All Together Now

It’s the end of 2007 and those who care are still forced to

dispel misperceptions about hiphop. The problem, as usual,
is
mainstream media: sensationalism in the news, shallow programming on
the radio, corporate marketing everywhere. Thankfully, the underground
thrives.

Urban centers across America—the places where the culture of
hiphop originates—offer the greatest representation of the art
forms associated with the lifestyle. (And it is a lifestyle, one that
simultaneously endures exploitation and nurtures expression.) Over the
last couple of years, Seattle has emerged as one of those urban
centers, and the culture the city spawns extends beyond music.

Right now, fashion and visual art compete healthily as the city’s
primary nonmusical elements of hiphop. The two are naturally

intertwined, commingling in galleries and retail stores, on
runways and in skate parks, on stage and in song. The
music—locally made hiphop, graduated from awkward adolescence,
taking its first tentative steps toward adulthood, as well as equally
respected but more established national acts—informs them both in
a true symbiosis. Commerce brings it all together, offering devotees
the clothes and artwork that represent the scene and small business
owners the opportunity to make a living from it.

One of the best places to witness the creative loop that is hiphop
culture is Laced Up, an 8-month-old sneaker shop/T-shirt boutique/art
gallery/cultural depository on
Capitol Hill. The store is the
project of co-owners Ralph “Cassius” Belair and Jaycee “Kemetik”
Coleman, a pair of twentysomething entrepreneurs (and fathers) who grew
up tangled in a sublime love affair with hiphop—its look, its
lingo, its sound.

Step into the bright, modestly sized store and Belair, a New York
native sporting a goatee and locally designed sweatshirt, is gracious
with a smile and a handshake. A mixtape pumps reggae and soul over the
store’s sound system. The walls are hung with art from
Artifakt—an up-and-coming Seattle collective that comprises a
dozen or so visual artists. The art is good—ranging from cartoony
to nightmarish, political to abstract. The clothes are
smart—evincing an infatuation with the iconography of hiphop’s
golden era. Kool Herc, Michael Jordan, KRS-One; guns, dollar signs,
peace signs; history, pop culture, and aesthetics all coexist.

Behind the register is Porter Sullivan, a 19-year-old Seattle
Central student from South Seattle who initially came to Laced Up for
an internship in clothing design and retail management. Belair gave him
a job instead. “We’re trying to educate, to provide opportunity,”
Belair says. “We can give back to the community, doing it instead of
talking about it. I’m not putting this store in South Seattle; I’m
putting it where everyone wants to shop. I want people to see our
lifestyle, understand the meaning of hiphop. We’re giving people a
different perception of the music.”

Eight blocks west on Pike Street, Goods is Seattle’s original hiphop
lifestyle boutique—though co-owners Paul Williams, Steve
Gonzales, Nin Truong, and Scott Downing wouldn’t call it that. The
focus here—a store open since 2003 that’s three times the size of
Laced Up—is high-end streetwear, a style associated with
skateboarding, which is associated with hiphop (the era of punk as the
soundtrack to kickflips is long gone). The hiphop influence is less
obvious, though the music on the sound system, the club nights Goods
sponsors, and the skate videos they produce give it away.

Goods has a different way of giving back to the community. Being the
first store of its kind in Seattle, it sets the standard for what savvy
marketing in the hiphop world can achieve. Where the white-T look of
crunk can be bought at any Wal-Mart or Walgreens, the limited runs of
Goods’ goods—$200 sneakers, $50 hats, $150 hoodies—appeal
to hiphop fashionistas. Lupe Fiasco brought the Goods crew onstage with
him at this year’s Bumbershoot in a showing of respect and support.
Rapper Bun B sported a Goods-designed cap on BET’s Rap City earlier this year and gave the store a shout-out during the show.

“There are stores like ours in San Francisco, in L.A., in New York,”
says manager George Otto. “The brands we carry cater to those stores.
They don’t sell to Macy’s or
Nordstrom. They’re small lines and
they want to keep it with the right people.”

Which is how Goods has raised Seattle’s profile nationwide. Laced Up
is working on a smaller scale that’s no less important; Belair can name
a dozen local rappers, promoters, and producers who shop at the store
and attend its monthly art openings. Somehow, when the public thinks
about hiphop, it doesn’t think about cooperation, it doesn’t think
about art, it doesn’t think about community. Take a deeper look:
Sometimes, that’s what it’s all about.

jzwickel@thestranger.com