The 90s was the decade of gangsta rap and the East Coast/West Coast war. The same decade that cost the lives of Notorious Big and Tupac, and nearly ended the career of Snoop Dogg, who was charged with complicity in a drive-by shooting. Flashback.
During the 90s, hip hop album sales reached record levels and a hip hop royalty emerged. The new hip hop moguls (Jay Z, 50-cent, Russell Simmons, Sean Combs aka Puff Daddy then Diddy, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West) craved respectability and recognition.
They create their own streetwear brands and advertise themselves with large cigars and bottles of cognac.
But that’s not enough to get to the top of a society that is still predominantly WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant).
When Diddy launched his White Party on Labor Day in 1998 at Hampton’s (the preserve of white high society), few imagined that the event would become a fixture of American and international high society, with luxury brands jostling to be sponsors.
Diddy, modern-day Gastby
Asked by a journalist if he had read the novel “Gatsby the Magnificent”, Diddy naturally replied: “Don’t bother, I’m Gatsby”.
Diddy’s White Party has since moved on to Beverly Hills and St Tropez, proving wrong all those Hampton’s regulars who predicted that a noisy, vulgar horde was going to do away with their favorite vacation spot.
The hip-hop aristocracy, having conquered the jet set’s favorite haunts and invested massively in cannabis, has now moved on to the next stage: making weed part of the jetset’s codes.
Last spring, the campaign for Monogram, Jay Z’s cannabis distribution company, recreated the mythical images of Slim Aarons, the great jetset photographer, with characters smoking weed by the pool of a paradise villa.
The film is magnificent, and the association with Slim works wonders, elevating weed to the same level as cognac and cigars.
A$AP Rocky, fashion icon.
It works all the better because hip hop culture and its aristocracy currently enjoy considerable influence over fashion.
Legendary Harlem tailor Dapper Dan, who was sued by Fendi in the ’80s for logo usurpation, now collaborates with Gucci.
Virgil Abloh, founder of Off White, is artistic director of Vuitton, Kanye West is at the forefront of all Paris fashion weeks, and continues to create surprises with his Yeezy brand, A$AP Rocky, Snoop’s rapper protégé, is endorsed by Kris van Asche and Raf Simmons and considered a fashion icon.
With their supremacy in music and fashion, the hip-hop aristocracy established weed in a sophisticated world where blacks had hitherto been little represented.
There’s no doubt that Monogram’s campaign is the start of a new era, just as Diddy’s White Party was back in the day.
To be continued.
