Rappers have long name-dropped fashion brands in their lyrics -- from Run DMC's "My Adidas" to Jay Z's "Tom Ford."
But these days, when it comes to rap shout-outs, it's the more obscure, the better. Kanye West practically made Maison Martin Margiela mainstream by asking “What’s that jacket, Margiela?” to an audience who had seemingly never heard of the designer. Maximilian cited Jil Sander in his song “Window Seat” and A$AP Rocky recently “killed” it in his hit “Fashion Killa,” taking obscure fashion namedropping to another level with namechecks of Helmut Lang, Isabel Marant, Thom Browne, Damir Doma, Rick Owens, and even finding a way to rhyme Ann Demeulemeester. To say the least, it's quite different than the fashion rap of the Nineties, which paid tribute to logo-ed out brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Versace.
But now comes rap trio Migos who, on Tuesday, kicked it old school in their new video for the song “Versace,” (which played during the finale of the brand’s Spring/Summer 2014 show) -- a throwback rap to one of the original fashion brands coveted by hip hop artists, from Notorious B.I.G. to Tupac. Migos’s over-the-top video features a feast of Versace's greatest hits – including the famous Medusa head, bomber jackets, and tight button-downs in bright Nineties, signature Versace prints.
It’s refreshing for Migos to take us back to a time before Margiela and Balmain frequented rap lyrics -- a time when Versace seriously ruled the fashion realm. See the video here:
