Hip-Hop Goes Be-Bop
Attention hip-hoppers: It’s time to turn in your baseball caps and baggy pants for a beret and turtleneck. It’s time, that is, if you embrace the meeting of rap and jazz that is the heart of artists such as Digable Planets (“Cool Like Dat”).
Extra-large uniforms with baseball caps are out; the beatnik look is in. When fans of this music merger flock to hear new artists rap to trumpets, saxophones and drums, they might be wearing berets or backward oversized newsboy caps. Pants fit tight down to the the ankles and ribbed knit sweaters are omnipresent. Even the cardigan sweater is having a comeback.
Some of the women look like Olive Oyl in their striped long dresses. Guys wear ‘50s-style two-tone Ricky Ricardo shirts or bowling shirts. Vintage clothes are mixed with new, and at times it is hard to tell which is which.
The most popular shoe among the rap-jazz crowd is Converse’s Chuck Taylor All Star high-top that has been cut to the ankle. Replacing clunky Doc Martens are clunkier military boots sometimes left untied.
Women sport boyish haircuts and men are wearing Maynard G. Krebs- or Charlie Sheen-style goatees (depending on their generation).
You can see these outfits at jazz-rap clubs all over town.
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