From baggy jeans to “streetwear” to Street Etiquette. Jon Carmanica of The New York Times analyzes the evolution and advancement of “black style.” It’s an intellectually stimulating and most definitely interesting look at the way clothes define a culture.

“There’s more than one cool now for black people,” Mr. Gumbs said on a recent Tuesday at the Bergen Street studio, wearing a slight wisp of a goatee and dark glasses that sharpened his round face. “When we were growing up, it was just one kind of cool.”

That was hip-hop, with its hegemonic style. But the men of Street Etiquette and their peers practice a deliberate elision of hip-hop style (except in the site’s early days, when the two were still shaking free of their Air Jordans). They even eschew the prim eccentricity of an Andre 3000, or the cosmopolitan flamboyance of Kanye West.

Instead, this generation emphasizes the basics: great fabrics, aggressive tailoring, thoughtful accessorizing. It’s a return to style as a source of dignity, a theme that has run through generations of black American style, from Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance to the civil rights era to the mixed messages of the hip-hop era.

Read the full article HERE.

Image via NYTimes

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Jon Carmanica analyzes the state of the white rapper.

But now, white rappers are commonplace, if not ubiquitous or especially influential. And a recent crop of albums and mixtapes by white rappers shows a new strategy. Where in the past, the way to avoid ruffling feathers was to lay no claim to hip-hop’s center, now it’s by looking backward, studying up and making unimpeachable choices. Who can argue with the path already taken?

Read the full article HERE

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Jon Carmanica takes a close look into the life of hip-hop’s latest obsession Tyler, The Creator of Odd Future and Tyler actually likes him!

Read the full article HERE

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