So Kanye West’s collaboration with Adidas was finally unveiled last night – on the rapper’s feet at the Grammys and on Instagram. The boots, titled the 750 Yeezy Boost, are very plain, with a velcro strap across the front and chunky ribbed soles. The design has met with mixed reception on the internet, with one commentator comparing them to “high-tech Uggs.” But whatever you think of them, they’re the latest in a long line of rapper/trainer love-ins, as immortalised in lyrics. Here, Richard Watson rounds up three of the best.
Run DMC
The most important trainer-referencing rapper of all time may have been one Gerald Deas, a Hollis, Queens-based doctor and poet who, concerned that African-American men were limiting their opportunities by wearing the type of footwear favoured by local rappers Run DMC, released 1985’s Felon Sneakers (sample rhyme: “You rob, you rape, you shoot and kill / You wearing those sneakers but you lost your will”). Spurred on by perma-hustling manager Russell Simmons, the boys hit back with My Adidas on 1986, championing the eponymous kicks – their model of choice was the Adidas Superstar basketball shoe. The untied/laceless looks irked Adidas but gave the guys a corporate leg-up when, at a concert attended by Adidas execs (invited, of course, by Simmons), they commanded a sea of fans to hold their three-striped sneakers aloft. Soon after, the group were signing a megabucks deal with Adidas and cementing a bond between hip-hop and sneaker cultures that remains as durable as the shelltoes on their beloved Superstars.
Phife Dawg
“I sport New Balance sneakers to avoid a narrow path,” revealed a Tribe Called Quest’s Phife on the crew’s 1991 classic Buggin’ Out, and he has stayed sneaker-clad ever since. While band mate Q-Tip ensured that his Nikes matched his ’Lo hat, Phife went deeper: on Motivators, he even referenced Converse’s notoriously leaky fluid-based early 90s cushioning system. Post-Tribe, Phife gave us the 2011 track, Sole Men, opening with the poser “Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who’s shoe game is the illest of all?” before rattling through a list of his favourites. While the sports-mad emcee has love for various basketball signature shoes (“Human Highlight Brooks, Hakeem the Dream Etonics / Gary Payton Gloves when he ran with the Sonics”), he ends the track by affirming his own status as “The New Balance 574 King”. Classic, unfussy and affordable, it’s a fitting favourite for one of hip-hop’s great everymen.
Nas
“I’m an addict for sneakers,” rapped Nas on NY State of Mind , from his 1994 debut album Illmatic, but we already knew this. Nas had acknowledged his footwear obsession on his 1992 debut single Halftime when he proclaimed, “I’m a Nike-head / I wear chains that excite the Feds” and boasted of having “more kicks than a baby in a mother’s stomach”. But while the young Nasir Jones pledged allegiance to the Swoosh and the Jumpman (“I thought Jordans and a gold chain was living it up” he reflected on 1996’s Street Dreams), the rapper inked a one-year deal with Fila in 2008 and reached into the more obscure parts of his 80s collection on 2012’s Reach Out to school the Instagram generation: “This is reminiscent to all the parks in the projects / When my British Knightscan rival your Foamposites / Don’t make me pull my Lottos out the closet.” Now there is a trip down Footwear Memory Lane.
