Original subtitles

# Let me love you

# Love you, love you

# Let me hold you

Are you ready?

Well, let me tell you something.

This homeboy, this homegirl,

on the spot.

Let me ask you something. What's your name?

- Dino. - Where you from?

Money-making Manhattan.

- And your name? - Rosemary.

- And where are you from? - Money-making Manhattan.

You all look kind of fresh. Tell me something

about your fashion. What are you wearing? What are these shoes?

These are a pair of Adidas with fat laces.

That's the way we sport them.

What do you call the fashion overall?

- Fresh. - Word. Word.

Let me ask you something. What about your fashion?

What about your look? How do you describe it?

I call it, you know, B-boy threads in a way.

I got a Kangol on. Pair of Cazals.

A pair of white-on-white Adidas with fat laces.

How do you rock your hat, man?

How do you rock it?

I sport it fresh, homes.

Word. Word.

# Party people

# Party people

# Can y'all get funky?

# Soul Sonic Force

# Can y'all get funky?

# The Zulu Nation

# Can y'all get funky?

# Yeah, just hit me

Being fresh is more important than having money.

The entire time I grew up, it was like--

I only wanted money so I could be fresh.

# Bambaataa's getting so funky, now hit me #

# Yeah, just hit me

Fashion is a whole other thing.

When you're young, there's, like,

a sense of wanting to express yourself,

an importance and individuality.

# It's a living dream

# Love, life, live

# Come play the game

# Our world is free

Hip-hop culture's not just about the music;

it's also about a lifestyle.

It's people who are free,

who are exploring their creativity

through a kind of free format

of words, rhyme, language, music, or visual style.

The hip-hop culture--

it had a boldness to it.

You wanted everybody to know

that you was down with this movement.

You know, fresh to death like a million bucks.

# Mr. Biggs, Pow Wow, and MC Globe #

# We emphasize the show

# We got ego

Come on. We were big dreamers.

All of us. Hip-hop was based on the dream

of getting it and coming up out the ghetto,

and the light at the end of the tunnel was always, you know,

the pot of gold,

the clothes, the fashion.

# Rock, rock to Planet Rock

# Don't stop

# Rock, rock to Planet Rock Don't stop #

Somebody said to me, "Your clothes are your wings."

So, you know, if you want to fly, you know, these dudes want to be fly.

So they gonna put on something nice, and why shouldn't they?

And by doing that with the style that the street guys have,

we--once we put it on,

it's a whole different story.

You know what I'm saying? We put on the clothes,

and we take it to the next level.

The animal kingdom and human being world,

it's--they parallel crazy,

and, you know, peacocks,

the way they flare up to attract their mate,

and certain animals, you know,

change up their whole appearance.

It's all about that flair,

that--what you look like.

How does it radiate off of you?

And certain African chiefs

were really ostentatious

or really, like, out there with their whole--their garb.

Like kings, and how they were painted

in Great Britain.

And look at the outfits they're wearing.

They looked like royalty. They looked like kings.

So wardrobe is-- it's always been a thing.

You know?

If you go through the history of African-American culture,

particularly in the 20th century,

style, fashion, clothes

were always a very prominent part of people's identity.

It allows one to sort of represent,

define their own presentation to the world,

so to speak.

Even for people who maybe didn't have money,

their own unique way of wearing something

came to be a way for people to be distinct,

to be identified in a crowd,

to stand out.

And I think over time, if you think about the role religion has played

in African-American culture,

going to church-- the opportunity to dress up--

it was expected that one would be dressed a certain way.

That you would, you know, look your best.

# I want Jesus

# To walk with me

The term "Sunday best"

came from a time in slavery

when, in order for slave owners

to be considered good Christians,

they had to make sure that their slaves

had at least one good outfit

so that they would go to church on Sunday

even though most of them were practicing other

African indigenous religions.

# I need you, Jesus

Certainly, you did put your best on

when you went to church on Sunday morning.

When you got to church, you saw fashion

merging with the music,

because the gospel choir

was always the thing to watch.

# Oh, Jesus

# Mary's baby

This is a very important factor

of how you see style

in the religious environment of the church.

# With Moses Down in the land of Egypt #

If you talk about African-American culture, music especially--

jazz, blues, hip-hop, any sort of genre of music--

R&B--

there's always a unique clothing style.

A unique approach to fashion that goes with that.

In terms of how hip-hop and urban hip-hop

and fashion and music have fused together to be a cultural influence,

I think one has to look back

and start with someone like Little Richard.

# Gonna tell Aunt Mary

# 'Bout Uncle John

# He claims he has the music

# But he has a lot of fun

# Oh, baby

# Yes, baby

Little Richard, to me, was an extravagant,

outlandish black version of Liberace

without the sequins.

Little Richard was, and is still,

an iconic symbol of freedom.

# Yes, baby

# Whoo

Music can make you feel free,

and watching a performer,

and what he says in his lyrics,

can make you feel free

and give you a sense of your freedom.

Considering all that African-Americans

have experienced

in American society over time,

in spite of that,

you know, this sense that if you look good, you feel good,

is something that I think speaks to why fashion and style

has been so significant over the course of time.

This is the Bronx in New York.

1 1/2 million people live in this borough,

equal to the population of Houston or Washington

or San Diego.

It's the home of the New York Yankees,

the Bronx Zoo, and the Grand Concourse.

It has also become the arson capital of the world.

# A rat done bit my sister Nell #

# With Whitey on the moon

# Her face and arms began to swell #

# And Whitey's on the moon

# I can't pay no doctor bills

# But Whitey's on the moon

# Ten years from now I'll be paying still #

# While Whitey's on the moon

The streets are where everything happens.

It's where you can go and stake out a piece of who you are.

In the '70s in the South Bronx,

everything was burning.

I particularly lived in a building

where I was the only tenant--

my parents were the only tenants--

in a building that held 50 apartments.

We had no heat, we had no hot water,

there were killings up the ying-yang.

Police brutality was worse than it is now.

That's where gangs began.

They tried to take over one of my division,

but they didn't quite make it and we killed two of their guys.

They tried to burn down my...

We go, man, and we rumble, we fight--

whatever we do, our boys that, you know, get hurt, whatever,

we pick them up and we keep going,

and that's it.

When we get home, man,

whatever colors we've got or whatever,

you know, we just take them, we throw them up on the pole,

and see which one of their members

is bad enough to climb up there to try to get them.

It was extremely important on how you dressed.

So you must, at all times,

have black jeans--

at the time they were Lees--

and motorcycle jackets

and, on top of the motorcycle jackets

were denim jackets--

cut sleeves is what they called them.

Our conquered enemies.

Those are our conquered enemies right there.

Enchantres Bronx, Royal Javelins, and Latin Eagles.

The art of customizing--

hip-hop, for the most part, got that from the so-called gangs,

or street families, without a doubt.

I actually cut each of these letters out myself,

put it on, and you have, of course, what's--

these are top and bottom rockers

and a center patch.

And all these conchos and doodads that I put on,

these laces and these beads,

this mink fur is all added on,

and this was the classic outlaw look

back then for the street gangs.

This is handmade.

- He made this himself. - Yes.

There are stitches here with cowhide that he made.

The patches-- you sew them on yourselves.

Yeah.

This all began with that movie,

Easy Rider.

A lot of people won't admit it, but it is the truth.

You know, people saw that--

that gave you the sense of, "Outlaw, hmm."

Most of the guys here are dressed like warriors.

Uh-huh.

And I hear you talking about your warlords

and your war council.

Who's the enemy?

The establishment.

Right on. There it is.

The enemy around the Bronx now

at this very moment is the policemen.

Yes, this is a warrior thing.

Yes, it is, and we're here to defend our brothers and sisters

against people like them. They're very racist, man.

