Hip Hop’s Connections to Fashion, Basketball, and Media
The media and music industry have influenced changes within rap music, very much different from what was started from hip hop culture in the late ‘70s. Whether these influences have changed rap and hip hop for the best or worst is debatable, but I have found that the following extra-musical examples have allowed hip hop culture to live on in today’s society: fashion, sports, and media (movies and television).
Fashion and hip hop have gone hand in hand for years- from the early beginnings (with the rise of b-boying also came the rise of sportswear brands such as Nike, Reebok, and adidas) to today (rapper collaborations with streetwear brands). As we’ve discussed in class, stemming from an interest in the lives of those within the inner-cities, hip hop grew; As High Snobiety mentions in their article on “How Rappers Took Over the World of Fashion”:
“ As hip-hop became more visible, so too did the sartorial choices of its earliest influencers, most of whom maintained some visible link to the life they lived in the communities of the inner-city. Even today, the myriad of stylistic preferences that have come to define hip-hop culture have their origins in the disenfranchised communities that first birthed the genre.”
Nowadays we see artists like Kanye West, Tyler the Creator, and Rihanna with their own fashion labels- The question that these artists face nowadays is whether their involvement with these, often high end luxury brands, takes away the authenticity of their work and music. In writer Bakari Kitwana’s article on “Jay-Z: Hip-Hop and High Society”, he writes the following on “selling out”:
“‘We didn’t sell out. We brought the hood to the suburbs, Jay-Z tells me, explaining that he hasn’t acquiesced to the status quo. ‘Out of nothing we made something,’ he says repeating a phrase he’s incorporated into his lyrics on several occasions. Then, references his King of New York predecessor, the Notorious B.I.G., he adds, ‘We went from ashy to classy.’ It’s a fine line and raises two important questions. First, has hip-hop betrayed it’s ghetto origins as a voice for the voiceless? Second, has hip-hop’s arrival in mainstream culture changed what it means to be bourgeois?”
We see a similar example in the A$AP Mob song, RAF, where the group essentially “brags” about their ability to afford the luxury menswear Raf Simons. In a verse, Lil Uzi Vert raps:
“They be hatin', I feel out the vapors
Live in cul-de-sac, gon' get that lawn, ooh
Right with my neighbors
… Wait, that's the reason that they mad
'Cause Lil Uzi, yeah, he made it
Yeah, I wore that Raf 'fore I made it”
Another influencer is sports, more specifically basketball; From celebrity all-star games to name dropping basketball players in songs, there has always been a strong connection between the two. I believe that much like hip hop, basketball is something that rose to popularity beginning from the lives of those in the inner-city. In Biggie Smalls’ song, “Things Done Change”, he mentions:
“Because the streets is a short stop
Either you’re slinging crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot.”
In J. Cole’s “Immortal”, he raps:
“They tellin’ n****s, ‘sell dope, rap or go to the NBA,’ (in that order)
It’s that sort of thinkin’ that been keepin n****s chained”
At a press conference back in 2017, LeBron James talks about Kendrick’s album DAMN and how he could “relate to the lyrics… and the stories”.
We have also found that artists like Drake and Jay Z have a close connection to NBA teams (Jay Z had owned shares to the Brooklyn Nets).
The lyric site Genius also has a page dedicated to keeping track of every name-drop of basketball players that is made in a hip-hop song
The respect that basketball players and rappers have for each other is evident, with cases of athletes and hip hop artists often times supporting each other at games or at concerts. Hip hop and basketball are entwined in a relationship that is mutually beneficial allowing the other to benefit off of each other. I don’t believe that authenticity can be questioned with this influence- if anything, the two groups have celebrities that have come from the same origins, allowing each other to acknowledge their efforts in making it in each of their own individual fields. Game recognize game.
The final influencer is media, more specifically movies and television. As NYT mentions in their article “Rap Disrupted Music First. Now It’s TV and Film”:
“These projects underscore the music’s role as a social and political bellwether, and some even demand a dive into its hidden histories, like the involvement of women and the ways in which violence has shaped the music.”
From television shows like “Atlanta” and “The Get Down” and movies like “Moonlight” and “Black Panther”, hip hop is being represented and is having it’s story told. In “Atlanta”, today’s hip hop is incorporated into scenes, both diegetic and nondiegetic- to play up certain messages or stories in the series.
In the movie “Moonlight”, composer Nicholas Britell was inspired by “chopped and screwed” hip-hop- the use of technology to play with songs. On twitter, director Jenkins admits that he wrote the script to the chopped and screwed version of Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange. Jenkins speaks to how the chopped and screwed versions of hip hop bring out the “poetry and lyricism”, emphasizing the “yearning, loss, and yearning” of the songs.
By incorporating and using hip hop and rap as inspiration, I feel that movies and television reinforce the “authenticity” of the culture and music. They apply songs to moments that can be relatable to the hip hop experience and let their audience understand the music in a different context, or rather, a more easily understandable context. In my opinion, this influencer makes it so that hip hop is even more commodifiable, thus allowing messages of the culture to get out to a wider audience.