adidas' Blues-Heavy Handball Spezial Honors a Legend

Rhythm and blues, but make it a florid adidas sneaker. That's more or less the story brief for adidas' delightfully disharmonious, blues-inspired Handball Spezial sneaker.

The overlap between folk music and sneaker culture is small but present and adidas just made the most of it.

Of course, adidas doesn't really have its own in-house blues department. Instead, the Three Stripes looked to your musical GOAT's GOAT to kick things off.

At 90, esteemed blues guitarist Buddy Guy has worn many hats across various artistic mediums. Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys? Been there. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction? Done that.

Now, the genre-pioneering musician is adding sneaker muse to his infinite list of accomplishments. In collaboration with Sneaker Politics, adidas is releasing a tri-colorway polka-dot Handball Spezial. And as you'd expect, the "Rhythm & Blues" sneaker is one groovy shoe.

Black-and-white polka dots cover most of the upper, while the eyelets repeat red-and-white coloring, opposite the blue-and-white toe detailing. Clashing prints aren't exactly the epitome of stylistic safety; in fact, quite the opposite, but somehow this shoe lands as one of the cleanest offerings we've seen from the Spezial's neck of the woods in a while. That's largely because these dots sit atop a shoe whose legacy predates the ebbs and flows of modern sneaker trends.

In a way, this mirrors the way blues predates many of the music trends it laid the blueprint for today.

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