A little bit of Hip-Hop and the ancillary sneaker culture was killed in a bad way when the Puma brand of athletic footwear compromised their legacy by cross-branding a line of apparel with Viacom and their defunct show ‘Yo! MTV Raps’. The clothing line attempts to pay homage to iconic Hip-Hop legends DOUG E. FRESH, BIG DADDY KANE and MC SHAN, but the overall designs and even worse, the attachment to a television program that has had NOTHING to do with the overall recognition of these legends should cost Puma their O.G. points.
Since I only see the Puma brand now worn by metrosexuals and Euro fags I wouldn’t have considered these items for my collection anyhoo, but I am still not amused with the attachment of a network that was the ultimate Johnny-Come-Lately to the artistic movement that is Hip-Hop. When these Hip-Hop icons were at their influential apexs Music Tele Vision refused to play the music videos of any Black performers other than Michael Jackson, Prince or Sade. To the uninformed consumer one might think that ‘Yo! MTV Raps’ actually supported these true school artists when in fact MTV was the most zealous purveyor of supremacist funded gangsta rap. Newjacks, please don’t get it twisted, MTV doesn’t care about rap people.
Bigger than any other reason to throw this schmatte in the trash is the fact that this shit just plain looks wack. Okay, they almost won with the DOUG E. FRESH design. The tagline ‘All The Way To Heaven’ is classic Hip-Hop. The ‘Yo! MTV Raps’ logo… Not so much.
The BIG DADDY KANE tracksuit and trainers also had a chance to win in my book if Puma had not come with that crappy cross-branding or that ridiculous gold rope chain motif. Memo to dumbasses at Puma: truck jewelry = Slick Rick. Hi-top fade = BIG DADDY KANE. Just like a bunch of dickriders that are here to feast on the rotting consumer corpse of Hip-Hop, these shitbag designers didn’t even do their homework.
Let’s not even get into the hot mess of an outfit they designed for MC SHAN. Even twenty years later ol’ boy keeps losing. First of all, SHAN prah’lee still has his Puma suits from 1987. Second of all, when SHAN was wearing Puma suits in 1987 they were already washed up. Puma’s legacy was from 1984 down on the backs and feet of B-Boys and breakdancers. Only a Puerto Rican breakdancer would wear the sneakers they crafted for SHAN. Do you see how the colors are inverted? What peanut butter and jelly shit is this?!? Leave it up to the people that will always be the dopplegangers of the Hip-Hop movement to screw up a project that could have been so official. I have three words for the idiots at Puma and MTV who are prah’lee patting themselves on the back for this half-assed project…
YOU AIN’T FRESH!
Big pharma spokesmodel and teen recruitment director LINDSEY LOHAN
