Can a pair of Kanye's kicks turn your luck around?

EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP - Charred and soggy shoes sit in a pile on the back deck of Dante Holley's home in South Jersey, the left-behind debris of a sneakerhead who was down on his luck.

There's jewelry scattered around the yard, too, and lots of wet, muddy clothes, and something wild is scampering in the soffits, because last year fire burned out the roof.

Holley, 20, feels blessed and looks upbeat though, even in the shadow of his condemned family home in Atlantic County. He's certain the prized pair of sneakers he's cradling like preemies in his arms were a sign from above - or a sign at least from Kanye West - and Holley's not going to squander them.

"I was sitting on the couch with my girlfriend, complaining about how I couldn't pay bills and I'm like 'man, this is the worst. I need a sign. I really need a sign,'" Holley said Friday in his former backyard. "Next thing I know, I hear 'bing, bing, bing, bing' and my phone is just going off."

Back on Feb. 9, Holley - a college student, aspiring hip hop artist and teacher at a child care center in Pleasantville - had correctly tweeted the title of Mr. West's latest release, "The Life of Pablo," based on West's clue of "T.L.O.P."

"I think that was God," Holley said. "For everything to happen to me like this in such a short amount of time, it's too crazy."

About 30 other people guessed correctly in the world and got their own rare pair of Adidas Yeezy Boost 350s, Holley said. Representatives from Adidas did not return requests for comment.

Despite the mounting bills, Holley doesn't believe the divine plan includes him selling his "pirate black" size 11.5 Yeezys for up to $2,000, which is his estimate for what the Kanye kicks could go for.

Instead, Holley's trying to organize a 5K race on the Atlantic City boardwalk to raise awareness about the violence that has surrounded high-end sneakers.

The dream, he said, is for all the racers to wear their nicest shoes, to take them out of the plastic bins and get them dirty for a good cause. That day he will don the Yeezys.

"It would send a message that these are just material things, that lives aren't worth losing over sneakers."

Sneaker violence is a real thing, Holley says. "Sneakerhedz," a documentary about shoe life released last year, estimated that 1,200 people die per year over rare and pricey kicks.

Families of victims have called out celebrities, like Michael Jordan, asking them to curb the marketing hype and contrived scarcity over certain shoes.

No one's tried to nab Holley's signature pair of Adidas yet, but he's noticed strangers want to warm themselves by his newfound shoe heat.

"I don't try to get caught up in that anymore," he said, "because people sometimes are just out to get you for the wrong reasons."

He was invited to Madison Square Garden for the debut of "The Life of Pablo" and Kanye West's Yeezy fashion line. Holley spent a weekend up driving around the city in 1999 Ford Escort, trying to squeeze in all the networking he could for when his own album drops. His story was featured on TMZ.com, BBC Newsbeat and MTV.com.

Music, Holley said, helped pulled him through a depression when his father died. He was just 14 when it happened and his mom bought him an iMac to get started.

The electrical fire melted his equipment and burned up all his Supra sneakers, but no one was hurt and he's made that fodder for his work. He can't help but feel the blessing of the man the Atlantic called "American Mozart."

"We just started making the album as soon as my house burned down," Holley said. "We were staying at a Days Inn and we just had the grittiest studio sessions. It's realer."

narkj@phillynews.com
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