Hip hop goes Owens

[amen]

that points a bit back handed though, sure the 'fashion icon' angle can help with branding/marketing but there's a bit of a difference between platinum dub aston martins and 1200$ sneakers. a**p usually mentions in the media he's not really trying to be baller that's why he dawns the gold fronts because he could never afford platinum/diamonds lol. he claims he's trying to make 90's rap before all the $$ probably why some of the imagry like AKANYC's recent fits are being compared to him and NWA it's a bit darker and less blatantly luxurious. there is the hype beast crowd that tends to fanboy some rick and raf and will think all that shit is dope but aesthetically rocky seems to be playing with looks a bit beyond just the price tag, not that he's really succeeding but i do think he takes a genuine interest. he's also super stood up against homophobia citing people like jeremy scott as some of the coolest men he knows, ya it's not that big of a deal and it's jeremy scott so who cares, but atleast he's trying to get the urban community to be a little more open minded.

[Nomad_]

I wish this thread would just die.

i just can't

[several_girls]

I know, cause I live at the bottom. But, what do you mean - are you saying that mine was an implausible theory?

Hah. Here I am dancing around at the precipice; at least you've made a commitment. I think the theory is implausible insofar as you're not in the guy's brain, so how can you be sure? It's the same problem with hipster witch-hunting, eg: "That guy who listens to noise music doesn't really enjoy it, he just does it for the image." How can you know?

I also liked Penny Arcade's treatment of this problem as it appears in their community. They don't have "fake celebrities," they don't have hipsters, in the geek community the figure of inauthenticity is the "gamer girl" or "fake geek girl."

The important question for me isn't "Does A$ap truly appreciate beauty?" It's: "Why is this question important?"

As far as race, I will just note that access to information and culture is (surprise) not distributed evenly across the world. When poverty is raced, some groups of people will come into awareness of some kind of cultural artifact at a different time than others. So here I'm pre-empting anyone claiming they are a more legit Rick fan because they've been watching him since 2006, or that A$ap is only doing it for the sake of image because Rick is trendy right now.

[Faust]

By your rationale we should stop making reasonable assumptions and therefore stop making sense of the world, which is already hard enough. That I should also have to read Danielle Steel or watch Transformers before I can say that they are crap. That I should suck in culture like a vacuum instead of editing it in order to keep some semblance of sanity.

I guess we are just not made from the same clay. I couldn't give two fucks for all the rationalizing in the world about this simplistic sewage cultural backwater that A$AP and Kayne and whatnot are.

[H-R]

that points a bit back handed though, sure the 'fashion icon' angle can help with branding/marketing but there's a bit of a difference between platinum dub aston martins and 1200$ sneakers. a**p usually mentions in the media he's not really trying to be baller that's why he dawns the gold fronts because he could never afford platinum/diamonds lol. he claims he's trying to make 90's rap before all the $$ probably why some of the imagry like AKANYC's recent fits are being compared to him and NWA it's a bit darker and less blatantly luxurious. there is the hype beast crowd that tends to fanboy some rick and raf and will think all that shit is dope but aesthetically rocky seems to be playing with looks a bit beyond just the price tag, not that he's really succeeding but i do think he takes a genuine interest. he's also super stood up against homophobia citing people like jeremy scott as some of the coolest men he knows, ya it's not that big of a deal and it's jeremy scott so who cares, but atleast he's trying to get the urban community to be a little more open minded.

90's rap? He sounds more like lil wayne/gucci mane than method man/jeru/big. Only 15 year olds would buy that statement

[AKA*NYC]

90's rap? He sounds more like lil wayne/gucci mane than method man/jeru/big. Only 15 year olds would buy that statement

by "90's rap" he means an ethos not a sound: something less commercial and polished than contemporary pop rap.

[Faust]

by "90's rap" he means an ethos not a sound: something less commercial and polished than contemporary pop rap.