If you're gonna communicate, communicate, man.

And if you're gonna strike at us, we're gonna strike back.

When the Bronx was burning,

gangs were rumbling.

I mean rumbling hard.

One of the guys from the Ghetto Brothers

who was a peacemaker

named Black Benjy,

he went out there to make peace,

and another club-- a member of another club

jumped out and said, "Peace my ass.

Peace shit." And hit him with a bat,

and then they just continued to hit him until they killed him.

Cornell Benjamin, also known in the streets as Black Benjy,

was ambassador for the Ghetto Brothers.

He was beaten to death when he tried to intervene

between two other gangs.

Instead of retaliating,

the Ghetto Brothers convened a peace meeting

of all the gangs in the South Bronx

at the boy's club on Hoe Avenue.

Even though we had colors, we were a gang,

we'd never look for trouble, man.

I could understand if they beat up Benjy,

but killing him is another thing.

You took away one of our brothers' lives, man.

The thing is, we're not a gang anymore.

Peace!

- I'm ready. - Right on.

They made a truce,

and the truce worked for a while.

And so the whole mentality changed

along with the atmosphere.

Instead of the wars that we used to have,

you know, club to club,

it was, "I battle you."

People would battle with their mouth.

Right there on the spot, you had to spit.

# I'm the D

# On this here court

# Been nine years old

# Playin' this here sport

# AD the highest degree #

# I got a better jump shot than Rick Barry #

# Well, I'm the M Like all the pretty girls #

# I serve your monkey ass like Earl the Pearl #

# Grandmaster Cash

# Or GMC

# I'm gonna stick you on the board, man #

# Can't you see?

All these crews kept the fly style

of, like, putting the name of their crew

on their sweatshirt now.

You know, it wasn't on a Lee jacket.

But now they were more refined. They were clean.

Some of the beefs were now settled on the dance floor,

in the train yards, on the microphone,

on the turntables.

To hear the scratching, to hear the music,

and to dance--

a music that we had never heard of.

A music that described us--

described our struggle.

You couldn't help but have to conform,

for lack of a word,

to the trend that was coming.

Which was?

Rap.

I was in awe.

I lost my mind the first time I went to the Fever

to hear these rappers and to hear these battles

between Busy Bee and Kool Moe D,

Grandmaster Caz--

you know, up until that point,

you had to use your imagination

or whoever got the tape,

to kind of tell you how it was.

I remember back in the back park,

you had Melle Mel,

and you'd have KRS-One.

You had them just back there just jamming.

To me, it was just a natural party at the park.

We didn't really know hip-hop was getting that big.

You know, and even back then, it was all about fashion.

Even the outfits that Melle Mel would wear--

it was outrageous at that time,

but it was like, "Oh, he's a superstar."

"Oh," you know, "he's a rapper." So that's what they do.

You know, so he had a pass to wear all those crazy jackets and the cowboy boots.

# Well, I'm fresh

# 'Cause I'm the best and I get wild when I-- #

Back in the days, if you find any old Coldcrush flyers,

you will see that those cats used to dress up.

They would get suited for a lot of their events.

I mean, Armani suits, you know?

Gaiters and mink coats dripping to the floor.

However, though,

because of hip-hop being a new form of music

and something that the youth catered to,

basically everybody that was accustomed to wearing,

you know, suits onstage

just started, you know, dumbing it down

to just keeping it just straight B-boy.

The majority of hip-hop artists really just dressed B-boy style,

where you've got on the Lees

and you've got on your PUMAs

and a BVD tank top,

you know, with your Cazals and Kangols.

It was all part of the hip-hop fashion.

Hip-hop fashion was kind of derived through the music,

and it was kind of a "We're not gonna follow the rules"

mentality, both in rap music and in fashion.

- # Say ho - # Ho

- # Say ho, ho - # Ho, ho

- # Say ho, ho, ho - # Ho, ho, ho

# Now scream

# Two years ago A friend of mine #

I remember, in terms of making a statement

and just really influencing me,

seeing Run-DMC onstage.

# You got a big long Caddy

# Not like a Seville

# Written right on the side

# It reads "Dressed to Kill"

With their hats,

their shelltoes,

their leather pants,

and bottom line, you were always taught in school,

"dress for success" meant something else.

And here they were breaking all the rules and winning.

And I just remember that change in my life,

and the sense of,

"Everything I've been taught"--

was a farce to me from that point.

What we wear onstage is just what all the youth wear.

That's what, you know-- that's what all our fans wear.

So dressing this way lets them know,

"Oh, he's just like me."

Being in New York, where there's, you know,

so many people walking past each other on the street every day,

you get a chance to-- it's like a runway. You know what I mean?

All the streets were like runways

for different clothing brands.

There was always all sorts of different flavors in the hood.

There wasn't one definitive sort of style.

A guy from Brooklyn

would have on Clarks,

sharkskins,

Cazal glasses with no lens in it,

and a Kangol crease like I don't know what.

That was a Brooklyn cat.

He didn't have to say anything.

You knew he was from Brooklyn.

A guy from Harlem would have on, let's say, a velour sweat suit,

and whatever brand the sweat suit was from,

he would have the sneaker to match.

Same with the Bronx.

The Bronx was a mix of Harlem and Brooklyn together.

Queens-- Queens had their own flow too.

I used to go uptown to Apollo-- Amateur Night at the Apollo.

You could be in that venue and you would know,

"That person's from Harlem.

That person's from Queens."

You know, you would just know

by the way they were dressed.

And we were fresh.

We were dipped.

Just chilling, fresh-- fresh dipped.

No money.

No money in the pocket.

Might have had 50� between us.

The insecurity of not having anything--

it's the only time that you can showcase that you do.

Like, if you go home, you got roaches, and every--

ten people living in an apartment.

You know, the only way that you can kind of show

that you have anything

and feel some kind of a status

is, you know, what you have on your body.

What you have on your body is a reflection

of how you're economically doing.

You know, as a young man,

if you got fresh, crispy gear,

then you're getting money.

If you dirty, you're not getting money.

Everyone prefers to be clean.

Everyone prefers to have, you know,

different variations of clothing.

So it's just a status symbol based on insecurity.

Right now, we are standing on the iconic

Delancey and Orchard Street,

a historic location that many of us used to shop at

back in the 1970s.

As a documentary photographer way back then,

I actually started taking some of my very first photographs

right here on this block here.

It's interpreted around the world

as just being fly--

being unique, being special.

You know, for many, they just see it as a strong style.

What I see is pride and dignity.

Individually, they took great pride in the way they dressed

and the way they carried themselves.

I wanted the world to see

something unlike they were seeing before.

That despite people's condition,

they're still able to maintain a great degree of integrity,

and it's shown by people dress

and the pride they take in having clean sneakers on,

having fresh gear on that was color-coordinated.

That made individuals feel good,

and it helped to resonate

and inspire people globally

to even want to dress that way.

You couldn't get a discount anywhere

except on the Lower East Side.

This was like one big department store

but stretched down seven, eight blocks.

The one thing that they had

that they could show off to the world

was their clothing. So it was very important--

they may not have had the best apartment,

they may not have had the best car,

but they had the best clothing,

and it was very important to them,

because when they put that suit

or that leather jacket on,

or the mink jacket on, or whatever it was,

they were king.

For a lot of people

who, you know, may grow up in the projects

or whatever, they want to stand out.

You know? So they wear loud colors.

I think the colors in hip-hop

came from graffiti.

Whatever the cans of paint-- what colors were available

for painting, those became the cool colors.

You did your own thing. You know, you could

paint your own design on the back of your jean jacket.

You know, jean jackets were the first canvas for hip-hop.

What was really, really popular

was doing names on the side of your jeans,

and that's what I was doing a lot of.

