I thought it was his younger brother. And that's where I knew him from.

"Is this lil Benji?" I asked him. "Nah this is my buddy...say hi to coach." So it wasn't that.

The young kid's name was Baba, and since then we always talk every time I meet him. His team practiced after us so I ran into him more or less every practice the whole season so we got to talk more and more. This young cat really loves hoop.

Since he was like 6'4" (and 6'6" today) and practiced with the Boys 2006 team, I thought he was 16. Then I see him during the Nationals hooping with Boys 2008 and having crazy sats. I mean, crazy. I laughed and asked Benji "yo did he snuck in there on a fake passport or whats the deal?" That's how I learned this young kid was special.

I remember one time after a practice, I asked my girlfriend where my son was, and she said "he's with Liban in the small gym."

"Liban? Who the fuck is Liban?"

"You know, the tall young guy who's always on the sidelines during your practices. Liban."

So, during last season the show "Snabba Cash" was released on Netflix. And Baba plays a character who's a baller in the hood getting recruited to run errands for some drug dealers. And his name on the show, is Liban. Maybe it was from TV? It wasn't.

Earlier this spring we met shortly in my studio for a shoot for the Rick & Morty MB.02 and he told me he was going to play the rest of the season in the States, in Tennessee. He was excited to go hoop and play in some AAU tournaments and said he was planning to stay his last year of Junior High, and hopefully stay for High School.

It's not that common but I'm glad Baba is doing something different, since he is different. In a good way of course.

The other day I realized where I saw him. Back in 2020 just before the Pandemic hit, we took part of a Sneaker Con in Stockholm. We had 100's of Storytellers trying to win soles from a Shooting contest, people were in there shooting all day for two days to win a pair of Jordans. Yesterday as I was googling for the name of Baba's character I stumbled upon a video from the event. And that's when I saw, that's Young Baba sitting and talking about his first pair of shoes. It jus took me damn near a year to get that sorted out.

I'm excited to see where Baba will go, cause he can go further than most young kids I've seen lately.

Check out Young Baba from the Sneaker Meet '19