Research into artist's costume

"Hip hop fashion, also known as urban fashion is a distinctive style of dress originating with African American youth on the scene of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area, Detroit, Memphis, Virginia, Atlanta, and St. Louis among others. Each city contributed various elements to its overall style seen worldwide today. Hip hop fashion complements the expressions and attitudes of hip hop culture in general. Hip hop fashion has changed significantly during its history, and today, it is a prominent part of popular fashion as a whole across the world and for all ethnicities."

Rappers tend to be seen in baggy clothes, and the whole hip hop culture, much like other music genre's, has it's own specific attire, which is easily recognisable. The rapper Mac Miller once said "You can tell a Mac fan because it looks like they've watched one of my video's and been shopping!
This quote alone proves that the clothing that the artists employ is replicated onto their audience, and this further shows that these artists, as figureheads, aren't just musically infuencing the public, but are seen as fashion icons also.

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The UK Hip Hop and Garage artist Dizzee Rascal is pictured here twice during seperate performances. On both occassions, he is wearing a flat peak or 'dipsy' baseball cap backwards. This is something that is very common amongst hip hop artists. Furthermore, their is bright print on both of his t-shirts, this helps him to stand out and seem relatively out of the ordinary and unconventional, which is a catergory hip hop artists generally fit into. The baseball cap is so popular it has become a

symbol of hip hop, and can be seen on almost every hip hop artist throughout the years.

 

 Here UK Hip Hop artists 'Foreign Beggars' are pictured wearing similar apparel. Again, baseball caps and bright print t-shirts are seen.

British rapper 'Skinnyman' is seen employing the similar genre conventions again in this picture.










I think as well as using several costumes chosen by myself which will help to make my music video appeal to my target audience, it would be useful to replicate some of these looks and follow them very closely in order to bring a professional feel to my media text. I plan tpo use the streetwear look along with bright colours, and generally match all of the genre conventions.

The costume in this rap video is particularly interesting because I found it to be very 'flashy' and hit all of the genre conventions, and so I would like to replicate some of the outfits in this music video, particularly the ide of the big furr coat and flat peak cap.

I've also found that large over-ear headphones are largely associated with the hip hop music genre, to the point where a huge hip hop figurehead released his own brand of them - Beats by Dre. This has given me the inspiration to show my artist wearing over ear headphones as it is representative of the genre and would help attract a target audience.