People paid me to put their names

on the side of their jeans.

# Standing by the speaker

# Suddenly I had this

# Fever, was it me or either

# Summer madness

# 'Cause I just can't stand around #

# So I get closer

# And the closer I get

# The better it sound

# My mind starts to activate

# Rhymes collaborate

# 'Cause when I heard the beat I just had to make #

You know, I remember coming across a Black Beatmagazine

with LL Cool J on the cover,

and inside, there was an article

about his sweatshirt that he was wearing,

which was, like, an airbrushed portrait of himself, like, as a B-boy.

And it was painted by a guy named King Phade from the Shirt Kings.

This is the shirt here that gave the Shirt Kings notoriety.

When LL Cool J, who's a major, major, major star,

you know, wore this shirt in every photo shoot that you could imagine,

it took what we were doing in Southside Jamaica, Queens, all around the world.

It made the world notice who we were.

What Shirt Kings were about

were drawing things that we saw,

you know, in our community.

We basically remixed them.

We turned them into a joke,

because this became our reality.

You know.

So we put Mickey on crack.

When times are bad,

a lot of people tend to gravitate towards art.

Art takes your mind to another place.

You know. Shirt Kings--

it allowed me

to not become something else.

Shirt Kings and Dapper Dan

took your--whatever-- what we were thinking in our imaginations,

they put it into reality.

The belt that I'm wearing here, you know,

this style stuff Dapper Dan was putting together on your shoe,

Dapper Dan was putting together on your baseball cap.

You know, the LV was on your baseball cap,

on your pouch that hung from your neck.

You know, Dapper Dan would use that

where Louis Vuitton wouldn't.

People who could afford it were going to Dap

instead of Louis. You know what I'm saying?

You might walk into Louis Vuitton and be looked down at,

especially in the 1980s,

so you go up to Dap, you feel at home,

and he's gonna cater to your needs and take care of you.

I believe urban luxury fashion started with Dapper Dan

and people wanting to aspire

to wear these luxury brands.

They were unattainable at the time.

And he figured out a way to make it attainable.

What Dan did was basically do what we did with music.

You know, we sampled songs,

looped them, and made it our own.

He figured out a way to do it in clothing.

Hey, let me tell him a story. 30 years ago--

30 years ago, this whole block

was full of Bentleys, Rolls-Royces,

cars you never even heard of,

to come see this man,

because he was the first one

taking designer clothes--

Gucci, Louis Vuitton--

and making suits and stuff out of it.

Took the leather and did it--made pants.

Everybody coming to get $1,000 pants.

I couldn't believe it. I never bought a pair.

I couldn't afford no $1,000 pants.

But this is the first man that did this.

The only way for us to make it in this business,

which I realized early on,

was, when you got raw goods,

that raw goods-- if I have a roll of fabric,

that fabric is anything I want it to be.

Anything that a designer didn't have,

I would embellish it for them.

You know?

I blackenized it. You know?

I made it so that it'll look good on us.

I took it where they would never take it.

Louis Vuitton wasn't even making clothes like it at the time,

you know?

I didn't even realize the impact that it was having,

because I just wanted to serve my community.

I just wanted to serve the black--

I would be satisfied just with the neighborhood I was in.

You know what I mean? Getting the respect from them.

Back in the day, it was about high-end brands.

If it wasn't the actual high-end brand,

it was Dapper Dan.

I got the seats done--

the whole upholstery in the-- inside my car

done black and red Gucci.

I kind of had him make me a shearling once

with the extra-deep pockets,

just in case I needed to have guns in them--nah.

But that's what--you know, you could do those kind of things.

It cost 2 grand. I thought I was the man.

I was open 24 hours a day for eight years.

We might take a little three-hour break,

and for the rappers, I would have the gate down here,

so all they'd have to do is pull the--

rappers or the hustlers come through,

all they'd have to do is pull the gate up and roll in.

And my policy was to run to the gate.

Eric B. and Rakim,

Big Daddy Kane,

Biz Markie,

Salt-N-Pepa,

Guy, Teddy Riley--

Hey, Teddy, I ain't mad at you. I still got a check

for $700 that bounced.

What put the nail in the coffin is,

first they raided me.

Raided me broke. Part two was--

blank out anything I do on Yo! MTV,

and you know, Yo! MTV gave birth to the rap game.

You know? That was their coverage.

He should have came out with a Dapper Dan brand.

He definitely could have if he--

I think if he knew the business.

Dapper Dan was Tom Ford before Tom Ford.

He should have been hired instead of shut down.

He really should have been hired as a designer

for one of those elite clothes brands back then,

because he had the foresight to do back then

what they just started doing

maybe ten years, five years after him.

# My Adidas

# Walk through concert doors

# And roam all over coliseum floors #

# I stepped on stage at Live Aid #

# All the people gave and the poor got paid #

# And out of speakers I did speak #

# I wore my sneakers but I'm not a sneak #

# My Adidas touch the sand of a foreign land #

# With mic in hand I cold took command #

# My Adidas and D, close as can be #

# We make a mean team, my Adidas and me #

# We get around together We're down forever #

# And we won't be had when worn in bad weather #

# My Adidas

The most important thing was sneakers,

you know, because if you had some wack sneakers,

you just were--it was just a difficult time, you know.

A lot of stuff was always built off, you know, your shoe game.

That's what was important. You built your outfit off your shoe game.

This is what I like to call sneaker heaven.

I could wear a brand-new pair of sneakers every day

for 7 1/2 years. That's a fact.

When I was a kid, I asked my mother for a pair of sneakers one day,

She bought me a sneaker called the Mark 5.

Nobody alive knows what this shoe is.

It was a Mark 5, and I thought I was the shit.

Like, I thought I was the hottest guy in the world

because my name was on the shoe--

my name is Mark-- and I went back to the block,

and they laughed me off the block, 'cause it was like

a $10 favor shoe or one of them crazy shoes, and I got destroyed.

When it comes to getting fresh, when it comes to hip-hop,

when it comes to anything, man, getting fresh starts with your feet first.

I remember, I went to Catholic school,

so you had to wear shoes every day,

so me and my friend Zeke,

we would fake sprain ankles

so that we could wear one sneaker--

had the crutch and then wear one shoe,

just to show that we got the newest Jordans,

like, "Yeah, you see me--

you see I got that Jordan on."

Shoes that you could get killed for too.

There was one question you never wanted to hear

when somebody you didn't know rolled up on you,

and that was, "What's your size?"

They would go like this: "Yo, what size you wear?"

And if you were live, you would say, "Your size.

"Why?

"Yeah, your size.

Why you want to know?"

If you were live.

If you was a chump,

and a sucka,

you'd probably be quiet

and probably get punched in the face and get vicked.

They would vick you for your shoes

and, yeah, it wasn't a pretty sight.

I actually--I did get robbed on Simpson Street

one time, yeah.

I was just leaving the JewMan.

And these cats got the drop on me.

I don't know what I was thinking about

going up to the Bronx by myself.

I knew a kid up in the Bronx who was like,

"They'll sell these Air Force 1s that you don't see in Manhattan.

Let's go get those."

So we go up to JewMan,

cop the white and brown Air Force 1s.

After my mother gave me my allowance, begged my grandfather

for an extra 20 cash so I can go get the shoe down at JewMan

or whatever the case may be. It was always that for me. Always.

You always wanted to be seen, and you always wanted everybody to know

that you got that-- what we call swag now--

you got that flava back then,

or, you know, you're dipped, you're fresh, you're the one.

It was a competition just like everything else in the hood.

The way the whole fat lace shit started

was we used to take laces

that came with the shoe, like Pro-Keds or Converse,

stretch the shit out of them,

starch them with starch,

and iron them. It was a ritual.

