Memories of Being Funky Fresh

This week, The Ill Professors take a trip down Memory Lane, reminiscing on hip hop fashions of old and how much things have changed.

PHILL BOOGIE'S TAKE:

I am a Jersey boy. I grew up in Irvington, Newark, Orange, East Orange to be exact. At that time, my world seemed idyllic. Looking back, it was just your All-American ghetto existence. Lauryn Hill said it best, “Every ghetto, every city and suburban place I've been,make me recall my days in the New Jerusalem.”

I don’t know why I remember this one particular summer day the way that I do, but I am happy to still have this memory. I lived on the corner of Park Avenue and N. Center Street in Orange, New Jersey. My family didn’t do arranged play dates and soccer practice in the summer. Sure, I did a day camp, or two, but mostly my main objective was to go outside.

On this day, going outside consisted of grabbing my kickball and walking down towards the end of N. Center Street where it seemed the kids had more fun. The street was a residential one-way. It wasn’t a wide street and like most city neighborhoods, there were way too many residences crammed onto the block.

Walking towards the heart of the block, I passed Haitian Patrick’s crew, Paul and Portia’s house and Mussy’s place. My destination was this brick stepped, multi-family house where Chris lived. Chris’ mama used to sit on the porch like she was one of us. She’d be doing hair; talking smack and making sure we didn’t get hit by cars.

On this day, the block was hot. Everybody was out. There was double-dutch happening in front of one house. Some kids were playing hide and seek. The older dudes who hung out at the house next door, just sat, smoking herb and messing with the girls. My crew, we played kickball in the middle of the street; cars and windows be damned.

When I drive down Center Street now, I can’t believe that we had the audacity to be kicking balls in this tiny little space. The ball had very few options other than hitting someone’s car, or house window.

But this is what summer was all about.

I remember Lee Jeans, Adidas, jelly shoes and bracelets, neon shorts, gold chains, bamboo earrings and Gazelles. We were living. This is before Carrie Bradshaw rocked nameplate bamboos on “Sex and the City.” It’s before other folks co-opted hip-hop dance and turned it into commercial cheese for shows like “America’s Best Dance Crew.” We didn’t know it, but we were Jazz. We were creating. We were American originals. We didn’t know this, because at the time, we were just poor kids on the block that no one appeared to be paying much attention to.

Boy, were we wrong. Everyone was paying attention.

What I remember most about that day and what makes me smile, is the moment that someone pulled out the oversized boom box. “Planet Rock” boomed out of the radio and in an instant, what was a normal summer day, turned into a block party. Cardboard hit the asphalt. Circles formed around dancers. In that moment there was no better place in the world to be. That is hip-hop.

You can’t recreate, repackage and sell that at Ed Hardy.

RANDY BANDIT'S TAKE:

It was the summer before I entered the seventh grade when I got my first Fila ski sweater. Never mind that I didn’t ski. It didn’t matter, because the sweater was so fly: puffy stripes coming down the arms with crossing stripes at the elbows. I was fresh with my matching white Classics. And like every youngster who suddenly becomes aware of fashion, I rocked that outfit way too much, choosing to even take my class picture in that sweater, officially wearing out welcome on my prized garment.

But those were the days. I used to watch with awe as my older cousin Jimmy would come home rocking the latest Jordans or Nike Trainers. I couldn’t afford those, but I would find something suitable to rock with my Coca-Cola sweatshirt and Guess watch. I would even get a skin fade, blended from the brushed waves to the skin just above the back of my neck, topped off with a slanted Mike Tyson part in the front, just off the center of my head.

Growing up in Mississippi, I didn’t know what the seasons were when it came to fashion. I only knew what kids around me were wearing (or wanting to wear) and what my cousins “up North” were rocking. I didn’t have a magazine to look at that told me what was in style, so I took my cues from people around me. It was all about trying to get that fresh piece of gear that no one around you had, whether it was a Jordan Flight warm-up or a Fila ski sweater. You wanted to be an original, not a carbon copy—which on some levels was a bit of an irony, simply because everyone wanted the same thing, leaving us to individually make our marks with subtle things, like switching up the colorway on a pair of kicks.

Even more, you had to achieve your fashion points without “perpetrating,” which refers to the fact that you could not mix major brands. For example, you couldn’t wear an Adidas jacket and a pair of Jordans—not if you wanted to avoid getting “joned” or made fun of. Everything had to be coordinated, color-wise and brand-wise, without appearing to have tried too hard to pull off the look.

Although my views of fashion have changed a lot since I’ve gotten older, I still stop and smile when I see a kid wearing a Kangol hat, a fat gold chain, and a matching pair of Jordan 1s. That was definitely a funky fresh look back in the day. Nowadays, as I toss on some khakis and a button-up shirt, I still think of ways that I can “flip” even the most business casual of outfits just to squeak out that extra little ounce of swagger.

I guess some things never change.