EP2: Rhythm & Muse

Monica: I sent a picture to Boz and it angered me so much and it still does. It was a picture of Offset and he was in a Balenciaga leather jacket and he had really oversized pants on, and a durag. And I said, look at this shit, this is the shit we did in the nineties when people would go, “Um, I really don’t wanna dress them because their image is not what we, you know, it’s not, you know, people are intimidated and it’s not the image that we wanna build on. We don’t wanna be associated.” They wanna to see lyrics. Okay. So 20 years later because it says Balenciaga on the same God damn baggy jeans and that same durag now it’s all right. But when we was doing it, getting a durag and getting a long t-shirt from 145th in Harlem, people were intimidated, but now it’s okay because Balenciaga has their name on it. I mean, good for Balenciaga, no disrespect to them, but why did it take a brand to make it OK when we were doing that shit first? Stuff like that, damn how come we can’t get the credit? How come it’s only cool when someone else does it? 

Kimberly: That’s Monica Morrow. Monica is a wardrobe stylist and costume designer. She’s worked alongside her friend Boz Bradshaw for many years.

Boz: I’m Boz. I’m just her right hand.

Monica: He does the same shit. 

Boz: I do the same shit. (both laugh)

Monica: So we’ve been working together about 20 years.

Kimberly: Monica and Boz are responsible for iconic looks from the 90’s and 2000’s hip-hop scene. Remember when Cam’ron wore Pink fur with a matching flip phone at New York Fashion Week? That was Monica and Boz. How about Ghostface Killah’s robes like the ones he wore in the Cherchez LaGhost video?

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Cherchez LaGhost video 

Monica: That was Ghost, he would just say like he wanted a robe. At first he was like “I want to look like a barbershop” so of course you’re on the phone with him you’re like “okay okay I got it I got it”. I get off the phone with him I’m like what the fuck is “looking like a barbershop” mean? So Boz was like “I think I know what he means, he’s talking about that shit that goes around outside the barbershop”

Boz: The  swirl, the pole.

Monica: I was like “ooohhhh!”

Kimberly: Monica and Boz also styled for Roc-A-Fella and Jay-Z, who wasn’t really thought of as an extravagant dresser.

Monica: Well, don’t get it twisted. He had a Roc-A-Wear t-shirt on and a pair of jeans with a $2 million watch. You know what I’m saying? So.

Boz: Or a Gucci beanie or, and sunglasses. 

Monica: Right! Or a Chanel beanie cap or pair of Chloe sunglasses. So he was somebody who was accessory basing, you really had to pay attention to details.

Kimberly:  As a kid raised in Queens, New York, Monica recognized her passion at a young age. 

Monica: You know, I didn’t come from a background of fashion. I didn’t come from a family that had resources or I didn’t know what labels was. So everything was, you know, self-taught. I always loved fashion. So I would take, you know, all the tears out of the magazines and put them on my wall and you know, I loved it, but I didn’t know that this was a thing.

Kimberly: I’m Kimberly Jenkins. You’re listening to The Invisible Seam, where we open up the archive of American fashion and celebrate its Black contributions. This is Episode Two: Rhythm and Muse.

In this episode, we’re talking about how integral fashion is to the story of hip-hop, with a focus on the 90’s and early 2000’s. Clothing is about communication and self expression. You can say the same about hip-hop culture. 

Hip-hop artists were instrumental in popularizing the fashion we call streetwear today. But it wasn’t easy. Monica was met with a lot of resistance dressing rap artists in the 90’s and 2000’s. Just being a Black woman shopping for clothes in designer stores was a challenge.

Monica: Well, in the 90s, it was very hard because like I said, it was a job that was new to us, new to our culture, not new, but new to us. They weren’t used to seeing us walk up and down Fifth Avenue and you know, Rodeo Drive and go to the Design District in Miami. 

Kimberly: They had to make the road by walking, and met resistance along the way and persisted. Stylists and artists have gone from creating looks out of their own closets, because brands didn’t want to work with them, to having brands and designers line up for collaborations.  I’m so excited to dig into this topic. Alongside Monica Morrow who we just heard from, we’ll also speak with educator and author Elena Romero.  We’ll also talk with the legendary April Walker. Her brand, Walker Wear, helped create the blueprint of streetwear and hip-hop fashion. These days, rappers are sought-after brand ambassadors, but back in the day, hip-hop was creating its own look on its own terms. 