It took, like, a half hour.

Right? To get your shit right.

And then the way you laced them in your shoes

was a whole different sort of science, you know?

The manufacturers, when they laced their laces,

they go the other way--

under and up.

Us, we go up and under.

And that's a very clear way to tell

who's hip, you know, in terms of, like, street flava on the hip-hop tip.

I've been on the cover of The Village Voice.

Five-page article based on sneakers.

I would say this shoe collection

is worth over $1/2 million.

# Here we go, yo Here we go, yo #

# So what, so what, so what's the scenario? #

# Here we go, yo Here we go, yo #

# So what, so what, so what's the scenario? #

- # Heyo, Bo knows this - # What?

- # And Bo knows that - # What?

# But Bo don't know jack 'cause Bo can't rap #

# Well, what do you know

# The Di-Dawg is first up to bat #

# No batteries included

In the late '80s,

growing up in New York,

you know, kids were into fashion, and hip-hop, obviously,

influenced everything that we did.

But, you know, at that point,

it basically meant getting different,

you know, designer labels,

like a Polo or something like that,

and wearing it in a particular way.

You wasn't just a regular black kid rocking Polo,

but we saw those things like New Balance, Members Only--

if there was a nigga in the hood rocking that,

it's 'cause he saw them rocking it

and then made it his own style

and brought it in the hood, and then other folks emulated that.

For us, that's kind of like a natural thing.

I remember, at the Taste of Chicago,

when I first saw Reggie Know

and he had, like, the all-over print Polo

with the camo pants, with the Wallys, with the fedora.

and, like, a Lazarus chain, a gold chain, gold fronts.

And I was still, like, sewing Izods on my shirt and stuff.

I remember just that moment moved me so much

and I just had to, like, get my fresh up to a whole nother level.

I realized at that point, we wasn't, you know--

I wasn't in a suburb in high school anymore.

When I was in school-- I went to Brown

and I had a stipend-- the first thing I would do

was go to Yves Saint Laurent. You know, I would, you know,

take my stipend money and go to Louis Vuitton

or Gucci.

You know, urban young people

are always attracted to or addicted to fashion

because it is expression

of aspiration,

because you grow up in a world

where fashion is so important,

and a lot of people who are in hip-hop

have aspirations,

and aspirational is, "Can you go into that store

and buy that brand?"

When you think of Versace,

Ralph Lauren,

it seems like it's far away--

it's a dream,

and somewhere where you would like to go.

And those people could care less about you--you know.

But it seems like if I can grab that and wear that,

like, I'm living a fantasy.

# The Polo Rican

# How Lo can you go?

# Thirstin Howl

# Exclusive Lo Island

# The Polo Rican

# How Lo can you go?

# Thirstin Howl

# Exclusive Lo Island

Lo Lifes originated from the Marcus Garvey Village

in Brownsville and St. Johns and Utica Place in Crown Heights, you know?

We're two separate boosting crews or getting-fly crews, you know,

that came together and created a big brotherhood, you know,

that influenced the world of fashion and hip-hop abroad.

A booster is somebody who goes to any store,

but in this case expensive stores,

and steals.

And then, you know, it might be a $600 jean,

and you can buy it for $100 from him.

Boosting is anybody who shoplifts.

We were robbing and stealing and all that--

even each other.

There were a lot of people where, you know,

rob your whole house, man, for everything you had,

and just the Polo. They're not taking anything else.

I remember taking the train--

we'd take the train to go rush B. Altman's--

34th Street.

Soon as the train doors open,

everybody rushing into the store,

racing to get the stuff.

People running into the street carrying all these clothes,

some clothes getting dropped,

and you see superheroes coming out of nowhere

trying to help, you know, and protect the store,

and then we'd run back to the train station

and run onto the train tracks and run to the next stop

to get away. You know?

I knew about Lo Lifes, but I didn't know to what extent,

and then I met Thirstin Howl III.

You know, he came out with all this stuff,

and it was all Polo,

and I was like, "This is crazy. Where did you get this?"

You know, "I didn't even know Polo made this."

It was an evolution of the fashion.

It transcended from the likes of the Benetton

and the Izod Lacoste.

We were really attracted to those things

before we were touching the Polo.

And the thing with the Polo was they didn't sell it

in no ghettos or your local, you know, stores in your neighborhood,

and you had to go to the high-end stores

on Fifth Avenue and all that,

so if you went and you got some of that stuff

and you came back in the hood, you was, like--you rich.

You know, we living in the projects, man.

I didn't even have furniture in my house, man,

but I had Polo everywhere, you know?

What you see is a classic case of low-life syndrome.

This is, right here, the big Lo symbol right here,

the big Polo, Ralph Lauren right here, you know what I'm saying?

Represent right here, another little symbol--pow!

Thank you, Ralph.

Thank you for that cream Polo sweatshirt

with the cream chenille letters across the front

that I wore in college,

shitting on everybody there

Thank you for allowing me to shit on so many people.

Thank you, Ralph.

We were like free promotions for him.

Tommy Hilfigers would show up in the hood,

and open up a trunk with, you know, clothes,

and hand them out to-- you know, it was like--

it was like the drug dealer, you know,

giving you a free hit.

And then you're like, "I want more."

And so you're looking for it and you're buying it, you know.

It was smart. You know, he knew what he was doing.

You know, they knew exactly what they were doing.

You know, they didn't pay Grand Puba,

who broke all the Helly hats in

and Hilfiger shit.

They didn't offer official endorsement deals

to any of these artists.

But, I mean, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren,

they made a lot of money off these guys.

Being a promotion walking around in the clubs,

we were influencing the rappers in the golden era

and, you know, them seeing us in the clubs,

50 guys wearing the same shirt--

when the rappers was doing-- they were copying it,

and they were doing it in their videos,

and then that was, you know, going around the world.

They were influencing the world through that.

# Ah, do me baby

# Ah, do me baby

# All right, stop what you're doing 'cause I'm about to ruin #

# The image and the style that you're used to #

# I look funny but yo, I'm making money, see #

# So yo, world, I hope you're ready for me #

# Now gather round I'm the new fool in town #

# And my sound's laid down by the Underground #

# I drink up all the Hennessey you got on your shelf #

# So just let me introduce myself #

With the explosion of hip-hop music in the 1990s,

hip-hop starts moving into becoming mainstream,

which means television,

through music videos, through music television.

We had Ralph McDaniels well before MTV

documenting our stories, bringing them into our home.

Every day after school at 3:30, that's what we watched,

and that's when we started seeing it,

and then we had concerts,

we had television shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

and In Living Color

that now started showing the looks

that were not just designer brands

that we were used to seeing on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,

but now we're seeing brands that we can relate to.

So there was a number of things that kind of catapulted this look

to become mainstream.

The music came and put a light on us,

where we'd been dressing in the hood.

But without hip-hop, there was no light looking in the hood

to see what the fuck you got on. You know what I'm saying?

Nobody was--"Yo, what these folks in the hood"--

nobody cared about that.

They only cared about that

by the time when it was here.

And what did that do?

That birthed the street wear culture.

I mean, the first time we started seeing

that urban really had some dollars behind it was through Cross Colours.

Here was a brand that was actually started in California

by a black fashion executive

who actually came out of the surf business

who realized that there was something going on,

'cause he would come to New York all the time

and go on the subway and visit Spike Lee's store in Brooklyn,

and he was seeing how young men were wearing their clothes.

I was doing business with a store

called Merry-Go-Round Enterprises.

I started talking to the buyers there

about who their customers were. Who they sold to.

It was mainly what the stores referred to as

an urban customer.

But for me, it was the African-American customer.

I rode the subways in New York

because at the time I felt rap music was coming from New York,

and that was a definite lifestyle and culture

at that time.

