Finish Line Snaps Up Genesco

Imagine my surprise when I happened upon the news that Finish Line had purchased Genesco this morning. Now see, this is how a merger should be done--in the dark of the night with everyone stunned, amazed and slightly impressed when the news breaks out of nowhere. There shouldn't be never-ending gossip and speculation akin to rumors of Jay-Z and Beyonce getting married. Because it's like the boy who cried wolf, after a while you start feeling like you're getting played for a fool. Like, do Jay and Bee really wanna get married or do they just want to creat events to help sell records?? Like, did Foot Locker really wanna buy Genesco or did it just want shareholder to think it still had it like that?

As for the actual combo of Finish Line and Genesco, I sort of like it. Not as much as Nike and Converse or PPR and Puma, but it works. This is gonna be like one of those couples that from an outsiders view doesn't appear to perfectly click, but because they're different in the right ways, ultimately will help each other be better.

Hip Hop Weekly: Issue No. Ten

In my last post I said I was going to do a punk-rock fashion retrospective and I am still going to do that, but in the meantime, I picked up another issue of HipHop Weekly and I wanted to go over it a little.

Previously I reviewed another issue of HHW and said that for the most part I liked it. Since that last issue, it looks a little more polished, but I still think that it devotes far too much ink on rap artists that nobody gives two figs about. I know that might sound strange given that the magazine is called "HipHop" Weekly, however, the truth is if someone wants to read about some MC on the come up, they can buy a magazine like XXL that is 100 percent devoted to boring crap like that.

HHW is positioned on the newstand next to magazines like Star and National Enquirer so it should stay focused on bringing the hot gossip and images that we haven't yet seen on a million different blogs devoted to black celebrities.

On that note, one of the best articles of this issue was the cover story on the beef between Cam'ron and Jim Jones. Now granted, I haven't been all the way up on the rap gossip scene lately, but I hadn't heard about their fallout until I read this story. And it's well written, too. Like any good he-said-she-said gossip story, not a stitch of it may be true, but it sure is entertaining to read.

^^Dipset Divide! Their Tension Reaches a Boiling Point: "Me and Cam'ron Haven't Spoken to Each Other in a Year."--Jim Jones

There were a bunch of different fashion-related articles, but because TrendyNation is a big fan of Kelis, I scanned her two-page spread:



^^Unfortunately, the photography/styling (no credit listed) for these two images is a tad rough and then, too, the writer forgot to identify the flats she is wearing in one image and the purple bag she's holding in the second. Well wait. I'm looking at the bag image again and there's some small print on the side that reads "Kelis: Retina" so maybe that's the name of the bag. Anyway, check out the tee-shirt she's wearing with all the wrestlers on it--cute! Think she's making a statement about the current state of rap feuds or she just liked the way it looked?

Finally, there's an article in which the writer takes quotes and interprets what the celebs are truely saying. I liked this one 'cause it was related to the ongoing controversy over whether or not Jay's manhood is compromised because he wears sandals:

^^The actual quote is from a spokeman for Frye shoes and it reads: The perception of men in sandals is changing. If it's good enough for Jay-Z, it's good enough for every man." You can click on the image and enlarge it to read the writer's interpretation of the quote. I didn't think it was all that compelling.

And that's all folks. And by the way, the magazine for which I did the Dame Dash interview is out so in the next couple of days, I'll get it scanned and post it here.

Jay and Jordan: This Means War

I was watching a Yankee game the other night, in which the umpire clearly called a low pitch to A-Rod a strike. A-Rod didn't say anything, but commentator Paul O'Neil pointed out how A-Rod used his body language to make it clear without saying a word that he thought the umps call was bogus. It's the same thing in the world of hip-hop. You have your "Ether" moments when we witness one man use words to publically eviscerate another man, and then you have your more subtle messages that fly under the radar for all except for a handful watching closely.

In this Rocawear ad, witness Jay's footwear. I can't speak for past ads, but even though Dame Dash and Jay have gone their separate ways, there is still a business connection between Rocawear and Pro-Keds. I'm not gonna say what Dash said when I asked him what he thought about Jay selling Rocawear and how he thought it would affect his company (gotta save that for the article), but I'm thinking this image of Jay rockin some sickalicious Jordans says a lot:


^^I got my Jordans on and they look like real sneakers

Note: And on an altogether different note, what kind of message is Jay sending Adidas/Reebok, with whom, as far as I know, he hasn't officially ended his shoe deal. Or maybe he has.