In the age of social media, access to our favorite artists is literally at our fingertips. This wasn’t always the case. Outside of going to a show or flipping through magazines like The Source or Vibe, before the internet and social media, it was hard for fans to see what rappers were wearing and what styles were emerging. One thing we did have: music videos. You could turn on the TV and bring the streets and culture right into your home. 

I remember watching programs like YO! MTV Raps with my cousin. We’d watch artists like Grand Puba perform in the Mary J. Blige song “What’s the 411?” and he was name checking brands like Girbaud and Tommy Hilfiger.

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YO! MTV Raps

Kimberly: Directors like Hype Williams brought streetwear looks to the screen in videos like LL Cool J’s “Doin’ it.” 

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LL Cool J’s “Doin’ it” 

Kimberly:  LL introduced classic looks. From pastels to bright, bold primary colors, the clothes always popped. In 2021, LL was inducted into the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame, dressed head to toe in Dolce & Gabbana. Monica’s been working with LL for a long time and says this would’ve been a struggle 20 years ago.

Monica: 20 years ago, I would’ve been met with so much resistance. Now, it’s like, what do you need? Because they see the importance of our culture.

Kimberly: Directors like Hype Williams and stylists like Monica and Boz collaborating with artists elevated music videos from promotional tools to an art form. They were almost like the equivalent of a Kehinde Wiley painting: beautiful portraits of Black and brown people presented on their own terms. I mentioned YO! MTV Raps, but there was also Rap City on BET. But for fans in New York, there’s one show that was the first to air rap videos and bring what people were wearing on the street to the screen. Here is fashion and hip-hop scholar Elena Romero.

Elena:  I can’t have this conversation without tipping our hats to Ralph McDaniels and Video Music Box. I grew up leaving school every day and running to my house to make sure I turned on the television set at  3:30 to watch his show. 

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Ralph McDaniels Video Music Box 

Kimberly: Credited with being the first program to primarily air hip-hop videos, Ralph McDaniels was a host and co-creator of The Video Music Box. 

Elena: See, today we have social media and we can follow our artists. And we can have almost that touch where we’re almost that close to them where we could actually communicate with them. The only way we could communicate with them at the time in the 80s was through Ralph McDaniels.

Kimberly:  Elena Romero is an assistant professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Elena:  I am also the author of “Freestyling, how hip hop changed the fashion industry.” And I am also the upcoming co-curator of “Fresh, fly, and fabulous: 50 years of hip hop style.” That will be on display here at FIT in the spring of 2023. I was raised in Brooklyn and I’m still currently residing in Brooklyn and I am of Puerto Rican descent. So I would be classified as a Nuyorican. And so my proximity to hip-hop is actually one as a participant. And then now as an expert.

Kimberly: Today, hip-hop is more popular than rock-n-roll. Artists all around the world are contributing to the story of this music. The looks and trends that came up alongside it have also reached a global audience. But back in the day, Ralph McDaniels and the Video Music Box was one of the only ways this young artform found an audience.  

Elena:  And it was his show that gave us the spotlight that allowed us to get the inside story, to see our, our artists, to see them perform, to give out our shoutouts, pre-MTV. Eventually MTV would catch on and put hip-hop on its screen. And that now moves hip-hop from being a much more regional sound to being really a global sound. And that’s important, because when we talk about the fashion story, it is really an extension of hip hop music. 

Speaker 1: I think the relationship between fashion and hip-hop is like can’t have one without the other. You know, a lot of the fashion trends, it comes from hip-hop, it derives from hip-hop; hip-hop is really about expressing your true yourself, you know, with fashion, you always wanna show your true colors and yeah, it’s a very beautiful thing to see.

Speaker 2: Every mainstream rapper, all of them are in that fashion realm.

Speaker 3: Hip-hop is the conduit right now for creativity in a way, so it’s like of course fashion would follow behind it, but at the same time, fashion you know influences everything and everything influences everything, so you know as high as low it mixes up together.

