Is Today's Hip Hop Fashion as Bad as it was in the Early 90's?

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com

It seems like ever since Kanye started dressing like a nutsack, a lot of lesser Hip Hoppers had to follow suit. Kanye started wearing stupidly, fluorescent hi-tops, then others did. He started wearing stupid Ray Ban Wayfarers, then others did. He started wearing the Budd Holly glasses, then others did. It's all stupid. I don't get it.

In 20 years when those hip-hoppers' kids see those pictures and say they'll have a conversation like this:

Offspring: Dad, you looked like a huge loser. What a terrible outfit!
HipHopDad: Well, yeah, but it was ironic! I KNEW it was stupid but I wore it anyway as if to defy anyone to make fun of me.
Offspring: Ok. But I'm sure people did make fun of you still, right? Not everyone from that era looks like a dork on purpose. Why were you one of the only ones doing it?
HipHopDad: I guess I thought I was being some kind of fashion rogue and not giving in to the usual sartorial conformity of the time- at least I wasn't rocking the oversized t-shirt, stupidly baggy jeans and a gaudy chain with an unbent-billed hat cocked to the side.
Offspring: So in essence, what you're telling me is- in order to rebel against the status quo, thereby taking the moral/fashion high ground- you dressed stupidly on purpose? You felt in doing so that you were thumbing your nose at comformity? But you still looked like an idiot and you knew that full well, and you felt you could somehow leverage your success as a musician actually defy people to speak out about you looking like a complete dickbag?
HipHopDad: I'd like to think it was more complex than that, but essentially, yes.
Offspring: Wouldn't it just have made more sense to wear something that, 1) you actually thought you looked good in, and 2) was something non-comformist-like that no one else was wearing at the time (e.g. not wearing hightops, way farers, buddy holly glasses, etc.). Essentially, weren't you guys just doing what hipster were doing, and getting made fun of for doing, 10 years ago?
HipHopDad: I guess I never thought of any of that. I was doing a lot of drugs at the time.

*End Scene*

It's one thing when Kanye dresses horrendously, but it hurts to see this trickling down to the teeny bopper R&B guys. Now its starting to look like a trend.


So as per my headline, lets take a look for ourselves to see how this era compares with the Cross Colours Early 90's Era, an era I always thought would be the standard bearer for bad fashion in one music genre, but it may have some modern-day competition, much to my dismay/amazement (dismayzement?). This is about to get ugly.