To be a successful rapper you got to keep it gangster, have swag everyone wants, and tell multiple chicks they’re the best you ever had. What if rappers used their birth names on stage…..would you still listen?          Zania Black

Hip-hop began as the antithesis of high fashion: tracksuits and sneakers were all that kids could afford. Then hip-hop  took those low-cost clothes and made them trendy. Now hip-hop fashion entrepreneurs are making classic clothing. One might well ask, “What’s hip-hop about that?”

In the final episode of GIANT Magazine’s exclusive, six-part online look inside the creation of “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop (Collins Design),” co-author Bill Adler and Ice-T discuss the evolution of hip-hop fashion.

Watch the video here:

PART ONE: Making Hip-Hop’s Classic Album Covers

More:

Click here for GIANT’s exclusive gallery of the book party for “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Click here to purchase “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Click here for book website: “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Guys are connected to cars,” says rapper/actor Ice-T, “because it’s usually the first toy we get.”

And hip-hop is connected to cars because of the power, freedom and individuality they symbolize.

Hip-hop’s ascent to the mainstream has had a huge effect on the relationship between America and the auto, from MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” to the Ford Flex. And the hip-hop auto aesthetic is something distinctive, say the authors of “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop (Collins Design).”

Watch the video here, part four of GIANT Magazine’s exclusive, six-part online look inside the creation of “DEFinition,” a book championing the impact of hip-hop-inspired design on music, fashion, advertising, and more, featuring narration from author Bill Adler and cameos from artists like Ice-T and Run (of Run-D.M.C.).

PART ONE: Making Hip-Hop’s Classic Album Covers

More:

Click here for GIANT’s exclusive gallery of the book party for “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Click here to purchase “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Click here for book website: “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Cey Adams created some of hip-hop’s most memorable album covers as the art director for Def Jam Recordings in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Now Adams and former Def Jam publicist Bill Adler have created a book, DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop (Collins Design) that champions the impact of hip-hop-inspired design on music, fashion, advertising, and more.

GIANT Magazine gives you an exclusive, six-part online look inside the creation of this book, with narration from author Bill Adler and cameos from artists like Ice-T and Run (of Run-D.M.C.).

Here’s Part Two of the series!

PART ONE: Making Hip-Hop’s Classic Album Covers

More:

Click here for GIANT’s exclusive gallery of the book party for “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Click here to purchase “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Click here for book website: “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Cey Adams created some of hip-hop’s most memorable album covers as the art director for Def Jam Recordings in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Now Adams and former Def Jam publicist Bill Adler have created a book, DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop (Collins Design) that champions the impact of hip-hop-inspired design on music, fashion, advertising, and more.

GIANT Magazine gives you an exclusive, six-part online look inside the creation of this book, with narration from author Bill Adler and cameos from artists like Ice-T and Run (of Run-D.M.C.).

PART ONE: Making Hip-Hop’s Classic Album Covers

More:

Click here for GIANT’s exclusive gallery of the book party for “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Click here to purchase “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Click here for book website: “DEFinition: The Art and Design of Hip-Hop”

Hip-hop has often been described as a young man’s game. Since its humble beginnings, the genre has always been about the now, the flash of what’s new and what’s next, without ever truly paying homage to what came before. The rampant success of young acts such as Soulja Boy and Plies had me, a 31-year-old recovering hip-hop addict, headed right to easy-listening rehab. No Ice-T on me, but the fact that Lil Wayne is considered a veteran at the ripe age of 26 should tell you something.

Recently, however, something changed. Throughout the summer I started nodding my head more and more to tracks by Nas, Busta Rhymes and LL Cool J. No, I didn’t buy a satellite radio and crank up the old-school station. These were new songs. And it seemed as though some of hip-hop’s most seasoned veterans (or, as the kids say, “old-ass rappers”) hadn’t faded into the night. Apparently many of these artists still have a couple of hot 16s left in them. Granted some rappers (Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg) transcend age, but even those artists can catch the wrath of a 16-year-old kid who thinks they should hang up their mics. I challenge that kid-and anyone else who feels to same way-not to rock to Nas’s “Fried Chicken” or Busta’s “Don’t Touch Me Now (Throw Da Water on ‘Em)” because, at the end of the day, good music is good music, regardless of an MC’s age.

That being said, we don’t need to go crazy with the old-man rap. I don’t want to hear a new Rev. Run album or see a Salt-N-Pepa music video featuring Keyshia Cole. I still prefer my really old rappers where they belong: on reality TV.