Do you think rap is in the same conundrum as any cultural/political movement that has achieved what it has fought for and then has become the victim of inertia?

[amen]

90's rap? He sounds more like lil wayne/gucci mane than method man/jeru/big. Only 15 year olds would buy that statement

not that he needed to mention it but he's mentioned he's not really doing nyc rap ( where meth, jeru, big are from) and is more channelling a houston sound circa early 1990's. referencing the likes of dj skrew the og of chopped/skrewd music hense all the slowed down vocals / beats and references to purple drank, trap etc all ealry 90's houston/memphis sound that guys like gucci mane and chief keef etc derive from too - lots of base and ti ti ti high hats. alot of dope shit was coming from the south in the 90's too wasnt all gza and mobb deep.

and like aka said ethos - theyre drinking 40's in the videos not champagne and referencing more of that ear in terms of over-all imagery.

[several_girls]

By your rationale we should stop making reasonable assumptions and therefore stop making sense of the world, which is already hard enough. That I should also have to read Danielle Steel or watch Transformers before I can say that they are crap. That I should suck in culture like a vacuum instead of editing it in order to keep some semblance of sanity.

I guess we are just not made from the same clay. I couldn't give two fucks for all the rationalizing in the world about this simplistic sewage cultural backwater that A$AP and Kayne and whatnot are.

Reductio ad absurdum.

My claim is limited to the figure of inauthenticity (as they appear in fashion, geekdom, music, etc). But I will take your argument seriously, because if it was not already apparent I love love love analytical/critical thinking.

In the first place, you are not actually making sense of the world by conducting a trial of intentions, you are distorting. Rather than let people speak for themselves, you deprive them of subjectivity. EG: "If I wanted your opinion I would give it to you!" My concession on this general topic is to the psychoanalytic tradition, which explains the limits of one's ability to speak for oneself. Nevertheless, denial of subjectivity is huge. There is such irony for someone who razes the intellectual diversity of the world, rebuilds it in their image, then wonders why the scene appears stagnant!

Second, your point about editing (or curating) is different than authenticity. The first concerns cultural products, the other concerns passing judgment on a person. I realize this argument is vulnerable to such points like "you can't separate art from artist", and then this argument will inevitably explode into a "what is art?" debate. However, you see the point, no? Both you and A$ap wear Rick, that is consuming culture. You have no problem with the clothes, you are taking issue with the person wearing them.

Third, it is still not clear to me why people find this phenomenon so explosive, important. There is something going on, but I only have an inkling, but no full explanations. Rick, Raf, Ann, all these worn and known by plenty of people for all sorts of reasons in the past, but when its inked into hip hop lyrics, some people's world starts to crumble? "There goes the neighborhood."

Last, I haven't listened to A$ap myself, but saying him and Kanye (or their music? you weren't clear) are a "simplistic sewage cultural backwater" belies ignorance. I grant that his persona mostly insufferable (some friends have compared him to Warhol), but his cultural output is prolific, idea-packed, dynamic. I'm not one of his mega-fans, but there is enough laudable content in Kanye's music for me to talk about it at length--as much as anyone else eg Luigi Nono.

[Faust]

I think you confused me with someone who cares about what celebrities wear. I was not the one to pass judgement - in order to pass judgement I'd have to care in the first place.

But, let's asssume I did. Let's also assume ASAP doesn't have a stylist who simply brings hims stuff from stores and says, this is cool, wear it. We can also assume that even though brands do pay rappers to drop their names, Rick and Raf don't.

You reacted to my initial comment that they wear this stuff because it's cool. Given their IMAGE, the thing I had to go by, I don't think this was an unreasonable assumption, an educated guess, actually. I am assuming that ASAP bears no relation to Rick's body of work because his body of work has an ethos that is very different from Rick's. (To give you a music analogy I have given before, I cannot see how privileged kids from wealthy suburbs could relate to Rage Against the Machine's music, yet a ton of them listened to it. Because it was cool.)

