Since the dawn of hip-hop, rappers have been important tastemakers in fashion. Wearing a brand in a music video or name-dropping a designer in a verse could transform that label’s business.
Across generations, there are countless examples of what the right co-sign at the right time can do. A specific item can become a coveted collectible, as was the case with Raekwon and the “Snow Beach” anorak. Or an artist can imbue a familiar garment with new meaning, like N.W.A. adopting Raiders gear as a piece of their uniform. Sometimes, a rapper can even help introduce an established item to an entirely new generation and jumpstart a new trend cycle, like ASAP Rocky and striped Guess tees or Tyler, the Creator and Supreme camp caps.
To be clear, these rappers are almost never the literal first people to ever wear these things; a trend is the result of much undocumented energy. In many cases, these rappers were showcasing the style cues and codes of their scene. But there is no denying that they took them to a new level by introducing these styles to mainstream audiences.
When compiling this list, we avoided clothing lines started by rappers. So Yeezy or Billionaire Boys Club are ineligible, despite their success. We also tried to only give each artist one example for the sake of diversity.
Check out 20 of the best examples of clothing items that have been immortalized by rappers, below.
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