Kimberly: As the popularity of hip-hop grew, so did its reach and look. Artists were able to provide us a sartorial drop-pin in terms of geographic location. If you dropped the pin on the East Coast in New York you would see luxury labels with people like Notorious BIG and Sean Combs, who was Puff Daddy at that time in the 90s. 

You would see groups like the Wu Tang Clan wearing camouflage and big name brands while also putting together over the top looks with fur coats and robes. You’d see groups like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Queen Latifah and Brand Nubian form the collective Native Tongues and wear tie-dye or African wax prints. They all represented a quintessential East Coast style.  

The West Coast hip hop look was more relaxed but still very conscious of its representation in terms of how clean and sharp you looked. You’d see people wearing Chuck Taylors with Dickies ironed with a crease. They might have a white shirt under a plaid shirt with just one button at the top and then the rest of it open. It was all carefully curated. 

Some of those looks were popularized by Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. Eazy-E and Cypress Hill, Too Short and DJ Quick. 

If you dropped the pin in the South, you’d see groups like Outkast creating flamboyant looks unique to the landscape. Artists like Erykah Badu were leading the neo soul sound and were unbound by any mainstream style. You’d also see gold teeth and candy-painted Cadillacs, flip flops and socks. During this time the South was beginning its rise to completely dominate the industry.  

Elena: Now keep in mind that early musicians did not have wardrobe stylists and huge, uh, resources for video budgets that would allow them to get the pick of everything they would have ever wanted to wear for their music videos. Many of the artists would purchase items on their own. 

Kimberly: If artists did have a budget and could work with stylists, that presented its own struggle. High end fashion boutiques weren’t located in the neighborhoods that the music was coming from. Shopping in these areas could attract assuming looks and even trauma.  

Monica: I remember one time we was in Harlem on 145th Street and we were shopping and I was with one of my good friends. This happens to be Beanie Siegel’s sister. She was nine months pregnant. We running in and outta stores shopping and the cops pulled us over, threw us against the car. She’s nine months pregnant. I’m like, “what the fuck did I do?” “Whaa! You doing a credit card scam, what the fuck is all these bags for? You have all the people coming in, out the stores on Broadway.” They like, “No, leave her alone. She’s cool. She’s cool. We know her. She’s cool.” They was like, “Go in the store and shut the fuck up.” And I’m crying and I’m worried about my friend, who’s, you know, I’m like, I feel bad. She came for you to visit me and this is going on. So that’s the type of shit that was happening. You know, it couldn’t be that, you know, our people. Yeah, that was daily. But that was one of the things that really stood because I was so fucking furious at the fact that, you know, I’m doing a Jay-Z video, but all they do is see me, young Black girl going in and outta store spending. So you assume that I’m doing some credit card shit. So that shit was really, really hard.

Kimberly: It’s stories like this that can explain the frustration Monica feels seeing looks she helped create in the 90’s on runways around the world backed by big name brands. Brands don’t hesitate to monetize and profit off of Black culture. One of the reasons I wanted to make this podcast was to give credit to the people who worked tirelessly to make streetwear the industry it is today. One example is Monica and Boz dressing Cam’ron in pink. Today it’s not surprising to see a rapper wearing pink and push the understandings of Black masculinity, but in the early 2000’s that was not the case. 

Monica:  Cam is such an innovator and was always a fly dude and still is so, you know, he just was like, I wanna do something different. So, you know, I was like, OK, what is it? So we thought about, of Harlem, you know, Harlem in the 80s. So we started, you know, doing fur on his jeans and thinking about the whole, you know, the, the fly dudes up town, you know? So we started doing like, you know, fur on his denim and one day we came with some pink stuff and Cam was like fuck it. Back then people were, guys weren’t wearing pink. You know what I’m saying? Especially street dudes, they wasn’t wearing pink, so he was the perfect person to do it. And I think he kind of changed the tone of it being okay. Like you could still be a gangster-ass dude, a gangster dude and wear whatever color you want to.

Kimberly:  This was an era defined by people creating without gatekeepers. Artists started their own brands, designers and stylists built original looks. Fashion labels like Cross Colours, FUBU and Phat Farm were dominant. Rap was still relatively new and growing in real time. There’s a reason why the 90’s are called the golden era of hip-hop.