They were wearing, like, jeans

that were four or five sizes too big,

and I--"Oh, that's interesting."

They're using a belt to hold them on,

so I thought, well,

I could do something like that

that--where it was a baggy silhouette.

However, the waist was a waist

that would fit that person's body.

My medium was a large.

My 32 was a 36 silhouette

with a 32 waist for a bottom.

No one is really saying, you know,

"I'm designing for this customer,

"I'm designing for this market--

"I'm designing for street wear.

"I design from the ghetto

for the ghetto, for the street,"

and those were all the thoughts going through my head.

# Now this is a story all about how #

# My life got flipped, turned upside-down #

I hired a marketing guy at the time

by the name of David Stinnett,

and I said, "Hey, why don't you call up, you know,

"The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

"and, you know, see if they're interested

in wearing our clothes."

And I'll never forget--

he came back and said,

"Carl, you won't believe what's happened!

"They love your stuff!

"They were looking for something like this

"but didn't know it exists,

and they love it, they want more."

Two or three nights later,

there he was

on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

wearing our clothing.

Banks residence. Have a holly jolly Christmas.

My brother, you got a problem with my lights?

Why don't you come tell me that to my face, then?

Hey, we can do whatever you want to do.

It's your world, squirrel,

I'm just trying to get a nut.

And that was the beginning of it,

and the next thing,

In Living Colorcalled us--

"Oh, we saw your stuff."

And then, later, what I was told--

"Well, you changed the whole spec

of the young men's market."

You know, "Fitted silhouettes aren't working anymore."

So I think the industry began to change their specs

where, you know, everybody else started doing larger sizes.

'92--it was really '90, is when the baggy jeans started--

but '92 is when you know for sure it had impacted.

Everybody's pants were big.

I was probably about a freshman in college or so

when it was at its peak,

and this concept that there was a clothing brand

that united young people in thought,

as well as races,

was very intriguing for me.

The idea of offering clothes

that made you proud of your ethnicity...

Here was a time where women were really wearing

those same oversized clothes

just as much as the men were,

and I actually think of TLC

before I think of anyone else wearing Cross Colours,

let's say, and as being an influence

in wearing a men's brand.

No one really catered to the women

when it came to trying to dress us.

It was a male's game.

But I remember the first time I saw TLC wearing Cross Colours.

I was like, "Oh! Hmm!

Got my attention. Let me see."

Made me want to bring out more of the woman in me.

They really created a spark.

Like, "Wait a minute.

"I want to shine too.

I need some bright colors."

It became clothing for everyone.

It was celebrities loved it 'cause we embraced celebrities.

We embraced all the music artists.

And they--never was there any company that ever

reached out to artists and said, "Wear my clothing."

I think we were probably the first ones to do it.

So we were definitely onto something.

Cross Colours, within four years,

went from a zero to $100 million.

So the success of Cross Colours

then birthed a series of other entrepreneurs that decided,

"We want to create our own brands too."

So out of Cross Colours came this phenomenal group of individuals,

from Jeff Tweedy,

celebrity stylist June Ambrose,

Tony Shellman, who ended up going on

to launch several bands, from Mecca to Parish Nation,

April Walker,

and I can go on and on and on.

We wanted to get into the denim business,

and we did our research, and we found out that Guess and Girbaud

was manufactured in California.

So a friend of mine's, AZ, he found a factory

that was manufacturing Guess,

so he flew me out there,

and we stood outside the factory

till the workers got off of work,

and, you know, we didn't really know our Spanish that well,

so we was like, "Trabajo machina, mucho dinero."

So we kept saying it to a bunch of people.

They just kept walking away.

This one guy says,

"Oh, you want me to sew and you'll pay me more money?"

A Spanish guy, so he spoke English,

and he was--kind of was our linkage to everything.

He was a guy named Juan. So he put us up on the denim spots.

He showed us where to get the fabrics from,

and we just started moving and shaking.

So we took the New York hustle

and brought it to California.

We had a store on Crenshaw Boulevard.

Some entrepreneurs decided to come into our store

and rob our store at gunpoint,

and took all of our samples--

took everything we had.

And at that point, we had a choice

to either stay out here or go back to New York.

So one day, we went to the Palladium,

and Cross Colours was in the middle of a fashion show,

and I saw Carl Jones, and I asked him,

"You know, Carl, how do I get my stuff in department stores?

I want to really get my brand out there."

He was like, "If you come to my office tomorrow,

I'll be willing to talk to you."

I came to his office, and within the first 15 minutes,

he was just like, "You know, I heard about your stuff.

If you need some help, I'd be willing to help you out."

Two weeks later, we had a deal, and he invited me to become

partners with him in the business.

He was very selective in who he gave his clothes to.

He gave it to the Biggie Smalls. He gave it to the Tupacs.

He gave it to more sophisticated guys,

where Cross Colours was more TLC,

Snoop Dogg, and things of that nature.

So we sort of made sure that

they sort of had a different vision

and the branding was slightly different

in how we market the brand.

I did a Karl Kani ad,

and that was the coolest thing that you could be involved in.

Like, who was in the next Karl Kani ad?

And it just made the dream accessible.

It made me feel like, you know,

if he could do it, I could do it.

He had a sophisticated level.

He understood clothing,

he understood tailoring,

he understood quality,

and he wanted the best.

There was a lot of learning obstacles for us.

We were young-- I was 22 years old.

I didn't make a lot of money back then.

You know, we was kind of learning the ropes a little bit.

Stores were afraid of this culture.

They really were.

They really didn't want this customer in their store.

You know, these stores was highly traded,

you know, white suburban and very traditional.

For a long time, department stores were fighting it.

At the time, we were called the urban designers

or hip-hop designers.

They couldn't break into department stores.

It was Tommy Hilfiger,

Polo,

all the big names.

The music industry is, you know,

making those names big and bigger

by constantly talking about them.

But, you know, when we get our own brands,

we're not, you know, being let on the floor

to even--to compete with that.

It was very difficult when I was running Karl Kani to even--

for department stores to even look at our product.

Because they didn't know-- you know,

most department stores put a name to, you know, a product.

And at that time, it was men's sportswear

and men's traditional and men's suits,

and that was pretty much it.

So we came out with Karl Kani and Cross Colours,

they really didn't know how to identify it.

So what they did was, whoever wore the clothes,

Too Short or Snoop Dogg or anyone on the West Coast,

they considered it gang wear.

Then they toned it down and they called it street wear.

Then it became urban.

So imagine, you know, this buyer

who's never been to the streets in their life

all the sudden carrying a line that's considered gang wear.

And then you got to associate

what type of consumer demographics

was walking in that store.

You know, retailers would tell me,

"Your sweat suit is the same as Fila's sweat suit.

Why should I pay yours?"

I don't know if it was race

as much as not understanding

what we were doing,

and being into-- at the time, hip-hop period

the vibe was, "This is a fad.

It's not gonna last, from music to fashion."

I'd have black and white buyers say the kind of same thing.

They're like, you know, "Black people won't buy that,"

or, "White people won't buy that."

That's what they would say.

People perceive me as, like, a wigger.

I would get that a lot.

So it didn't surprise me

when the buy side had the same kind of apprehension.

When the buy side of building my business

was kind of like, "Hmm."

Little cynical, like, "Hmm."

They really didn't want this consumer in the store,

but they had to, 'cause the demand was there.

And Carl Jones and Karl Kani created the demand

that you had to carry my product.

Wear your Karl Kani.

We were the first brands to have our own shops

in Macy's next to Ralph Lauren

and Polo and Tommy Hilfiger

and Nautica.

Mr. Karl Kani.

Stores realized what the income of

and the outcome of this could have been and was,

so they took heed to it and put it and bought a lot of it.

