1/4/2024 0 Comments Bape pac man hoodieIn just a few years time, Bape had become a part of the fabric of rap culture in America, and the rappers who wear it now are, in part, paying homage to that legacy. By that fall, Snoop Dogg was in the Bape lookbook. By 2007, a young rapper named Soulja Boy had uploaded a video for a song called “ I Got Me Some Bapes” to a fledgling platform called YouTube. Wayne covered Vibe in one of Bape’s signature hoodies the next year. Going to the Ape showroom was like going to Mecca in Tokyo.” Pharrell and Nigo created Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream retailers together in 2005. “Lil Wayne, Jay-Z - they were talking about it in their rap. “That’s when everybody in the States was wearing (A Bathing) Ape,” Teriyaki Boyz’ Verbal told The Japan Times. Their success ran parallel with the label’s U.S. They were “ Bape’s rap group,” promotional tools for the brand and an outlet for Nigo’s unending love of rap music. The group’s Def Jam debut was produced by a star-studded cast, including DJ Premier, Just Blaze, Ad-Rock, and, of course, the Neptunes they did songs with Kanye West at his chart-topping peak. rap community that had embraced his fashions. It continues to resonate.Īs Bape was beginning to style some of American rap’s biggest names, Nigo was launching his Yokohama rap group Teriyaki Boyz with the full backing of the U.S. And we admired that it was his, and everything was about his crew and his team and they all were just in unison.” There was something very hip-hop about how Nigo had built his empire: inclusive and curatorial, pulling from all over for inspiration, but putting crew and community first. “I got to go over there for Bape’s 10th anniversary, and I got to see that this is a world,” he says. Nigo simplified it to: A Bathing Ape.Įventually, being “the guys with the fake Nikes” turned into being the guys with the most exclusive kicks around, but while Clipse made Bape a staple of their fashion repertoire for its chic appeal, it was Nigo’s ethos that was most attractive to Pusha. He lifted the anthropomorphic simian face for the brand’s logo and subsequently called it “A Bathing Ape in Lukewater ,” a line culled from a Takashi Nemoto comic. It was another Fujiwara pupil, graphic designer Shinichiro “Sk8thing” Nakamura, who developed the initial concept, after watching a five-hour Planet of the Apes marathon. But when Nowhere co-owner Jun Takahashi made immediate waves selling his own punk brand, Undercover, on the other half of the store, Nigo made a conscious effort to launch his own original line. Nigo, who started as Fujiwara’s personal assistant, would later co-open the clothing store Nowhere in Harajuku with his mentor’s blessing in 1993, where he peddled imported streetwear. He became the first Japanese member of the International Stüssy Tribe in 1986 before launching Japan’s first streetwear brand, Goodenough, in 1990. Fujiwara allegedly brought the first crates of rap records to Japan. Nigo was a disciple of Hiroshi Fujiwara, one of Japan’s first hip-hop ambassadors-a DJ, rapper, and breakdancer who opened for the Beastie Boys in Tokyo in 1987 and co-founded Japan’s first rap label. With its signature gorilla emblem and its Baby Milo monkey mascot, the brand turned the world of rap into a planet of the apes. A$AP Ferg said he was the reincarnated Trayvon with a BAPE hoodie that he zipped until his face gone. Uzi was rocking a Bape mask so he wouldn’t get Ebola. The brand celebrated its 25th anniversary with a BAPE HEADS SHOW featuring Pusha, Kid Cudi, Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa, and Lil Yachty. It’s what Gunna is still rocking in “Sold Out Dates.” From Juice WRLD and Trippie Redd to Yung Lean and Russian rapper Lil Morty, Bape is in the middle of a renaissance. On Cardi B’s Earth-shattering hit, “Bodak Yellow,” Bape is what she’s chilling in. Portland Trail Blazers guard and aspiring rapper Damian Lillard recently released a Bape version of his Adidas sneaker, which he says was inspired by Lil Wayne. Ski Mask the Slump God modeled the brand’s spring/summer collection last year. Someone threw a Bape hoodie in the air during a mosh pit at a recent Playboi Carti show. Saba wore Bapestas sneakers on “The Tonight Show.” Ayo & Teo made Bape surgical masks the cornerstone of the last few years. The brand, whose influence has ebbed and flowed, has never been stronger among its rap base than it is now.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |