(A longer version of the song features Lil Uzi Vert and Frank Ocean as well.) The song, whose title refers to the Belgian fashion designer Raf Simons, seems ideally designed to demonstrate how tightly certain prominent strands of contemporary rap have woven themselves into the world of high fashion. Late this July, a music video was released for the A$AP Mob track, “RAF,” featuring A$AP Rocky, his affiliate Playboi Carti, and the Migos’ Quavo. Rap had come a long way from Run-D.M.C.’s black Lee jeans and laceless (because jail regulations prohibit shoelaces) Adidas sneaks it was beginning to enter into speaking terms with a world of high fashion, centered in Western Europe, that had until recently been inaccessible, unimaginable, and above all unaffordable. And there was the Clipse: Norfolk, Virginia’s, dynamic duo of Malice and Pusha T laid down a barrage of designer labels on their seminal We Got It 4 Cheap mixtapes in 20. You can trace the transition in terms of fashion as well: though Cam’ron made pink a thing briefly, more momentous changes took place in Atlanta, where Gucci Mane, the most influential artist for multiple A-Town generations, literally named himself after an Italian luxury brand, and in Chicago, where Kanye West transformed backpacks and polo shirts into acceptable and even desirable apparel while making time to brag (even as early as 2007’s Graduation) about wearing Hermès furs. But it’s generally agreed that from the mid-aughts on, rap’s center of gravity shifted away from New York and closer to the South and midwest. It would be a stretch to say that New York rap has fallen on tough times since the ‘90s and early ‘00s: The city is simply too large to be feeble. Clothing became more intimately linked with rappers than ever: Clarks Wallabees shoes became synonymous with Wu-Tang, Puff and his Bad Boy crew’s brightest moment in the spotlight was memorialized by the shiny suits they wore, and Timberland boots became shorthand for an entire genre of hard-core rap from Queens and Brooklyn: “It don’t make sense, going to heaven with the goody-goodies / Dressed in white, I like black Timbs and black hoodies,” Biggie spat on “Suicidal Thoughts.” For him as for others, fashion preferences amounted to a spiritual orientation: The dark rugged clothes reflected a grim unyielding vision of sin and retribution. With rap now a confirmed and growing commercial force, rappers could afford to found their own fashion brands: Wu-Tang Clan’s Wu-Wear ( resurrected recently) led the charge, followed not long after by Jay-Z’s RocaWear and Puff Daddy’s Sean John. Run-D.M.C.’s minimal yet distinctive look would set a standard for the generation of New York artists who made their names in the ’90s.
Adidas sneakers were already the footwear of choice for Run, D.M.C., and Jam Master Jay, but after the song’s success, Adidas would be paying them to wear new sneakers, not the other way around. Just as Run-D.M.C.’s 1986 triple-platinum album Raising Hell confirmed to a skeptical music industry that rap was both potentially profitable and far more than a fad, its standout third track “My Adidas” at once pioneered the use of rap as a fashion advertisement and paved the way for the first endorsement deal between rap and clothing designers.
80S HIP HOP FASHION CODE
Within the space of a decade, a sartorial code no less intricate and elegant than the luxury houses of Paris had evolved to the scale where, allied with street poetry, it could make its presence known and commercially viable on a national stage. Tight budgets failed to inhibit the growth of a dashing sense of style: Thrown back on their own resources, kids and young adults in the Bronx, Queens, Harlem, Brooklyn, and Staten Island competed relentlessly to see who could dress most distinctively. Though the youthful black and brown New Yorkers who developed rap in the ‘70s and ‘80s weren’t well-off financially, their purchase of clothes was every bit as important to them as the priceless words they fashioned. Fashion has always been essential to hip-hop culture.