1996, this was the start of the business making a transition

from being a mom and pop specialty store business

to being a department store business.

# It's yours

# Whose world is this?

# The world is yours

# The world is yours

# It's mine, it's mine, it's mine #

# Whose world is this?

# It's yours

# It's mine, it's mine, it's mine #

# Whose world is this?

# The world is yours

# The world is yours

# It's mine, it's mine, it's mine #

It was a crazy time.

It was like-- it was on fire.

Hip-hop was growing fast.

It was a movement going on-- fight the power.

Hip-hop was just exploding in every way and any way,

and so as far as the apparel was concerned,

it was kind of like there was no main focus.

It was just whoever had an apparel company

basically was part of the movement,

and they got to win.

It was crazy. It was crazy to be a part of it.

Yeah, Video Music Box Friday night street party.

your Uncle Ralph in the place. I'm out here in Las Vegas

at the MAGIC convention. It's the clothing convention.

MAGIC is where all the clothing stores and companies and all that come,

and they all, you know what I'm saying, come, the buyers come and cop,

and then they put it in a store near you, you know what I'm saying?

We went to this thing called the MAGIC show in Las Vegas.

We didn't have enough money to exhibit in the trade show,

or even walk into the trade show.

And we wrote $300,000 worth of orders

out of this little hotel room five miles away, away from the trade show.

We then come back-- we don't have any money.

We get turned down by 27 banks.

We go into my house, we take all the furniture we can,

we sell what we can.

The rest that we cannot sell, we burn in oil drums.

It takes about two weeks, because we wanted to get the furniture out of there,

and we move industrial sewing machines in there and we hire a staff.

We slept in sleeping bags next to those machines,

and for a year we would just crank FUBU out of the house,

and that started to populate the stores,

and the stores started to sell polar fleece and sweatshirts

in August in Texas.

And then people started to realize who we were.

FUBU was able to do

what Cross Colours didn't in terms of volume,

so while its predecessor at its max,

at its peak, did $100 million,

and that was in 1990,

less than seven years later,

you're talking about a brand that proved itself

at $350 million.

It went beyond just the local kids in the hood.

You know, the leaders in that that sort of really

naturally used the media

and used TV properly was FUBU.

I mean, although videos were being dominated by Karl Kani.

FUBU was clever enough to put a hat on LL in a Gap commercial--

changed everything.

Just changed everything.

LL was always somebody who made his own rules

and, because he felt that the Gap at the time

didn't really respect the culture or him,

he put FUBU in the Gap commercial.

# Once you hear the Gap calling #

# You can't resist the shopping #

# Big-ballin' non-stoppin' #

# Yes, y'all in jeans poppin' #

# In every mall and town and city G-A-P gritty #

# Ready to go for us By us on the low #

The Gap ended up spending $30 million on that commercial,

and it became basically a FUBU commercial.

'Pac used to wear my clothes all the time, even before I met him.

So I wanted to meet this dude, man, 'cause, you know, 'Pac was all over the place,

so AZ, again,

he set up a meeting.

So we go up to 'Pac's room. The whole time we're in there--

he didn't even look me in my face when I walked in the room.

He just said "What's up." He was typing a script to a movie.

As he's typing the script to the movie,

he's having a very intelligent conversation with me

about black culture, hip-hop,

things like that.

The only time he stopped typing

was when I asked him--

I said, "'Pac, so, like,

how much would you charge me to do an ad?"

He stopped.

He said, "Man, I ain't gonna charge you. You're black."

I charge my people for nothing.

And the man kept his word.

Two weeks later, we was in New York.

We did the photo shoot. He was all love.

And ever since then, we became tight.

And Tupac was one big reason

why I helped my brand at--nationally and globally.

They worship him like a god

overseas in Europe.

I've seen an influence of hip-hop fashion

all over the world.

In Japan and places in Europe--

all over Europe.

It's how they relate to the music.

They don't just listen to it; they embody it.

When you don't understand English,

what makes you go to buy an album?

The look, the fashion,

will transmit something

you can't explain.

I remember the pictures with the black suit

and leather.

The Kangol, the glasses,

and the Adidas.

When I was back in Italy,

like, you know, 15 years ago, 20 years ago,

I was one of the only kids, probably, in Italy

that was already listening to hip-hop music and rap music.

I was, like, you know, getting clothes,

and getting music from my friends

who had, like, the opportunity to go to New York and buy them

when it already was not yet popular in Europe.

And I always loved it, because that, again, is about freedom,

is about, you know, supporting the roots of the culture.

In the international market, the hip-hop culture's there.

There's demographic consumers there,

The clothes is there.

You cannot talking about hip-hop only in the U.S. anymore.

Hip-hop is not from the U.S. anymore.

It's come from Berlin. It's come from Tokyo.

It's come from Hong Kong. It's come from Paris.

It's come from everywhere.

It's only one world anymore.

One world for the money. One world for the music.

One world for the fashion.

Everybody got the same shit at the same time

everywhere in the world.

It's business.

So we don't talking about culture.

We don't talking about style. We don't talking about fashion.

We don't talking about music.

We're talking about marketing and timing.

If you are in the right timing

with the right marketing,

you're gonna do billion of dollar.

That's it.

I have an appointment with Russell Simmons.

Can you call him?

Okay, sure. It'll be one minute.

We currently represent maybe 40 artists.

They've all had some success.

Some more than others.

I think people, as they hear it more,

they understand it more and will appreciate it more.

A person that must be given a great deal of credit

is the man who was married to the fabulous model,

Kimora Lee Simmons,

Russell Simmons.

What Russell Simmons and Kimora Lee Simmons did

as a couple

was extraordinary.

Not only for the hip-hop culture

but for the fashion culture.

For the urban fashion culture.

What they created with their brand--

the Phat Farm product was amazing.

The music culture smartened up

with a guy named Russell Simmons.

Here he comes with Phat Farm.

And then the people that surround him

saying like, "Man, how much they made off of that?"

Then you have all these different things

that's a domino effect of,

you know, knowing what our culture want

and how much money is made.

When mainstream American culture discovered hip-hop,

they began trying to sort of, you know,

sell bits and pieces of it in any way they could.

And this is when you got all of these, you know,

fashion labels associated with rappers.

At Rocawear, I would try to show a lifestyle that people would buy into.

That's what I was ultimately trying to do. You know what I'm saying?

I was like, I don't want it to be looked at

as, "We're good for urban or black clothing."

I wanted to compete with everyone else

in the world.

Rocawear was around well before Sean John,

but it wasn't until we saw the numbers of Sean John

that I think Rocawear was able to benefit from that.

By the time Sean John came on the scene,

urban brands were starting to become a bit saturated

in the fashion market,

and I think Sean John really injected the industry

with a new pulse.

I think, for Sean John,

you know, my whole muse and motivation

was what I grew up seeing in the streets,

what I grew up seeing-- going internationally

and how they reacted to my style,

what I was just seeing in my communities,

and taking it and combining it also

to what I was seeing on the runways

from all over the world.

It was the embodiment of swagger,

you know what I'm saying?

When Sean first started doing fashion

and having fashion shows,

they were some of the most extraordinary moments

during Fashion Week.

Everybody always asks me

why I started designing clothes.

See, I basically just wanted to look good, man.

You know, to be perfectly honest,

I always just liked looking in the motherfucking mirror--

looking at myself and saying,

"Boy, goddamn, you look good."

With Sean John,

I didn't want to just make it a fashion brand;

I wanted to make it a lifestyle.

I wanted to make sure that we were able to go

from the block to the boardroom--

that if you had a job interview,

you were able to represent yourself the right way;

if you were going to church,

you were able to represent yourself the right way:

fresh from head to toe, you know?

And so we didn't take no prisoners.