Source of image: Bossip.com

Jay and Jordan

According to the calendar, it's springtime in NYC, which means it's the perfect time to break out a fresh pair of Jordans. However, if you wanna know how very motherfather cold it still is here, look past Bee, who knows she's gonna be photographed and wants to flaunt her bod, and check out Jay. He's got on a quilted jacket AND a vest!

Jay-Z in Adidas

Sorry for the utterly craptastic quality of the image. It's a closeup of Jay's shoes, which I pulled from Beyonce's "Upgrade U" video. Since Adidas owns Reebok, which makes the S.Carter shoe, there's no big conflict of interest, but it makes me wonder what the heck is up with Sean's shoe. One of these days I'm gonna have to remember to ask a buyer if it's even being made anymore.


^^You may not be able to make out the shoe, but it's hard not to miss the Adidas Trefoil on the tongue of the shoe.

Rocawear Purchased by Iconix

Inconix Brand group announced today that it is now the official owner of Rocawear. For those of you not familiar, Iconix is a publically held company whose best-known brands are Candies and Joe Boxer.

Iconix paid $204 million in cash. Given that folks have recently been speculating that it would be purchased for as low as $160 million or as high as $200 million, you gotta give Mr. Sean Carter some more props for his business acumen. Speaking of the wonder child, he will be staying around as the brand's chief creative officer.

"[Sean Carter] will retain his stake in the operating company and his two partners, Alex Bize and Norton Cher, will continue to run the company and enter into a long-term license agreement with Iconix for the core young men's apparel category.

As part of the deal, Iconix will also enter into a separate joint venture with Carter, to establish a new brand management and licensing company to identify brands to be acquired or developed."

Now this is where it gets interesting. 'Member all the recent chitchat about Jay and Dame mending fences? Now that we know Hov is in a spending frame of mind, it makes a lot more sense that those two are talking, doesn't it? As things stand now, Dame is the licensee for Pro-Keds footwear and apparel, which, as far as I know, is owned by Stride Rite. The thing that I'm confused about is why Rocawear is linked to the Pro-Ked web page. I thought that relationship ended when Sean bought Dame's shares in Rocawear in 2005.

UPDATE: My buddy Tarik, who only knows the sneaker game about 100 times better than me, wrote to let me know that "if u check out the new roc-a-wear ads....they are linked to pro-keds. They have matching shirts with the shoes." So does that mean that when Rocawear apparel goes mass market, Pro-Keds will follow along behind it? Or will poor Dame once again be left in Jay's wake?

One other thing is that word on the Rocawear brand was that it was slowly leaking sales. Which makes sense. It's an urban brand in a retail world that is suddenly running like an escaped convict from that description. These days it's all about streetwear, which people will also be running from a few years from now. "We're not streetwear, we're [insert next hot description for clothing that city people like to rock]," but in the meantime, Iconix didn't buy a brand so that it could let it slowly peter out with the retailers who currently carry it. So expect to find Rocawear showing up in all sorts of stores you'd never imagined it being in. Hopefully we're not talking FUBU levels of ugliness, but I wouldn't be surprised.

NBA All-Star Weekend

Las Vegas is the perfect place for the NBA All-Star game. There's the whole win/lose mentality that matches up well with any sport, but there's something about the flashy, up-close nature of hoops that matches the sensibilities of Vegas more than any other competetive game. You know this morning all those young playas were thinking, "How come we can't do it here every year??"

I can't say there was a ton to comment on fashion-wise this past weekend, but there were still a few images that caught my eye:


^^I have this feeling that LaBron has a lot of love for New York. It seems like he's always here either attending N.Y. sporting events or attending some party or another. I'll bet it'd be a dream come true for him to play on Jay's team.


^^KardASSian was in the house. Did she and her ex, Whitney Houston's current beaux, cross paths? (I blogged about her porn tape over at ChicksWithKicks this past week.)


^^Wifey looking happy for a change and, as usual, Kobe's shoe game is as tight as all get out.


^^Al does his best to bridge the ever-growing gap between Jay and Bee, who rolls her eyes at the very thought.


^^Two ole hustlers meet and greet.


^^We RUN L.A.! Game proves that crazy is sexy. He wore these nerd glasses for you...and you... and you!


^^Funkmaster Flex: The ole New York wasn't ALL cool. Drugs burned though neighborhoods like crazy back then and too many people I know didn't make it through those times whether cause they were taken down by addiction its brother friend, gun violence.

^^Nells wearing his signature diamond cuff. He loves that thing! Other than the bling, this man loves to keep it simple. Here's he's wearing a simple white button-down with a wife beater, and in another image from the same weekend, he's wearing a plain white tee layered over a long-sleeved thermal top, both of which couldn't have cost more than 30 bucks.

