Sneaker Freaker

Public Enemy attempted to upset the set-up with the anti-corporate ‘Shut ‘em Down’ on the ‘Enemy Strikes Black’ album [Def Jam 1991]. The interrogatory lyric ‘I like Nike but wait a minute, the neighbourhood supports so put some money in it’, affecting the way Beaverton addressed community issues interminably. House music got in on the act at one stage too, Farley Jackmaster Funk’s ‘U Aint Really House [Grind 1988] oddly gives mention to a couple of brands. ‘You ain’t really house, u Daddy ain’t really house, and your little brother wearing those All Stars, he ain’t even house neither! Those Reeboks ya’ wearin’, they out baby. You need some new ones, like you need a new face!!’ Fundamentally, with the culture becoming omnipresent, the references are hard to avoid, even pop music, see Mario’s ‘Nikes Fresh out the Box’ [J-Records 2006] as the perfect example of how far things have come.

The Mars Blackmon/ Air Jordan ‘Is it the Shoes?’ Ad campaign that ran from ‘88 through ‘92 was also an influentially important commercial vehicle and a definite nod towards the direction Hip-Hop and sports culture from the US were heading. An extension of the character movie director Spike Lee played himself in his ’86 rom-com ‘She’s Gotta Have It’ reappeared as ‘Mookie’ in ‘Do the Right Thing’ [Criterion 1989] Back in the Eighties, it was aspirational, we were simply looking up to the music stars of the time. During the early Nineties, it was a fashion thing, the trainer was categorically the hippest accessory to have.

Alongside the long suffering Jordan 4 wearing ‘Buggin Out’ played by Giancarlo Esposito. The ‘Do the Right Thing’ back-track was crawling with the repeat plays of Public Enemy’s finest moment, ‘Fight the Power’, another Rap standard. The film also sparked the pervasive line, “ Yo, you just stepped on my brand new white Air Jordan’s I just bought, and all you can say is excuse Me?”

The early Nineties were a strange time as we’d romanticized over how much these shoes meant to us and how much we’d be willing to pay if we ever found them. MD describes another tipping point in Sneaker history, ‘I remember seeing adidas Gazelles by 1992 in Burtons [a rather unfashionable British high street chain] in Navy/ White and Green/ White and they were so cheap, in two colors and they were virtually giving them away’. When most British teenagers were most probably wearing bell-bottoms and uninspired soccer styles, B-Boys and Hip-Hop heads had been fiending over Hi-Top basketball sneakers, low top running shoes and anything that had an association with the genre that influenced them.