If Ralph was doing it, Gucci was doing it,

Sean John was able to do it.

And we wanted to do it just as good as them

or even better.

At that time, we were up against brands like Mecca

and Phat Farm and Rocawear,

and we were more sophisticated.

Again, the quality was better,

it was toned down as far as the coloration,

the fit was different,

and the price was a little more higher.

He said, "Hey, guess what.

"I'ma do urban fashion, but I'm not gonna do urban fashion.

I'm gonna do high fashion in an urban space."

At its heart, Sean John was about aspiration.

And so he did this high-low thing

at such a big level

and turned it into this global brand.

He also won the CFDA award

for menswear, which was huge.

I remember being at the company,

and, like, realizing how big it was,

understanding that he was the first African-American

to win that award, and you're at--

you know, and he was a hip-hop artist

crossing over, winning, you know,

the most prestigious fashion award for the year.

Winning that award was bigger than Sean John.

It was bigger than me.

You know, when we won that award--

as I said, we won that award.

It--we all won it together.

He was able to show that a music brand

can make major volume sales.

Now we're starting to see three-digit sales

from a music-inspired line.

That just kind of opened the floodgates.

All of a sudden, it became a free-for-all

and there wasn't a celebrity, urban or not,

that didn't get in the business.

Well, basically the start of Wu Wear,

my expectation of it was nothing other than really

self-expression and stylization--

a stylization that was, you know,

there to accompany our music.

But I also wanted Wu-Tang

to be kind of like its own Polo or Tommy Hilfiger.

Outkast is like,

"I'm not gonna keep wearing everybody else's stuff

when I can have my own line."

That makes sense.

But then, if you don't pull together the right team,

that line is not gonna last.

And you know what? You might get real estate in that store

for 6 to 18 months,

but you're just taking away another designer's real estate

that's really real about it

and can give some good product.

You weren't gonna wear Shady.

You just were not.

I mean, there's nothing that made you think

that Shady was, you know, into fashion.

You know, as a consumer, you sort of just knew it was a--

it was a money play.

They put a million dollars

behind all these different brands

and because they had a hot song.

You're as hot as your music

when you're a musician

coming out with a clothing brand.

They're not really serious about this.

They're putting out T-shirts. They're putting out this.

You're as good as your brand, as your music is.

If your music starts going south,

so does the clothing.

The fashion industry is fickle.

It goes up and down just like the economy.

What happened? A number of factors.

You had an oversaturation of brands.

You had brands moving too fast

into doing the department store business.

When all the urban brands started to hit,

the same stores that used to buy 90% of our collection

started ordering 40% or 30% of our collection,

'cause now it's a floor space competition

for newer brands.

If you're a designer and you really want

to stay true to who you are,

but yet you have a vig that you have to pay

or a partner who has another agenda,

you're eventually gonna clash.

We had a partner.

Our partner probably had never seen it

go so fast and so big,

so he wanted to drive, at the time, all the time.

And we were just bumping heads constantly.

People would offer me deals and I was turning them down

because I'm like,

"At 3%, 4% of my company?

"You mean, you're gonna give me 4% of mine?

That sounds like slavery to me."

When somebody's paying for your dream,

it's not your dream anymore; it's their dream.

I didn't like the way it was made, and then I didn't like, really,

what the perspective of it was, who it was being catered to.

You know, I didn't like big logos all day.

You can't just say a hip-hop king

is gonna become the next Louis Vuitton house.

Louis Vuitton was there over 130 years ago,

some 100-odd years ago.

Ralph Lauren Polo doesn't disappear

when a particular style of clothing

is no longer popular.

So you're talking about, you know,

the difference between companies that were able

to establish themself in a society

when African-Americans were discriminated against,

economically, in business and such.

I mean, in order to have a--

I mean, Levi's been around, you know, for how long?

Forever, seemingly. Right, well, it would have been impossible

to have had an African-American label making jeans

as far back as Levi's in American society.

Unfortunately, they've not had the staying power.

Thanks to all our supporters out there too. One love.

Depending on the flavor of the day,

the mood of the month, you know, whatever we're into,

we wear it, we're proud to wear it,

but we put it in a different class of distinction

than other designs.

I think that has a lot to do

with a lot of deeper discussions

about self-esteem,

distinctions in class and race.

Brands are identifiers as to who we are

from head to toe.

And it's always like the grass is greener on the other side.

What do you know about this coat?

People getting rough with that coat.

Everybody wants that coat. It's an expensive coat.

I don't feel safe wearing it

'cause I feel like I might get attacked for what I have.

This coat right here?

rob people for these coats. They're expensive.

And the youth nowadays, like, around here,

like, in Harlem and the Bronx, Brooklyn--

a lot of, like, the main tough areas,

this is, like, a big fashion, these coats are.

A lot of people get robbed for them,

get killed for them.

Some kid just got shot-- where was he?

- Bryant Park. - On Bryant Park for that coat.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Joe Torres.

And I'm Sandra Bookman. Just a short time ago,

police charged 16-year-old Corey Dunton with attempted murder

for opening fire on the ice rink in Bryant Park.

Sources say it all started with a fight over a coat

and ended with two people shot,

including a 14-year-old boy

whose family fears he might never walk again.

If you know, you seen it, it's all over the news--

If I was to buy my son a coat that costs $600,

I'm gonna send him to school with a bulletproof vest.

Back in the days in our era,

you got beat up, your stuff got taken.

Nowadays, everybody results to this crazy thing.

Like, I watched kids get shot for jackets.

Like, you read about a kid getting shot for Jordans.

I mean, it's just crazy. It's--it's disturbing.

It's actually really, really disturbing.

The Air Jordan shoe frenzy started Friday morning--

people waiting in line to get their hands on the shoes.

In Georgia, four people arrested

as they tried to get a pair of shoes.

Five cops spraying everybody.

Efren Espinoza just spent $180 for the Air Jordans,

but now, all he has to show for the shoes

are cuts and bruises to his head and chest.

I got an abundance of shoes,

so when I see a kid get robbed for a pair of Jordans,

or shot for a pair of Jordans,

sometimes I sit back and look, and I'm like, "Damn."

By the time we hit the 2000s,

it was kind of like, "Wow," you know?

You got to watch the trends because of all the traffic

and all of the activity that was happening online.

Before, what our influences were

were confined to what was at our reach.

And now, with the expansion and the power of the Internet,

I have access to every fashion, look, brand

across the world,

so I can be whoever I want to be.

We're in a space where they're exchanging so many ideas

that I think that we're getting back into

individual looks.

It's no longer, you know, like,

it's either urban or it's, you know, like,

it's punk or it's this or that.

You know, it's not preppy-- it's prep--you know, like,

all that stuff, to me, doesn't mean anything now.

In hip-hop fashion right now,

people are taking way more risks.

They feel empowered with a lot more freedom.

It's almost like the more risks you take,

the more respect that you get.

Everybody wants to be recognized

and everybody wants to be noticed.

I think what really changed fashion, for real, for real,

to where a lot of things are okay, was that--

the world embracing homosexuality.

It's giving people that would never take the risk

in style and fashion--

it's giving them the green light now.

People were scared to just express themselves

out of fear of being called a name,

or being considered to be uncool in some way,

or not accepted, or--

or being, you know, bashed for a reason.

Certain people just assumed

because I like clothes, I was gay.

Now we've learned to just accept each other's cultures.

The new young guy,

he's wearing stuff that's out the box,

you know, that's off the block,

you know, that's stuff from across the pond.

He's wearing different-- different type of brands.

# I said, rockin', rollin' Swaggin' to the max #

# My bitch a fashion killer, she be busy poppin' tags #

# She got a lot of Prada, that Dolce and Gabanna #

To see everybody wearing

Rocawear, Sean John, and Phat Farm,

that, you know, became standard to me.

