The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 300 — 🥳 Happy birthday, hip-hop!
Today is the 50th anniversary of hip-hop! Let's go over some cool sneaker moments.
Gooooood morning, folks! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thank you so much for rocking with me today. I appreciate you.
Missed you guys! I’ve made a couple of appearances on other platforms recently. You can catch me in the Washington Post talking about the afterlife of Yeezy with Rachel Tashjian. I was also a guest on
! You can catch my guest appearance on the pod here.Alright. Now let’s jump in.
Hip-Hop and sneakers are synonymous
From a basement in the Bronx, New York to the biggest genre around the world. Hip-hop is 50 years old today and it’s time to celebrate it. The music is everywhere now.
RELATED: 50 years of hip-hop — a genre born from a backyard party, via NPR.
Everywhere includes sneaker culture, too.
Sneaker culture is truly one of the children hip-hop produced. It simply does not exist without it. Especially not in the way it does today.
It started out as hip-hop’s biggest stars showing their love for fashion and sneakers through song. Today, it’s evolved into brand deals and endorsements. Even entire sneaker lines in many cases.
Some of the biggest names in the genre like Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Kanye West, Pharrell, Rihanna, Drake, Cardi B and so many more have had their own sneakers over the years.
A look back: These two spaces have collided so many times over the years. I thought it’d be fun to go over some of my favorite moments with you all. There are literally dozens, but I somehow found a way to widdle it down to five.
To be clear, this doesn’t make these the five best moments between hip-hop and sneakers. They’re just my favorites.
With that said, let’s dig in.
The list:
Run DMC’s “My Adidas” song: Oh my goodness, this song, y’all. This song was basically my introduction to sneaker culture as a thing. My mom would play this song ALL THE TIME for me. It made me appreciate Superstars and what they’d meant to sneaker culture in a way that I don’t think I would’ve if this song didn’t exist. It’s no wonder Adidas shows Run DMC so much love.
Nike’s Freestyle Commercial: This commercial from Nike might be the essence of hip-hop to me. It’s just so creative. The talk of the time was about how Wieden & Kennedy built Nike a commercial that looked like a music video and, yeah, it legitimately did. It included some of the game’s coolest names — Vince Carter, Rasheed Wallace, Darius Miles, Jason Williams. It was just the best.
Nelly’s Air Force Ones song: This joint is a classic. It had me running around the house yelling “GIIIIVE MEEEEE TWOOOO PEEEEERS, EEEYYYEEEE NEEED TWOOOO PEEEERS” until my folks told me to shut the hell up. But it was worth it, man. This was such a great song. Years later it still resonates. Nelly deserves a check, Nike.
The Converse Weapon Commercial: This commercial has some absolute NBA royalty in it, first of all. Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, Kevin McHale. The best part, though, is Larry Bird stunting at the end. He didn’t have any rhythm or flow. He just wanted y’all to know “I walked away with the MVP.” EL. OH. EL.
Wale’s Nike Boots: It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t include Wale on here. He’s one of hip-hop’s biggest sneaker heads and he repped D.C. so well with this joint. We only wore a few things here: Dunks, 990s, Foamposites and Nike Boots. That was the uniform. Wale brought voice to that. And then he got Lil Wayne on the track, too. That was such a huge moment for D.C. rap, man.
That’s where I’m at with it. What about y’all? Feel free to drop some of your favorites in the comments.
Shoutout to hip-hop. Happy birthday. Thank you.
Foot Locker turns Yeezy away
In a pretty shocking turn of events, Foot Locker has reportedly decided to turn incoming Yeezy inventory away, according to a report from Complex’s Brendan Dunne. The brand reportedly planned on taking the sneakers. But, fearing a potential backlash, Foot Locker is going in a different direction.
The background: Back in October, Foot Locker was one of the first retailers to denounce Kanye West and Yeezy. The initial decision to take in the inventory was a sharp reversal of the brand’s original stance.
This decision is shocking: Not because it’s not the right thing to do, but because Foot Locker could really use a win right now. Financially, Yeezy probably would’ve been one.
Foot Locker reported its sales were down by 11.4 percent during its last earnings call in May.
The brand also reportedly expected an increase in sales losses for the year from 6.5 percent up to 8 percent.
Selling Yeezy again allowed Adidas to recoup $440 million in sales this year. Foot Locker could’ve seen a similar sort of boost. But the brand rightly seems worried about what that would mean for its reputation.
Why this matters: For the first time in this scenario, it seems that a brand was more concerned with moral absolution than profit. Even in our environment with hyper-aware consumers, that’s a rarity.
I will say, though, I don’t know if Foot Locker should get too much credit here.
Did the brand think this was the right thing to do or was it just more worried about what folks would think? We may never truly know.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The decision made in the end is absolute. And we won’t see Yeezy on at least one major retailer’s shelves. Maybe more will follow suit down the line.
A big win for workers with UPS
Phew. Crisis averted.
UPS and the Teamsters union were able to come to an agreement for their employees and prevent a strike that would’ve been catastrophic for the supply chain and the economy.
Where we’re at: The company’s deal with the union was set to expire on August 1. Now that both sides have agreed to terms, employees will vote to ratify the deal on August 22.
Why this is a big deal: This could’ve been a disaster.
As I previously wrote, UPS’s 340,000 employees handle a quarter of the shipping in the U.S.
That number was far too big for any one service to make up the ground. A work stoppage would’ve been catastrophic.
More importantly, though, this is also a major union win by the Teamsters. And it comes at a time when corporate interests have generally outweighed employee well-being.
UPS’s employees have secured pay raises for both full-time and part-time workers in the union. Plus, they had the company do away with a two-tiered wage system.
They’ve also secured essentials like air-conditioned trucks, another paid holiday for employees and more.
Not only does this deal keep our e-commerce engine humming, but it’s also just a huge win for regular, working folks. That’s always a good thing in my book.
Our first look at Nike’s new Kobes
Nike previewed the Kobe 8 Protro “Halo” on Thursday. This will be the first pair of Kobes we’ve gotten since Nike announced earlier this summer that the “Kobe Brand” would be returning.
It’s solid. But just solid, in my eyes.
I’m not typically a fan of a straight-up white sneaker. It’s a little too…bright for me? But I bet we see some pretty good custom work on these joints when they drop.
The release date is Bryant’s birthday on August 23rd. Folks are hoping for a market flooded with these. We’ll see.
#TheKicksWeWear
LET’S GOOOOOOOOO.
First, the homie Hudson Hawk came through in his first pair of Asics. I’m so happy about this, man.
Then the homie Nick continued to bring the pressure with the 11 lows. These joints are SO underrated.
My guy Warren popped out in this absolutely dazzling colorway of the Nike SC Trainer. These are sick.
The homie Sumeet came through with the Jarritos Dunks and, I can confirm, the man cannot stop wearing these.
The homie Killa Kow came through with the Far Out Concepts Air Max 1s and, yes, these are absolutely still classics.
Then the homie Geoff sent us home with the Black Toe AJ1s and YUP these are BANGERS. Don’t sleep on em, y’all.
SMOKED IT. Y’all are too fly, man.
Thank you so much for rocking with me today, family. I appreciate y’all. Keep being awesome. Have an excellent weekend. Let’s chat again on Monday.
Until then, peace and love. Be easy, be safe, be kind. And we out.
-Sykes💯
Congrats on three hundred!
Volume 300? What an accomplishment. Congratulations.