I NEVER thought I'd see the day when designer "wife-beaters" were in season. But then again, I shouldn't be surprised.
The poor man's cloth has now become a fashion statement from street thugs to the suburban preppie set, and with the advent of hip-hop's heralded 50 Cent sporting Calvin Klein's stylized version of what only used to be seen on the backs of drunken spousal abusers on reruns of "COPS," we should all take note. The marketability of young black men in America is breaking down barriers well beyond your local urban neighborhood and even reaching an international market overseas.
Alone, America's fascination with the hip-hop thug has reached an all-new high, but the only way young black men are going to succeed and capitalize at their very own game, is by sporting the gear, and the facade, for just long enough for the American public to buy it.
Although thug mentality doesn't originate in the public eye, its presence today is uncanny -- and kids back in urban neighborhoods in every major city in the country recognize that. Thug appeal is reaching new heights because the very nature of the ideology is identical to the nature of the American dream. "Do-for-self" attitudes and the push to utilize whatever talents and limited means one has, coupled with the struggle to survive are the same qualities America's "forefathers," centuries of slaves and in-pourings of immigrants have been championing for years. The Washingtonian ideal (and I don't mean George, here), where the community raises itself within itself, is in full effect, as rappers reach their hands back into the communities that bore them to bring up other members by giving them jobs and outlets for their talents, as well as giving props and a fair share of limelight to local neighborhoods and area codes -- to make them proud of where they come from.
Even though everything growing up poor and black teaches you that the odds are stacked up against you, young black and Hispanic kids are learning that the glamour of thug-life is selling like hotcakes from music to movies to sports and clothes. Kids who are growing up in mean streets, or even near them, are realizing theirs may not be a dead end anymore. They're also getting hip to the game that the ones who are eating it up don't live across the street from them either.
Now just because white boys in the suburbs are rocking "wifeys," and because 50 Cent is outselling some of America's biggest teeny-boppers doesn't mean that it's the first time America fell in love with a thug. Our history teaches us to be fascinated by the notorious. Even the terminology: Words like gangster and thug draw parallels to the violent, anti-establishment protagonists of the past that so many youths grow up admiring and wanting to be like: from Capone to Dillinger to Billy the Kid or even the local street-hero who wouldn't settle for the status quo, perhaps your Malcolm or Garvey.
In the rap game alone, before there was 50, there was Tupac, and before him, gangster rap in South Central and New York captivated folks from all over. What was once just a way to vent your frustrations with the life you, your family and friends were living has become an entire community's way of looking at survival and another potential way out.
Back in the 80s and early 90s hip-hop culture wasn't breaking billboard records because the American masses weren't ready to eat up. Hip-hop wasn't a way out of the hood yet, but now that it is, the thug mentality is beginning to adapt to the game. Thugs know that it's no longer just about surviving or thriving within your hood, but now it's about getting people to buy your merchandise, shop for your music and believe in your fantasy -- even if they haven't come from the same place or mentality you've come from.
Of course, this change of marketable events is going to create a fantasy world that rappers and video directors have developed over time as some of the most elaborate street tales ever told to man. Of course, these myths are founded in truth, but just like every great American legend, the public falls in love with the exotic or the unknown: And this time he can be a brolic, gun-totting, drug-war survivor hailing straight from the streets -- even if he has on a designer two-dollar tee. Besides providing hope for other kids who are just like him back home, he provides the fantasy world so many people unlike him want to buy into. It should be no surprise that our reality is exaggerated until it spins out to make a great story told on wax, because after all, it sells.
(Kazz Alexander Pinkard's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at kpinkard@cavalierdaily.com.)
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