The same way when I see a Rick Owens jacket paired with a Chanel bag, and Tory Burch boots - the de riguer uniform of the Upper East Side women - I assume that they wear Rick because it's cool and not because they subscribe to Rick Owens's cultural vision and ethos (gothic, austere, monumental, sweeping, etc.). Is that a stretch on my part?

Say what you will, Rick has become a brand that straddles both sides of the market - the avant-garde (for lack of a better world) and the bourgeois. It is not his fault though that Anna Wintour loves him and it's not Raf's fault that Cathy Horyn loves him.

I have no problem with Rick's clothes because I can relate to Rick's worldview as expressed in his aesthetic. This is why I don't wear DSquared - I cannot relate to it.

So, we are back to the problem of authenticity. I never said that everyone must be authentic, I simply prefer those that are because I can find points of connection with them. I cannot like everything, nor do I want to like everything (thus my paragraph about editing).

Why this is so important and such a touchy issue has a simple answer - culture is a part of you and when your cultural choices are criticized, your whole being is criticized.

[amen]

is it possible to view the sz magazine pj harvey x ann demeulemeester ( i assume it has to do with ann) article online or do you have to purchase a copy? i am new here so not trying to be confrontational or sarcastic or sound dumb just genuinely curious about her relation to clothes ( assuming there is one.)

[Dane]

buy buy buy!

[avout]

[...]

The same way when I see a Rick Owens jacket paired with a Chanel bag, and Tory Burch boots - the de riguer uniform of the Upper East Side women - I assume that they wear Rick because it's cool and not because they subscribe to Rick Owens's cultural vision and ethos (gothic, austere, monumental, sweeping, etc.). Is that a stretch on my part?

[...]

I have no problem with Rick's clothes because I can relate to Rick's worldview as expressed in his aesthetic. This is why I don't wear DSquared - I cannot relate to it.

[...]

If that's not rhetorical, yes. I don't think a designers "vision" has to be adopted or rejected wholesale. Ultimately, the designer is making clothes and people are free to appropriate them as they want and see in them whatever they see. That's kind of what's fun in fashion.

Especially with Rick, I just can't see him losing any sleep over who's subscribing or not to his aesthetic. He himself often throws out multiple interpretations for his clothing, and almost always tentatively, with a lot of room for interpretation.

As was said at the beginning of this (surprisingly long) thread, plenty of Rick's influences have come from hip-hop and "the street", so in a way rappers can relate to that more than most of us on SZ. You described his vision as monumental and sweeping, which I think are themes that a lot of rappers absolutely relate to.

Bottom line, several_girls is right that we can't tell whether A**P and other rappers "relate" to this stuff beyond thinking it's just "cool". I think there's some good reason to think that they might. And if they don't, what's the problem? Clothing is meant to be worn and appropriated.

[laika]

I
I assume that they wear Rick because it's cool and not because they subscribe to Rick Owens's cultural vision and ethos (gothic, austere, monumental, sweeping, etc.). Is that a stretch on my part?

What about campy, decadent, street, etc.? Surely at least as much of the vision/ethos as those qualities that you mentioned?

I think a lot of women wear Rick because he provides easy and comfortable basics....it's less about cool (whatever we mean by that) and more about flattering and appropriate to the moment. Those leather jackets and draped cardigans have become classics in their own right, so it doesn't surprise me to hear of them paired with a Chanel bag.

[Fuuma]

What about campy, decadent, street, etc.? Surely at least as much of the vision/ethos as those qualities that you mentioned?

I think a lot of women wear Rick because he provides easy and comfortable basics....it's less about cool (whatever we mean by that) and more about flattering and appropriate to the moment. Those leather jackets and draped cardigans have become classics in their own right, so it doesn't surprise me to hear of them paired with a Chanel bag.

White middle class creative professionals can relate to drop crotch pants in a much more meaningful way than any rapper ever could.