And now for lots of images of my fave celeb couple:


^^For a minute Nas was all chunked out on his wife's cooking, but he's clearly got his gut back under control and then some!


^^Nas looking happy and HOT.


^^Maybe sleeping next to this woman each night is contributing to his positive outlook!


^^Husband and wife do their thing together. Hi Nas!

I'm thinking of changing the name of this blog to The Jay-Z Blog

Sorry. I'm gonna be lazy and just throw-up another post featuring Jay-Z and the clothing he's wearing. There's other stuff I want to write about, but I have a deadline hanging over my head. I did do some posts over at KicksWithChicks. This one is about Amy Winehouse and this one is about another blog I discovered called ChicksAndKicks.



^^Oh slip, check out Jigga and his neckerchief. Is this a good look on the man or not? One minute I'm feeling it and the next I'm not.


^^Jay shows off his Nikes.

If you're confused or behind on the Jay vs. Jones & Co. drama and you wanna catch up, TheRapUp does a good job of putting all the drama in one place. In listening to this recent interview with Jay and Flex, I can't help but feel that Jay sounds a tad weary and that his heart aint really in it.

Oh. These were taken at a Nov. 24th concert at Roseland, which is in New York. You can see more images/credits here.

I Hate Gwyneth Paltrow

I have a pathological dislike of Gwyneth Paltrow. Granted, in virtually every interview she's ever done, she inevitably makes some glaringly dopey comment that shines a bright light on how incredibly privilidged and sheltered her life has been, however, because I am a mature hater, I realize that the degree to which I dislike her is borderline irrational and that I am probably projecting some sort of Jungian shadow onto her that has nothing to do with her and everything to do with me.

Still, even though I know it's MY problem, you can imagine my "delight" when I came across this video the other day of Gwyneth singing BACK-UP for Jay Z's "Song Cry"!!



Christ, the one song in Jay's entire repertoire in which he raps about heartfelt emotions and he asks this shallow chick to do back-up and she says yes cause some part of her brain actually thinks she can pull of the vocals of an old-school soul singer. Talk about song cry, I was on the floor sobbing by the time she was finished murdering it!

Concrete Magazine

Concrete magazine put out a new issue on Friday. This month's issue features Sleepy Brown, who according to the magazine, is "often featured on Outkast's projects, and he's on the Idelwild album and in the movie. We got with him to talk about his solo moves."



Over the summer, I interviewed Kevin Anderson, one of the magazine's founders, for my column for Footwear Intelligence magazine. The theme this for the summer issue was on urban footwear trends in the South. In the past, the Southern urban customer was viewed not only as a hopelessly behind on fashion trends, but also a follower of trends eminating out of the Northeast, specifically New York City.

Kevin, who lives in Memphis, pointed out to me that now that Southern rap is hot, fans of the music there are becoming faster when it comes to both following and creating trends. A couple of interesting difference he pointed out are that while New Yorker Jay-Z still has the power to set trends, Southerners never really embraced his Rocawear label and the Jordan label has been nowhere near the runaway hit in the South like it is in New York. Cars-of-choice are another difference. In the Northeast, rappers may boast about Bentleys, but in the South, you'll hear more about customized Caprices and Lincolns. The idea, says Kevin, "is to make something old look new and hot."

Southerners are also big into customizing products so that they reflect the flavor of their city or state. Kevin, who in addition to running the magazine, also provides photography and graphic arts servics, sent me this image of some customized Air Force Ones. (And to be honest, he sent me other as well, but I have a cold and lost patience when I ran into ever imagineable roadblock trying to resize them.)


^^Customized Air Force One, photographed by Kevin Anderson

Kevin and I also talked about the ridiculously hostile manner in which many New York rappers have responded to the Southern rap scene. He noted that rap artists from California have been much more willing to collaborate and support the efforts of Southern artists. He added, "A lot of people who don’t like Southern rap don’t have a grip on the people and the experience. To everyone down here we’re right where we need to be."

Thugs Don't Do Flip-Flops

From today's New York Post via NahRight

DMX--the oft-arrested hip-hop star--says real men don't wear sandals. And he blames Beyoncé for Jay-Z's flip-flop fetish. "The flip-flops--he's just not the same," DMX complains in Vibe magazine. "It's Beyoncé. He's a sucker for love. Thugs don't do flip-flops. Yo, no matter how much vacation I'm on--we been to St. Thomas, Bahamas, all the little islands--I don't wear no flip-flops. I'm never that comfortable, not even in my own house."

Tell me one thing about this post that isn't hysterically funny. If DMX ever gives up rap, he could easily become a stand-up comic.