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<\/a><\/p>\nYou might know Rucker from his creation and curation of the hot Vintage Design Market<\/a> in the old stables of the Crane Arts Building (and featured in this month\u2019s Philly mag<\/a>). Maybe you\u2019ve seen his work in the auditorium of the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Or the exhibition of his collages<\/a> currently on view at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n Way back, he spent his youth roaming free on playgrounds, playing sports \u201csun up to sundown,\u201d he says. He attended Bethune-Cookman HBCU in Daytona Beach, FL, then headed back to Philly, where he got his start designing posters for free, 600-plus-person cookouts in his old neighborhood.<\/p>\n \u201cMy creative journey was molding and designing the flyers for those events,\u201d he says. A friend helped him learn Photoshop to collage photos from Ebony, Essence and especially Jet, the magazines he loved \u2014 for ads that didn\u2019t just invite everyone to a party; they were works of art of themselves.<\/p>\n The reactions he got to these first creations made Shaheed realize that 1. They worked, and 2. Young people didn\u2019t know about magazines that were foundational to the culture. He felt pulled, he says, to use his art, \u201cto bridge the gap between the youth and that vintage design.\u201d Inspired by iconic collage artist Romare Bearden, he also made art that doubled as authentic branding, marketing and interior design elements.<\/p>\n For two years Shaheed lived in Atlanta and created work he called \u201cJet Reimagined\u201d for restaurants. When he came back to Philly, he got into something else: Turning the vacant Crane Arts stables into a pop-up market where his \u201cvintage friends\u201d could vend their vintage furnishings, clothing, design, and jewelry, first for the holidays, then, when it caught on, year-round. (I\u2019ve sold some of my personal collection there.) He also took a call from his friend Mike Wilson, a curator at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, who wanted to \u201cbrighten up\u201d the artless auditorium there, and installed work in that space.<\/p>\n Shaheed is driven to create, and inspired by his connections. \u201cWhenever I see the opportunity to highlight other people, from the city or just my friends, I\u2019m gonna do that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Last year, when the NFL Draft was in Pittsburgh, he got the idea to feature the story about me in Time magazine in 2003, along with jerseys from my collection, from when I made Mitchell & Ness a global brand. That idea of Shaheed\u2019s is a work in progress. But it\u2019s also a labor of love.<\/p>\n West Philly born and raised with a slosh of Brooklyn,\u00a0Big Rube<\/b><\/a>\u00a0partnered with Mitchell & Ness in 2000 to help make it a global brand marketing and selling high-end throwback jerseys. He has been photographing Philly since 2009, including in a Daily News Column from 2011 to 2017. He\u2019s also a chef, preparing to open his own space in 2026.<\/p>\n