Ever heard of Christian Louboutin shoes? Of course you have. You'd have to be under a rock not to notice those red soles everywhere. Pick up any magazine - from Vogue to Variety to InStyle to Life & Style - and Louboutin's are on the foot of anyone who's anyone.
But did you know the brand's only been around for a little over fifteen years? Louboutin himself had an almost surreal background in designing footwear, having worked with both Roger Vivier and Charles Jourdan before opening his own boutique in Paris in 1992. Now the shoes are so popular that rappers - yes rappers - are name-checking the red soles in their songs. They're the hottest thing since Cristal, which begs the question, how do certain luxury brands come to be seen as preferred above all others in the hip-hop community? And is the relationship really as simple as rapping about a string of names with no regard to their implications for the listener?
Clothing and accessories, especially, have proliferated in current rap lyrics, with Kanye West leading the pack. His unabashed love of fashion and style have made him a trendsetter as much for urban youth as for preppy Ivy Leaguers. For Kanye, a level of comfort with and ability to name-check luxury name brands marked his ascent as a rapper. But his ability to point out the foolishness of unabashed conspicuous consumption signaled a recognition of perhaps taking it all too far.His first album, College Dropout, features the lyrics " Rollies and Pasha's done drove me crazy/I can't even pronounce nothing, pass that Versace [pronounced ver-say-see by Kanye]!" on the song "All Falls Down." When the song "Home" came out on his second album Late Registration, Kanye was bragging that, "Dealerships asked me Benz or Rover, man/If I could just get one beat on Hova [Jay-Z]." And then he comes to the realization on Graduation that all of these purchases have not made him a better person. "Can't Tell Me Nothing," includes the lyrics, "And What I do? Act more stupidly./Bought More Jewelery, More Louis V[uitton], My momma couldn't get through to me." Huh. So all of that stuff wasn't so fulfilling after all.
For Jay-Z, though, the game has always been about the acquisition of more and better things. Which brings me to his latest album, American Gangster and the lyrics " I am so DOPE/Like Louboutins with the red bottoms/You gotta have 'em, you glad you got 'em" from the song "I Know." Jay-Z has always been a harbinger for the rest of the hip-hop industry (remember, he created Roc-A-Fella because no major label would give him a deal) and his obsession with luxury brands both well known and obscure has become a signature of his raps. How many other rappers could give a shout out to Snoop Dogg and Vera Wang in the same song ("Change Clothes" from The Black Album)?And here's the really interesting thing about Jay-Z: many of the brands he loves don't even make clothing or accessories for men! That's why this burgeoning fascination with Louboutins is so fascinating. Why are male rappers so anxious to include these shoes in their songs, most of which have lyrics that are unprintable in this blog? Cam'ron's song "Get Ya Gun," mentions them, as does another rapper by an up-and-coming DC rapper, whose name escapes me at the moment (I'll update this when I hear his song on the radio). Is it because they're an easy word to rhyme with when pronounced correctly (Loo-boo-tan, with virtually no emphasis on the "n")? Or are they, like Cristal, just something that somebody well-known, like Jay-Z, has picked up on and now all of the others will follow suit?
I'm not sure, but I do know I'd love to try on a pair and see what all the fuss is about. I've heard the red soles turn gray after a few wearings, though. I guess by that point, something new and better will have come along which we'll all just have to have. I'll keep an ear out for Jay-Z's next album so I'll know what that is...
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