“Richmond has your back… maybe.”
That about sums it up, doesn’t it?
It’s the slogan behind KCPFC, a new football-inspired project from Kwame Hayford, the guy behind Kwam’s Chicken Project, and Richmond designer Ignatius Friend. The collection blends soccer culture with fried chicken, which wasn’t something I expected to write about this week.
But I’ve always thought Kwam’s Chicken Project was about more than fried chicken.
Spend five minutes scrolling through the project’s Instagram and you’ll see what I mean. Sure, there are plenty of photos of crispy chicken. But mixed in are bike rides, vinyl nights, brewery pop-ups, funny Richmond posters, collaborations with local artists and now soccer jerseys. Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like a food page and started feeling like a snapshot of Richmond’s creative community.
Sure, the chicken is what gets people to show up. I’m certainly down. The food is really good. But if you’ve been around Richmond lately, you’ve probably seen Kwam everywhere. Brewery pop-ups. Backyard parties. Community events. Different crowds, different neighborhoods, same guy.
Now he’s teamed up with Friend on KCPFC, a football-inspired collection of jerseys, T-shirts, posters and stickers that taps into Richmond’s growing soccer culture. The timing couldn’t be better. Between packed World Cup watch parties this summer and Richmond somehow becoming one of the country’s biggest television markets for the tournament, it feels like the city is finally embracing the sport in a whole new way.
Photos courtesy of KCPFC
The project started when Hayford wanted some merch for Kwam’s Chicken Project and told Friend he could take the idea wherever he wanted.
Friend didn’t just design a T-shirt. He built an entire football club identity around Kwam’s Chicken Project, complete with a crest featuring the project’s signature rooster, home and away jerseys, and the line, “Richmond Has Your Back… Maybe.”
I had to ask about the “maybe.”
“I’m from Richmond, born and raised,” Friend said. “It’s a mid-sized city. I wouldn’t say it’s as tough as New York, but it has its own unique bristle to it. Sometimes it is tough, sometimes it’s easy. Maybe Richmond has your back. We’ll see what happens.”
I told him I couldn’t help but read it as a little bit of everything: sometimes the city government has your back, sometimes it doesn’t, and the same goes for your neighbors.
“It’s all included,” he said. “The side streets. The potholes.”
As it turns out, soccer wasn’t part of the original plan. Friend had already been sketching ideas when the World Cup started taking over Richmond. That’s when everything clicked.
“He said I could do anything I wanted,” Friend said. “I wanted to make something that was really personal to him. With the World Cup going on, I thought, ‘This is a great opportunity.'”
I asked the two of them why soccer feels like it’s having such a moment in Richmond right now. Friend doesn’t think it’s just soccer. “We just support our local sports in general,” he said. “Whether it’s the Kickers, the Ivy or the Squirrels, people are showing up. You’ll see people you haven’t seen in years standing in line for a beer at City Stadium. It’s really just a community.”
I asked if younger Richmonders were driving that energy. “Oh, for sure,” Friend said.
He pointed to the World Cup watch parties that have been popping up across the city. He found himself at Memi’s for Egypt’s first World Cup win, surrounded by fans celebrating together, then packed into Cochiloco for a Mexico match where, as he described it, the crowd was “a sea of green and red.”
“It was really cool just seeing different cultures and different people bringing that energy,” he said.
I couldn’t help but think about that whole “RVA > NYC” thing that’s been making the rounds on TikTok and Instagram. Whether people mean it literally or not almost doesn’t matter. It feels like younger Richmonders are looking at the city differently. Instead of waiting for a thing to happen somewhere else, they’re creating it here, then inviting everyone else to join in.
“I have a lot of friends in New York,” Kwam said. “I love going to New York, but I want some of them to come to me. We’ve got some cool shit here.”
The more we talked, the less this felt like a merch drop and more like an excuse to build something. They seemed a lot more excited talking about pickup soccer, Richmond’s futsal courts and figuring out another excuse to get people together. The shirts just happens to be how the conversation starts.
And that’s kind of how Kwam’s Chicken Project has always worked.
Hayford told me he never really started the pop-up to build a business. During the uncertainty of 2020, he just wanted something to do while working from home. The more people showed up, the more he kept doing it. Even now, he still talks about it more like a hobby than a brand. And istead of talking about himself, Hayford spent the next few minutes hyping up Friend and making sure he got the credit. “Iggy did a lot of this, and by a lot, I mean most of it,” Hayford said. “This man is a demon. He is him. He works hard.”
Hayford said he gave Friend a loose idea and let him run with it. “I said, ‘Do whatever you want. I just want some merch. That’d be cool,’” he said. “This guy gave me a whole portfolio. If you’re in Richmond and need somebody to design your stuff, hire this man. Real talk.”
For Hayford, that was part of the point. “If I can get my friends to do something cool that they like to do, and it helps them push their own boundaries, I’m down,” he said. “Let’s support everybody. Get everybody involved.”
That felt pretty telling on what kind of person Kwam is. For Hayford, the fun seems to come from giving people a reason to make something together.
Sometimes it’s fried chicken. This time it’s soccer.
Whatever comes next, I have a feeling it won’t be long before Kwam finds another excuse to bring people together.
If you’re curious what this looks like in real life, you’ll get a chance this weekend. KCPFC is hosting a World Cup Final watch party on this Sunday, July 19, at Väsen Brewing Co. (3331 W. Moore St.). Doors open at 1 pm with kickoff at 3 pm.
Follow along at KCPFC
All photos courtesy of KCPFC
Photos courtesy of KCPFC
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