Monica: I loved the, the nineties because I felt like it was so much realness at that time realness in fashion in music. 

Boz: Originality. 

Monica: Right. It was raw! 

Kimberly:  Stylists like Monica and Boz had to fight for a vision that was true to hip-hop culture. Whether it was Ghostface saying he wanted to look like a barbershop or dressing Cam’Ron in pink fur, Monica and Boz stayed true to the DIY roots of hip-hop. So much of the early culture was created by people finding a way to do it themselves. DJs were plugging turntables into street lights. Breakdancers spinning on cardboard dancefloors. Graffiti artists turning subways into galleries. There’s a beauty to art forms that belong to a youth culture. Everyone outside of that culture is saying “you can’t do this or you can’t do” that while everyone within the movement is saying “Watch me.”  

April: I am the first woman to have a fashion brand in streetwear or urban fashion. My brand is Walker Wear. I am also an educator, an author, a wellness enthusiast, and as I like to say, a necessary rebel.

Kimberly: April Walker.

April: Growing up in the eighties, you know, I think the spirit of entrepreneurship was really just being born within hip-hop. Um, we were definitely enjoying the music that was on the scene, the culture was really forming in front of our eyes in terms of, um, the music and dancing and going, hitting these parties and just lifestyle. It was becoming a lifestyle, riding the trains. You would just see art on the trains, whether it was graffiti or tagging or people drawing like New York City became a museum outside, because of everyone expressing themselves through the ar. It was an interesting time, breakdancers and all of that. And then you had, in New York city, this whole hustle mentality.

Kimberly: April is a perfect example of someone who embodied the hustle mentality of New York and the do-it-yourself mentality of hip-hop. She realized that people were self identifying with the music but couldn’t find clothes to match it. 

Elena: So we start seeing young, talented people who don’t necessarily have fashion training, pick up on the need to develop apparel to fit the needs of the urban consumer. The designer brands at the time were not catering to those youth and were also not accessible. 

April: We were ripping up our jeans. We were, um, manipulating, you know, just buying stuff over size, we were painting on them. We were bling-blinging. We were bleaching. We were doing all these things, but I couldn’t go in the store and buy something that expressed that lifestyle of who we were. And, and I wanted to create that, that light bulb went off for me I think when I was in, in college, I was going to school for business and communications. And one day after hanging out, when I was home, I went from the Apollo to Dapper Dan’s and I saw Dapper Dan’s establishment, and I just, right there, it just made sense like, Brooklyn at that time was very different than Harlem, burroughs were. And I wanted to express for my tribe in Brooklyn.

Kimberly:  Dapper Dan is the godfather of custom streetwear. The clothes he made helped shape the look of hip-hop in its early days. April’s visit to his shop in Harlem inspired her to open her own boutique, Fashion in Effect, in Brooklyn. 

April: As they say, energy feeds energy, it just, it really, we just became a magnet for hip- hop, our little shop called Fashion in Effect, and from Fashion in Effect, it served as great, great, great test marketing tool. I look back at it and understand that’s what it was. But at that time I was just paying attention. And if you listen hard enough, your customers will tell you what they want. 

Kimberly: Walker Wear opened in the early 90’s. Biggie Smalls, Queen Latifah, Run DMC and Method Man were supporters in the early days. April was focused on listening to her customers and catering to what they wanted to wear.

April: I wanted to create classics and I wanted to create things that people could wear in the day or go to the club at night and rock. So it was less is more, but it was really built in birthed on the premise of quality, earth, tones, durability, um making um bigger pockets because my customers kept telling me they wanted deeper pockets because you couldn’t fit your hands in your pockets at that time, they wanted more leg room. So we started making, the pants bottoms big enough so they could fit in the Timberland because Timberland was the boot at that time or right outside of it. And then I lowered the crotch  a little bit because they were really tight at that time. We gave more crotch room. We gave deeper pockets, we lowered the illusion of the pockets in the back so it looked like the pocket switch sagged, but they actually still fit on the waist and you just had more leg room. We pleated our denim, which was different because that wasn’t really being done. And we wanted our point of differentiation.  