That was, like, normal

to the point where it was minimal.

I didn't want to do that.

It got to things like Prada and Gucci,

Ferragamo and Cavalli and Versace,

John Richmond, you know, Dolce and Gabanna--

those kind of brands.

You know, back when I was running Cross Colours and Karl Kani,

the artists were talking about Cross Colours and Karl Kani.

So I think it's what was being preached to that consumer

and that audience that loves their music.

So now it's at a point where it's about Versace

and it's about those high end brands.

# Versace, Versace, Medusa, head on me like I'm 'luminati #

# I know that you like it, Versace #

# My neck and my wrist is so sloppy #

I think fashion is cycling,

and everything comes back around.

We're at a period where we're trying to buy Gucci and MCM,

and that happened in the '80s, for me.

You know, I remember that period.

And that's where we're at right now.

Most urban people really don't want

things made by other urban people.

They want things made by things that they can't attain.

They want to buy into a dream just like everybody else does.

I think we, as a culture,

we aspire to buy the Gucci and the Louis

and Yves Saint Laurent

because that represents to us success.

While urban brands were for us, by us,

we were never always loyal to the brands that we followed.

There's always kind of this cache of,

"I'm gonna go back to the reliable brands

"that I'm always used to because, somehow,

"those brands have much more staying power.

"They represent a particular social class

"that I want to be at.

"They represent the ultimate and luxury.

"And the urban brands, they don't represent

the same lifestyle that I aspire to have."

Young people want--

they want power, they want status,

and they want wealth.

Hermes--you have a brand like that--

you walk in the store and you see, you know,

75-year-old women, you know, like,

buying scarves and tea cups

and saddles, you know, for horses.

It's a classic heritage house, you know?

That young, tastemaker, cool person

is buying into a heritage and legacy

that, you know-- that people aspire to.

Everything comes down to class.

The class conversation is bigger than the race conversation.

Show of class is like,

"I'm high-class."

And that's what those brands are--

Louis, Gucci, all that.

And that's part of the reason why

they're very skeptical about, you know,

working with musicians or rappers,

because we're considered to be lower class

than designers.

The organized industry of fashion

in, you know, America that I could speak to-- it suffers from a bad identity.

It wants to parrot what's happening in Europe. Right?

It has a self-loathing atmosphere,

where we're never as good as American designers

as the French or the, you know, the Europeans.

Why are we waiting for external approval

from this gatekeeper?

Like, fuck that.

The luxury brands love us.

I mean, all the ones that I talk to,

they love us.

They don't just walk up to me and talk to me about me.

I think I spend more time in folks who run fashion houses

and all the integral people there, like,

talking about, like, what they love about our industry

and the people they love.

Lately, a lot of people say, "Oh, yeah. "You have, like, you know--

"you have a lot of hip-hop and rap and R & B representative people

"that love you and support you. They always come to your show since many years."

For me, it's inspiring because, you know,

these kids, I mean, they're really experimental.

They all come out. And I like people that's experimental.

I like people that are taking risk.

We're not like the traditional designers

that's come through these doors.

We have never studied under a Ralph

or came out of Helmut Lang and did things like that.

Like, yeah, our last design job was at Sean John with Puffy.

So, I think, even when we started Public School,

automatically-- street wear brand.

You're in this box.

And we were always like, "No, we're--

"you know, we're trying to be--

"That's not what we're doing.

"Right? Like, it has nothing to do with Sean John.

We work there." Or things like that.

We've always, you know,

humbly tried not to say Sean John sometimes,

depending on who you're talking to.

Not being ashamed, but you also want to be taken seriously

in those fashion talks.

Yeah, but at the same time,

you know, we owe a lot to our time spent at Sean John.

Oh, for sure.

My brand is 100% influenced by hip-hop.

Me, as the next generation,

because of the doors that Russell, Puff, and Jay opened,

it's only my responsibility that I have to do

what I did in music--

it's got to be Ralph-level.

Mm.

Who's to say or give a definition

of what fashion is

or what category it should be in.

If it's great work, it's great work.

The freedom, like, and your mentality

sort of liberates everything,

because it's a mentality.

So if you feel free, then you're probably gonna

dress like you're free. If you dress like you're free,

then you're probably gonna be different than everybody else,

'cause it's untethered. It's not bound by popular,

or, like, trendy opinion.

And that's what freedom is,

is it's to be yourself.

Fashion is about authentic experiences.

So as long as there's authentic experiences

and people that are brave enough to have a point of view,

there'll be fashion. That's what being an artist is,

and that's what being a, you know, being a fashion icon is,

and having the ability to do something that no one else is doing.

If you do something that someone else is doing,

you're not fresh, you're not fly--you just copy.

What's fly is when someone comes in and does something

that no one else does or does it first.

To be fresh, to me, is, to be recognized--

you know, be recognized for your individual style,

or be recognized for whatever it is

that you're putting on display.

And when you are fresh and you are recognized,

and people notice,

and, you know-- even before they notice,

when you know it-- when you, right here, know it,

you feel like Superman.

# Early morning riser reefer chiefer #

# You pay the most, but me, I get it cheaper #

# Strong rapper reefer rapping in the big cohiba #

# I get so high I close my eyes and swear that I saw Jesus #

# I take another toke and goddamn I feel comatose #

# I double cup and that's what up in there I'm leaning for #

# I'm talking Any Given Sunday Willie Beamen, ho #

# My date say that I get too high, I might kill my brain #

# I tell her that she talk too much and she should get some rain #

# We used to fuck a lot but now you just fuss and complain #

# What a fuckin' shame Hit the door and hit the block #

# Avoid the walking dead the zombies still hunting rock #

# My days of wasting time slinging down #

Yo, check this out. I just got a call from my man.

My main dog Manny's in town.

When Manny comes to town, we got to take care of him.

He lost his luggage. We're gonna get Manny right for the night.

We'll go out to the club, we'll get Manny right.

So we set my boy up. Show you how I do my boy.

Oh, man. Manny. Manny.

Oh, this is gonna be tough.

Just got to do this, dude.

Dawg, I got you.

You know, Manny look like he had a long day.

so I'm a keep Manny nice and casual tonight.

You know what I'm saying? You look a little stressed out.

I'm a bright him up and brighten his day up a little bit like that,

Let me see what I can do with him.

There you go. There you go, Manny.

Got to keep him tight.

Make sure his head is nice and right.

He's just missing one thing-- hold on.

Right, so now, Manny's looking good.

Eyelashes is right.

Manny's out for the club tonight.

Me and Manny, we gonna go to Palladium,

go to House of Blues,

tour the city, go to Mr. Chow's.

That's what we do. Take care of my boy.

Me and Manny all night.

That's what it is.

My boy.

# Keep it cool, run the jewels, ain't no other way to run it #

# I want the rings and the chains, run the jewels #

# I want the watches and the bracelets, run the jewels #

# We at the table eating everybody's food #

# In vision of the change Snatching bend up for some move #

# Who want to run the summer with a jewel on us #

# Got your girlfriend hotter than a two summers #

# Everybody tough till they see them twos on 'em #

# Then they doing number twos in they True Religions #

# Lord, please, don't shoot, they be too religious #

# Truth is, we go vicious on them stool pigeons #

# Pistol pointed at they missus like I kill these bitches #

# We run the dues and we be talking #

# Picking, pay attention

# Run the jewels, we a bit odd, we bad news #

# You barely get a fat chance for slim odds #

# You barely get a short plank and long walks #

# Talk like a sawed-off

# The laws when I'm taught, nah #

# And our Kalashnikov spitting

# You always take the time to smell the rose #

# When it withered

# I'd say better luck tomorrow

# But the horror of your life is being mic or just beginning #