SOLD SCHOOL - HIP HOP SNEAKERS

As well as attentively scrutinizing the featured guests for their ruminations and rhymes on the only true Rap televisual staple, ‘Yo MTV Raps’, Murder regularly kept one eye open for any hasty glimpses of sneaks. ‘Every show had someone rockin’ the dopest kicks, it was just another way of findin’ out what was hot across the Atlantic’ he observes. ‘The finest moment was probably Rakim during the period he was promoting his second album, he was wearing a thick bright Orange Champion hoody with the White/ Orange Uptown Highs to match, that shit was bananas!!’ Not exactly something you’d witness in an English high street.

The references to sneakers in Rap lyrics were also rapidly increasing by this stage. To date, the amount of tracks that make remark of a brand of sneaker or even style of shoe are astonishingly in the thousands, with endorsements coming from far too many Rap ramblers to mention. One of the earliest was from [Grandmaster Flash and the…] Furious Five sideliner, Scorpio. The iconic Chicago Jumpman was the subject matter on Jazzy Jay produced ‘[Go Michael] Air Jordan’ [Criminal Records 1986].

As well as the pretty obvious ‘My adidas’ from RUN DMC [Profile Records 1986] and the masterful ‘Sneakers’ from Wu Tang Clan’s Raekwon [LOUD 1999], California based Lexicon exhaustively mentions sneaker colorways, sneaker stores, sneaker corresponding sartorial customs and at least thirty styles of actual shoes on ‘Nikehead’ [Spytech Records 2000]. ‘I take one step to adjust the mic, I get around the whole city so I do wear Nike’ from Boogie Down Production’s ‘Dope Beat’ [B-Boy Records 1987], ‘You’re dirty, outta’ place and you’re on the floor, your sneaker has a smell I never smelt before!’ from Captain Rock’s ‘You Stink’ [NIA 1986] and ‘You moved to Queens, What does that mean, Ya’ still wearin’ Pumas and faded old jeans’ from MC Mitchski’s comedic Rap classic ‘Brooklyn Blew up the Bridge’ [Ski Records 1987] are just a few choice cherries from the old school Rap reference selection.