Rolling Stone Style: Hip Hop
The headquarters of Fubu, high atop the Empire State Building, is a seamless blend of old- and new-school decor: Classic dark-wood-paneled walls and a polished conference table right out of Law and Order look at home near a tubular state-of-the-art stereo system that’s adorned with a red, black and silver Fubu banner. A TV plays a Mýa video, another an Aaliyah video and a third features footage of don’t-try-this-at-home motorcycle tricks. Retail buyers hurry in and out, while the receptionist announces over the PA, “Keith? Has anyone seen Keith?” Everywhere – in the conference rooms, on the walls, on the owners and staff – are the colorful, meticulously designed clothes that brought in $200 million last year for Fubu’s men’s line.
And here’s Keith – Keith Perrin, one of the four founders of Fubu, along with Daymond John, Carl Brown and J. Alexander Martin – ambling down the hallway dressed in baggy denim overalls, a cream ribbed sweater and a white wool cap. All, of course, by Fubu. Perrin and his Fubu partners are all under thirty and hail from lower-middle-class beginnings in Hollis, Queens. They’re now gathered around their office pool table (they often play at the close of the day), surrounded by an explosion of bright shirts, sneakers, jeans, NBA-licensed jerseys, leather jackets. Hell, there are even Fubu basketballs.
In seven short years, Fubu has grown from a business run out of John’s house in Queens to a major-league label. Famous folk like Busta Rhymes and Mariah Carey wear Fubu, and the clothing has been featured on some sixteen TV shows, among them New York Undercover. The company has blossomed thanks to a tireless work ethic – the partners usually put in fifteen-hour days – and a famous neighbor: LL Cool J, an acquaintance of John’s for years.
“We had just started to do shirts, and we decided we needed LL to wear one in a magazine, to get some more exposure and to seem more legit than we were,” explains John. So the partners camped outside LL’s house, then corralled him into posing for a photo with the shirt on before he stepped into his limo. “He wasn’t too happy about it,” says John, “but he was trying to help out some guys from the neighborhood.” The photo was used for a Fubu ad in The Source. Now LL is the company’s spokesman.
The four founders, who are close friends given to finishing each other’s sentences, established Fubu – which stands for “for us, by us” – with a mission. “We started it after years of hearing that other major clothing companies really weren’t acknowledging the African-American market,” says John. “Not that we make it only for African-Americans. We make it basically for a culture, a generation. There’s cool skate guys that like what we have. They listen to hip-hop, but they listen to rock also.”
Everyone nods. “One of our biggest markets when we started out was Seattle,” says John, picking up a pool cue. “That was surprising. So it wasn’t just hip-hop, in a sense – guys like Korn wear it.”
The skyrocketing urban-sportswear market grosses an estimated $5 billion a year, propelled by brands like Enyce (pronounced en-EE-chay), Mecca, Fubu, Phat Farm and Eckō Unlimited. Michigan-based Pelle Pelle, one of the most successful new labels, grossed a remarkable $69 million last year. These companies have impacted the fashion world as significantly as rap once changed the musical landscape. “The term urbanwear is kind of tired,” says twenty-five-year-old Ryan Cross, the marketing and advertising director of Mecca. “We just consider ourselves a men’s collection.” Indeed, brands like Fubu and Enyce are making inroads into suburban malls across the country.
” ‘Urban’ men’s lines,” scoffs Def Jam co-founder and chairman and Phat Farm founder Russell Simmons. “It used to be the ethnic-clothing division. At least it’s not the nigga division. The big deal about Phat Farm is, we sell pink golf sweaters – a lot of them. You can’t call that urban. That’s the most non-urban thing, in terms of what a buyer’s looking at.”
Since the Eighties, hip-hop kids have put their own tags on the clothes of the stodgy upper class, coopting and customizing upscale brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Polo. Hilfiger started out designing “very preppy, traditional classics,” says his brother, Andy, the company’s vice president of public relations. “But around 1992, Grand Puba started rapping, and he gave Tommy a shout-out in one of his songs. And in the urban neighborhoods, all the kids started picking up on Tommy.”
“It’s called anti-culture,” says Billy Ceisler, vice president of marketing for SRC, an innovative marketing company whose clients include the Wu-Tang Clan. “Young urban America, when they rocked Fila or Ralph Lauren, they used to say to the rich people, ‘Fuck you, I can wear what you wear. I’m gonna rock it differently – I’m gonna wear my hat to the side and everything big and baggy – but fuck you, you’re no better than me.’ “
Rolling Stone Style: Hip Hop, Page 1 of 3