A Connection Between Two Worlds

Since its emergence in the 1970s, the evolution of hip-hop has been a truly multifaceted phenomenon. As an art form, hip-hop’s journey has taken it from an expression o being the defining symbol of popular culture worldwide, and in that time it has undergone some huge changes. What was once  an innate expression of the culture surrounding the music has since grown into something else entirely a place where hip-hop artists are some of the biggest commercial influencers on the planet. Fashion has always been essential to hip-hop culture. Hip-hop artists rap about crime, sex, drugs, racism and money, all the subjects western society struggles to discuss openly. And both, when they’re good, deal with politics, gender identity, class and religion to question the status quo or offer tools of self-expression. They allow people to define themselves through the meaning of their clothes. You could say that hip-hop is about self-expression, and increasingly fashion provides the tools. We live, more than ever, in a visual culture, and fashion more than ever, is becoming a way to communicate. And the fashion industry itself has started to shift and adjust to a generation which grew up favoring the ease and reality offered by streetwear a generation that values identity over conformity. Luxury houses, which are now looking to streetwear aesthetics for their product, do not look out of place in hip-hop videos because some of the items, styles and silhouettes and the attitude originated in hip-hop.

From A$AP Rocky video shot by Diana Kunst for ” Fukk Sleep” The narrative and substance was working beatifully in a way that clothes and the creatives was connected in a meaningfull sense. Among the clothes. There was a fireman coat by Raf Simons for Calvin Klein, a chunky sleeveless knit paired with long rubber gloves and a balaclava by Raf Simons, some sequined shorts by Comme Des Garçons, snake skin pants and hiking boots by Alyx. In some of scenes Rocky wears a silk scarf tied around his face like a Russian babushka — a look he revisited at a recent appearance at LACMA. It was very Lotta Volkova for Vetements and Balenciaga. He succeseed  blurring the fashion gender binary.

Nicki Minaj’s music video leans into the album’s Cleopatra-esque imagery, opening with a prologue that recounts a beef of epic proportions: Minaj plays a Queen a generous Queen who is betrayed by her enemies. These snakes take the Generous Queen down, but then she resurrects both herself and her haters and smites them. The video was directed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.