ASICS and JD take a morning stroll with Marseille’s rap trailblazers

Marseille has been the city du jour for a hot minute. A melting pot of cuisines and scenes, marrying inner-city grit with coastal beauty, it lays claim to the cinematic calanques (TikTok-friendly limestone coves), brutalist architecture (concrete-heads, visit Le Corbusier’s La Cité Radieuse) and a healthy offering of subcultures. There are scooter-riding cliques, daredevil cliff divers, football ultras and neatly tracksuited kids blasting, well, Marseille-type beats. In short, the southern enclave is a hotbed for unvarnished creative energy.

And like Milan, Manchester and Mumbai, it’s capitalising on a fresh appreciation for second cities – especially ones beginning with ​“M”. Paris might be chicer, but Marseille edges it on clout right now. It’s why, last summer, it became the port of call for almost every artsy Londoner under the sun, ready to follow in Anthony Bourdain’s footsteps and fall head over heels for the city’s mélange of Arabic, Corsican and North African culture. Indeed, you could barely walk a mile without seeing half of the E5 postcode last August.

No wonder, then, that ASICS and JD touched down in the Mediterranean port to air an exclusive GEL-SEKIRAN campaign, taking the new, archival rework – a blend of noughties and teenies references – from kerb to cove in a bid to spark creative inspiration. The project features three rappers at the forefront of Marseille’s rap (and streetwear) movement: Benny, a Parc Kalliste king; JMK$, from the school of Summum Klan; and Steban, a poster boy for the Plan d’Aou district. Together, they form Dirty South Family (DSF).

Capturing the city’s unique aesthetic, the story embodies the meaning behind the ASICS acronym: anima sana in corpore sano, which – if you skipped Latin – translates to ​“a sound mind in a sound body”. With this motto, the Japanese label prescribes movement as an effective way to escape creative stasis. After all, sometimes, it’s best to slow down. Marseille can give you sensory overload, but a stroll along the shore or a climb to the top of the city is often enough to cancel out too much pastis the night before.

Handily, the GEL-SEKIRAN is built with rugged terrain like Marseille’s in mind, combining feather-light foams and the iconic, squidgy GEL inserts. The springy soles are perfect for nonchalant daytime meanders or nocturnal adventures. Evolved from ASICS’ historical silhouettes, such as the GEL-NIMBUS 13, GEL-CUMULUS 12 – core influences for the upper – and the techier GEL-CUMULUS 17, the design delivers on more than just aesthetics.

Style wise, the kicks are at home on Marseille’s streets, a city that’s been in sports mode for yonks – think sleek footie training kits, svelte running caps and plenty of sea-blue accents. Comprising monochrome variants and some icy, gradient colourways (black and waterfall or white and lapis), the only-at-JD designs distill Med-facing cool.

It’s fitting that Benny, JMK$ and Steban – also living embodiments of the city – have adopted the silhouette. Marseille courses through their veins, apparent in their trap productions, the hyper-local slang that peppers their lyrics and their overarching élan. It’s a unique vibe you’ll recognise the next time you’re strolling through Marseille’s pulsing streets, ready to scale the limey rocks in your own GEL-SEKIRANs.