His popular Fresno brand is now a new company. You may already know the work
Last week, Sam Hansen announced he was stepping back from FTK, the hip-hop, street-wear and vintage clothing store in Fresno he’s run off and on since the early 2000s.
FTK (or, For the Kids) changed its name to Starchild Archives and is now being run by Brandi Williams, an ex-Fresnan who has a vintage boutique in Cape Cod, Mass.
The change is meant to distinguish the store from the larger FTK brand, which Hansen will continue to use for events and promotions work under the moniker FTK Construction.
”The biggest pet peeve I’ve always had with branding and marketing companies in central California is that there aren’t any that have dope marketing and branding themselves,” Hansen says.
“That’s about to change.”
Hansen made that announcement in a series of social media posts on July 7, a date wrestling fans will recognize as the 25th anniversary of the New World Order’s hostile takeover of the WCW. The NWO played a huge part in the growth of professional wrestling in the mid- to late-1990s, and FTK Construction sees itself as the NWO of marketing and promotions in the Central Valley, Hansen says.
In one video, Hansen is joined by Mike Osegueda and Julio Lopez, both of whom will be collaborators in the venture. Osegueda runs the food truck gatherings Fresno Street Eats and Lopez helped create the DJ collective Teezzy Radio.
FTK Construction has been a long time coming, says Oseugueda, who has worked a decade-plus with Hansen. The two are responsible for creating Fresno’s Taco Truck Throwdown, which celebrates its 10th year Oct. 23.
“He’s already done so many things for so many people,” Oseugueda says.
“But he would do things because he just liked people or liked the ideas.”
Hansen did T-shirt design work for Kanye West, back when he was just a super-talented rapper from Chicago, and also branded Nickle Nickle Nine (or 559) as a Fresno thing. It’s since been bootlegged, but Hansen sees that as a sign of success.
He also created a series of pop-up events paying homage to Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. and hosted the Art of the 40, where artists paint on bottles of 40-ounce liquor, and Positive Hennergy, a tribute to the French cognac Hennessy.
He may be best known for his time with the Fresno Grizzles, helping make the team’s marketing and promotions department a powerhouse that earned national attention for events and merchandising.
Having a firm, with clients, gets “Sam’s fingerprints on more cool events around the city,” and that is a net positive, Osegueda says. Some of those events will no doubt be connected with Fresno Street Eats.
FTK Construction’s current client list includes places that Hansen has done work with before — the Fresno Grizzlies, Chicken Shack and Kocky’s Bar and Grill, among others. How that grows, or exactly what Hansen has planned next for FTK Construction, is anyone’s guess, Osegueda says.
“The genius of Sam is that none of us really know where’s Sam’s head is.”
This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 2:55 PM.