Kimberly: Walker Wear was taking off alongside the music. Listening to customers and catering to their needs helped April fill a void in the fashion industry. April wanted her community to feel seen and heard.

April: The disruption of doing something different is what allowed us to be and express ourselves so much. And that was based on that need to fulfill that void. You know, there was nothing there for us. There was no streetwear, there was nothing and there was no one seeing us in fashion. And I wanted to be like, I see you tribe, here we are. We are creating because we are you and you are, we. You know, that really was, I am you and you are me and let’s do this. And honestly, we were building that plane as we jumped out, we didn’t have a blueprint, but the blueprint came from the heart. 

Kimberly: April’s vision of creating a shop that connected with her tribe helped to shape the multi-billion dollar streetwear movement. Too often, women are pushed to the side in this industry and April takes to heart her role as an advocate for her tribe. 

April: You know, I feel like being a woman of color, um, in a very white industry, so to speak. I don’t mean the people as much as whiteness. And I think that’s a bigger conversation for our country and the world, but definitely our country. And I think that fashion is a microcosm of that macrocosm, the overall arts of it. I am so glad that I didn’t start from the fashion side and become very trained and, because my aspirations might have been different. I came from the hip-hop side and the entrepreneurial side and the music side and just creating and seeing that void and wanting to be there for hip hop and for us. So my aspirations weren’t built on the validation and a nod from the fashion industry, if that makes sense. So that made me dance a little different and it had a different pep in my step because I didn’t feel like, I, I had to worry as much. Of course we all, once we start climbing, I’d be lying to you to say that it didn’t feel good to be recognized here and there. But I also know that the applause stops and I know the applause don’t mean but so much. So I always kept my eye on the prize just making sure that I’m, I’m doing this for the right reasons. 

Kimberly:  And so with that, you were speaking about the importance of community and your tribe and you had, um, music artists coming through and supporting you. What does community mean for you now and, and having your tribe and your supporters now in, in this really just kind of heated time right now, where we really have to fight for our recognition and, and respect?

April: You know, back in the days, it was hip-hop finding you and they were ready to roll up their sleeves and be there for you in their tribe. And now it’s different because it’s the consumers that are showing up as tribe members. And so I see that happening with us now where consumers, Black consumers, Black and brown people are being more intentional about spending their dollars. I hope that continues to create contagious behavior because, you know, we know the Black dollar stays in the community six hours, whereas other cultures it’s 30 days, you know, so we have a lot of work to do there. We know how much we spend. So there’s so much power in that, in the economy for us, but we have to do a lot more work. And I think it comes from both ends on educating each other when you think about buying houses and subprime lending, the same thing exists in a different way in having a business, period. In fashion, the same thing there are all these invisible challenges that exist for us that no one talks about.

Kimberly: So you’ve talked a lot about erasure and appropriation and some people think, oh, you know, appropriation, here we go again. They don’t understand the gravity or just what’s at stake. What we could lose in terms of wealth, memory, just cultural memory about things like who we remember and who we don’t. So, for those that don’t understand, um, how would you describe the damaging effects of erasure and appropriation? Where were you coming from with this, when it really kind of you, when you feel really passionate about this subject matter?

April: That question just made me emotional thinking of it, but you, as you asked it and the way you asked it, the first thing that I think about is confidence. And I think that, you know, when you try to erase a people and you try to erase them through many ways through, um, invisible challenges, through telling people, not telling their story is through not seeing them through not giving them the available resources, if you erase stories of who we are now, you not only you’re working in, in an environment that tells you who you’re not, but you’re not seeing the history of who you really are. Then to go further, women have to work harder, you know, and then talk about Black and brown women. That’s, that’s a whole nother conversation. So to put all of that into the fashion industry, which is a very elitist industry, it needs to be dismantled and corrected, you know, so that it’s equitable for all and that means we have a lot of work to do, but we’ve got to do the work to be kind to each other now to change things because everything is at stake.

