#DECODED BLOG CW29 2025

⛓️ DECODED: What just happened in culture & marketing? We got you — no scroll required.

🩶 Art Meets Plastic: Fashion's Boldest Collabs Just Dropped

Zara channels Accra. Diesel goes jelly. This summer, style is wearable, wild — and way more thoughtful than it looks.

Two drops. Two totally different worlds — but both pushing fashion beyond the obvious.

Zara just launched a capsule with Ghanaian artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, blending art and streetwear in a collection inspired by Accra. Think sun-washed tones, embroidered florals, and silhouettes that feel more painted than designed.

The collab brings Otis’ signature portraiture into the everyday — from T-shirts to bombers to clogs — all priced between €19 and €69. It’s a visual diary turned wardrobe.

Meanwhile, Diesel x Melissa is giving jelly shoes a grown-up reboot. The Brazilian brand known for gummy footwear teamed up with Diesel for a trio of fully recyclable Melflex styles: the Quantum Thong, Quantum Platform, and Quantum Sneaker. Bright, sculptural, and low-key futuristic, they’re playful and planet-friendly — perfect for city streets or sweaty dancefloors.

One thing’s clear: this season, fashion isn’t whispering — it’s flexing, loud and conscious.

🎧 Dont Tap the Glass, literally, Tyla Owns Berlin & Pajel Goes Viral for Good

From global stages to sweaty basements — this week, music was raw, real, and rooted in rhythm.

Tyler, The Creator doesn’t just drop music — he drops moments. With only five days’ notice and a single post he later locked on Instagram, he announced Don’t Tap The Glass, his ninth studio album. Then came the oversized Tyler figurine — gold chain, red hat, massive hands — sealed in a glass box inside the World Trade Center. The message? Loud and clear.

“I asked some friends why they don’t dance in public, and some said because of the fear of being filmed,” Tyler wrote. “I thought damn, a natural form of expression and a certain connection they have with music is now a ghost. It made me wonder how much of our human spirit got killed because of the fear of being a meme, all for having a good time.”

The album is short (28 mins), punchy, and built for movement — from R&B grooves to moshpit chaos. Big Poe (ft. Pharrell), Sugar On My Tongue, and the standout Don’t Tap That Glass / Tweakin’ prove Tyler isn’t aiming for cohesion — he’s chasing release. “No phones. No cameras. Just speakers and a sweatbox,” Tyler said after a private 30-person listening party in LA. “Everyone was dancing. Moving. Expressing. Sweating. It was truly beautiful.”

In Berlin, TYLA took over with a pre-release party for her upcoming #WEWANNAPARTY TAPE (out July 25) — and picked up a Gold plaque for Water, her breakout hit that's now been streamed nearly 80 million times in Germany and 1.5 billion globally. The event was peak Tyla: confetti, branded doughnuts, two new songs (Dynamite and Chanel) hidden on the drinks menu, and fans dancing to Afrobeats alongside her. She wrapped the night at an exclusive after-party hosted by close friends — still dancing.

Shindy kept things cool with the drop of his latest album: timeless beats, cinematic visuals, and self-assured swagger. No chaos, no rollout — just signature Shindy.

And Pajel had a viral moment after freestyling live on Daniel Slump’s stream — no hook, just raw bars and replay-worthy energy.

He’s also one of over 20 artists set to perform at Artists for Congo, Germany’s biggest benefit concert for the DRC, happening September 14 in Cologne.

🎟️ 100% of profits support COEUR, an education initiative by Welthungerhilfe. No fees, no egos — just purpose. Tickets: artistsforcongo.ticket.io

🌀 When Culture Crosses a Line: From Viral Fun to Public Reckonings

This week, culture reminded us how quickly things can flip — from playful to painful, from hype to harm.

Nicki Minaj’s High School pose is back — and TikTok is going vertical. The leggy moment from her 2013 video sparked the #HighSchoolPose challenge: fans recreating the shot in the wildest ways possible. Rooftops, shopping carts, scaffolding — nothing is off-limits. Nicki reposted her faves with the caption: “Y’all legs ain’t got insurance???”

But while the internet danced, the world also mourned. The Cosby Show star Malcolm-Jamal Warner died at 54 after a tragic swimming accident in Costa Rica. Known as Theo Huxtable, he was a defining face of ‘80s and ‘90s TV — funny, honest, deeply human. Angela Bassett called him “a special soul,” while Bill Cosby said: “I never stopped feeling like a father to him.”

And in Germany, the rap scene faced a reckoning. Rapper Yakary was officially dropped by his label Life is Pain after posting a series of Instagram Stories that quickly went viral — not for music, but for a serious violation.

He shared an explicit video, falsely claiming it showed model Janina, who had appeared months earlier in a provocative but fully consensual music video with him. The backlash was immediate — and once again, Janina became the target of massive online hate, simply because her name was attached.

After a public statement from PA Sports, head of Life is Pain, it’s now assumed the woman in the video wasn’t Janina at all — and the footage may even be fake. But that doesn’t undo the damage.

Let’s be clear: even if it wasn’t her, leaking or weaponizing intimate content is never acceptable. It’s a violation of privacy, dignity, and consent.

As head of the label, PA Sports made the only right move: Yakary is out.

And honestly, that was the bare minimum.