Edson Sabajo Is Adcn’S President Of The Year In 2022
The goal of the President is to inspire the Dutch creative community with an annual theme – a vision of where creativity is heading and what it can achieve. Edson Sabajo will execute his vision in four acts; publishing an essay to introduce his theme, hosting a creative event, an open competition for the special Presidents’ Award, and conducting a Masterclass. 
Community, Creativity and Patta Patta’s slogan, “Out of Love and Necessity Rather Than Profit and Novelty”, was the disruption brought to market when Edson Sabajo and his creative business partner, Guillaume 'Gee' Schmidt, opened the streetwear brand’s doors in 2004. With his community fully behind him, the Patta store soon became the beating heart of a creative youth culture in Amsterdam. Where friendships and connections – from the early days of working as a DJ in the cities hiphop scene – turned into creative collaborations with brands like ASICS, adidas, Converse, Nike, New Balance and Reebok, as well as social visionaries like Surinamese resistance hero Anton de Kom, and Emory Douglas, creator of the Black Panther Party’s visual identity. In 2021 alone Patta conducted 29 creative collaborations, each immersed in heartfelt relationships and born from like-minded visions – out of love and necessity rather than profit and novelty. 
A Hiphop Frame of Mind Hiphop is intertwined in everything Edson Sabajo creates. More than just the music framing its foundations, hiphop is an attitude that respects ingenuity, self-reliance and a fearlessness towards new ways of knowing, being and learning. Kinship, community, merging different worlds and refusing to be pigeonholed are only some of the culture’s attributes, where creativity is key. Raised at a time when wearing sneakers to clubs was forbidden and hiphop was far from mainstream – Sabajo used the mentality as a tool to meet the right people, relate to the outside world and eventually bring his many layered visions to life. 
Community, Creativity and Patta Patta’s slogan, “Out of Love and Necessity Rather Than Profit and Novelty”, was the disruption brought to market when Edson Sabajo and his creative business partner, Guillaume 'Gee' Schmidt, opened the streetwear brand’s doors in 2004. With his community fully behind him, the Patta store soon became the beating heart of a creative youth culture in Amsterdam. Where friendships and connections – from the early days of working as a DJ in the cities hiphop scene – turned into creative collaborations with brands like ASICS, adidas, Converse, Nike, New Balance and Reebok, as well as social visionaries like Surinamese resistance hero Anton de Kom, and Emory Douglas, creator of the Black Panther Party’s visual identity. In 2021 alone Patta conducted 29 creative collaborations, each immersed in heartfelt relationships and born from like-minded visions – out of love and necessity rather than profit and novelty. A Hiphop Frame of Mind Hiphop is intertwined in everything Edson Sabajo creates. More than just the music framing its foundations, hiphop is an attitude that respects ingenuity, self-reliance and a fearlessness towards new ways of knowing, being and learning. Kinship, community, merging different worlds and refusing to be pigeonholed are only some of the culture’s attributes, where creativity is key. Raised at a time when wearing sneakers to clubs was forbidden and hiphop was far from mainstream – Sabajo used the mentality as a tool to meet the right people, relate to the outside world and eventually bring his many layered visions to life.