Kimberly: In the 90s, popular brands like Tommy Hilfiger, Chanel and Perry Ellis boosted their “coolness factor” by drawing from hip-hop culture. And there is a continued practice of this. We’ve seen it with Balenciaga, Gucci and even Valentino. As hip-hop turns 50, the architects of this artform understand the importance of showing a younger generation what can be. People like Monica and Boz and April made a path for themselves where there wasn’t one before. These days, April is focusing on the legacy of Walker Wear, and how she can show a younger generation a way for them to tell their stories and make their mark.  

April: I think it’s all about legacy for me. So my story is not just important for me. It’s important, I believe for Black and brown women, for people to see themselves and for people to understand our history. Now that I understand it a lot better, I wanna share that and I don’t wanna leave that up to someone else to do, so the blueprinting needs to continue in terms of cementing my stories, whether it’s through books, through documentaries, through movies, through, um, the metaverse.

I know that we have to tell as many of our stories as possible and that’s where the power is for the future to see what they can do differently to learn from it. But to know it was done makes them know that it is possible. Hey, I started from a dollar and a dream. we have a lot more resources now. So, you know, sky is not the limit. We can go even higher. We see that. That’s important for me to just continue to light that flame for what’s coming and, and to, to let people see their magic.

Kimberly: Streetwear, thanks in large part to hip-hop, is now a multi billion dollar industry. From the actual street to the most high end boutiques in the world, streetwear has left its mark. I’ve always thought of the mid 80’s and 90’s and early 2000’s as a sort of Black Renaissance, and April helped create the look. All you had to do was turn on the TV and see a show or a music video and someone would be wearing a Walker Wear logo. In our next episode, we’ll look at the history of what we wear to protest and how those sartorial expressions show up today.

Richard: This is a real provocation, I think from today’s perspective, it’s tempting to see this as an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the power structure, like they’re wearing a suit and tie in order to suck up to the power structure. But that’s not what was going on at all at this period of time, quite the opposite. 

Miko: For someone who had been sharing about denim, and telling denim stories for at this point, almost two decades, and never hearing this history, it felt crazy to me. So I was like, I need to share this.

Kimberly: While you’re waiting for the next episode, you can check out resources that dive into the topics we talked about here, and more! Find this episode’s syllabus right below the episode description, wherever you’re listening to this podcast. And like I tell my fashion students, you have to know your history to understand the present and shape the future. 

CREDITS

The Invisible Seam is an original podcast created in partnership with The Fashion and Race Database, Tommy Hilfiger’s People’s Place Program and Pineapple Street Studios.

I founded the Fashion and Race Database in 2017 to center and amplify the voices of people who’ve been racialized and marginalized in fashion. Our work, like this podcast, focuses on illuminating under-examined histories and addressing racism throughout the fashion system.

I’m grateful to the Tommy Hilfiger People’s Place Program for their support of this project. The People’s Place Program exists to advance and support underrepresented communities in fashion and beyond. They’ve made this show possible. My co-visionaries are Randy Cousin, SVP Product Concepts and People’s Place Program, and Dominique Bacote, Manager, Earned Media Communications and People’s Place Program. 

And from Pineapple Street Studios, our Executive Producers for The Invisible Seam are Je-Anne Berry, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Max Linsky. Himie Freeman is our Production Coordinator and Yinka Rickford-Anguin is our Associate Producer.

The Invisible Seam is produced by Stephen Key, Sophia Steinert-Evoy, and me, Kimberly Jenkins. Our editor is Aaron Edwards.

Our Head of Sound & Engineering is Raj Makhija. We are engineered to perfection, or very close to it, by Davy Sumner. Original music by OakTown Soul and additional tune by Epidemic Sound.

Teri Agins, Sha’Mira Covington, Kimberly Drew, Nick Nelson and Miko Underwood reviewed the episodes as part of our advisory committee. Thanks for sharing your expertise, perspectives and thoughtful notes.

Legal services for Pineapple Street Studios by Bianca Grimshaw at Granderson Des Rochers and Katy Alimohammadi at Donaldson Calif Perez.

Fact checking by Will Tavlin. Our show art was designed by Curt Courtney and Lauren Viera at Cadence 13. Additional materials by WPXN-TV/ION, Epic Records, Sony Records, and Razor Sharp Records. Special thanks to Sharon Bardales, Emerald O’Brien, Mara Davis and Ken Maiden.

Thanks for listening!