KAI OKAFOR

Kai. Bolu here. I taught you to skate in the parking lot behind St. Saviour's Ebute Metta in 2020, the summer of lockdown, when there was, broadly, nothing else to do. You broke your wrist on day four. You did not, at any point, stop. We were back in the parking lot on the Saturday after the cast came off. You have, since then, never asked me for any advice about anything, which I respect, and I have, since then, watched you do everything you said you were going to do, which I respect even more. Eighteen, bro. The board is in the boot of my car. We're going on Sunday. — B.

Kai — Ife here, from UNILAG. I know we have not seen each other since you finished at GIS last summer, but I wanted to write something because I have been reading the Telegram channel since November and I am, sincerely, very impressed. We sat next to each other in maths in Year 10 for about six months and you talked, at length, about Pharrell. I did not, at the time, understand. I understand now. The piece you wrote on the channel last week about the Tiffany Air Force 1s and why they did not, in the end, mean what people wanted them to mean — that piece is the best thing I have read about a shoe. I am sending you the link to the editor at GQ Naija. Email her. She will say yes. Happy birthday. — Ife

KAI. EIGHTEEN. The Saturday in May we queued at Palms for five hours for the Dior x AJ1s and they had the wrong sizes — that was, in retrospect, the start of the channel. I have, since that day, queued with you at the Eko Hotel parking lot for: the Sean Wotherspoon Sambas (cooked), the Travis low 1s (raffle, lost), and the Aimé Leon Dore New Balance 860 v2s (the brown ones, you got mine and lent them to me for the November Lagos meet and I have not, to this day, returned them, and I will not). Happy eighteenth, bro. The 860s stay with me until October at minimum. — T

Kai — your cousin from Atlanta writing this from the bedroom at our place in Stone Mountain on a Wednesday afternoon. You came to stay with us in the summer of 2024 for six weeks and we drove you to the Lenox Square Supreme drop on a Thursday morning at 5am and you stood, by yourself, third in line, and got the box logo tee in the cream colour. You wore it every day for the rest of the trip. Mum threatened to put it in the wash. You said, very seriously, "Aunty, this tee does not, on any account, go in the wash." She did, eventually, wash it. You forgave her by August. Happy birthday, cuz. The tee is, by now, beige. — Adaeze