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In the late 1990s, pockets of hip-hop obsessed Canadian kids from suburbs like Surrey and Langley, British Columbia, set out to make themselves known. Removed from urban centres like Vancouver, they saw themselves as outcasts and took refuge in music, the streets, and their crews. These skaters, rappers, and graffiti artists—with alternate egos like Vision, Capital Q, KeepSix, Caspian, and a host of others—would eventually help found intertwined brands Ephin and Stompdown Killaz.

Stompdown Killaz (SDK) is likely the most recognized of the two entities and it looks after the graffiti and design side of the business. SDK was named by the filmmaker Capital Q. Capital Q, real name Quinn Leathem, is the brand’s co-founder, along with a handful of friends who hung out at Brookswood Skatepark in Langley. They started gaining a larger audience for their art, which you could find bombed across train cars and brick walls after Capital Q uploaded graffiti videos on their YouTube channel in 2005. The first videos were simple slide shows of their work, and eventually they produced everything from music videos to an online talk show called Get off the Couch. Their videos went on to gain hundreds of thousands of views worldwide. Their logo became the infamous Canadian flag-stamped ski mask with crossed baseball bats behind it.

Before SDK’s rise came Ephin, legally called Ephin Lifestyle Holdings Corp. Formally established in 2002 by Ryan Wiese, aka Vision, Ephin grew from a small t-shirt vendor in Surrey. Opened in 2004, the first Ephin shop at 162nd and 84th Street was 500 square feet; two shops later, today the current space is five times bigger than the first iteration. Around 2006, Ephin and SDK came together, giving the SDK brand a solid business backing. Ephin, which is majority co-owned by Capital Q and Vision, grew to manage branding for artists around the world.

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