Funky Dialectic

Here is a dialectical movement in the
history of hiphop. It begins in 1986 with Run-D.M.C.’s “My Adidas,”
which met its opposite in 2002 in Nelly’s “Air Force Ones,” and which
resolves in 2006 with the Pack’s “Vans.” How did this lively quartet
from Berkeley, California, resolve the opposing sneaker anthems in this
funky dialectic? By preserving both the pre-bling spirit of “My Adidas”
(this was not an endorsement, but the expression of real love for the
product) and the crass commercialism of “Air Force Ones.” “Vans” is
brilliant because it is at once “My Adidas” and “Air Force Ones.”

This resolution defines, I think, the Pack’s musical project. Their
music is a sublation (two things becoming one) of old-school and
bling-school principles, which is why initially it was not surprising
that none other than Too $hort (a hiphop granddaddy) discovered them
and got them a record deal with Jive. This deal, however, proved to be
not so good for the Pack. According to one of the crew’s rappers, Young
L, Jive did not know how to promote their first album, Based
Boys, and the excitement from “Vans” fizzled by the end of 2008.
Jive could understand the old-school side of the Pack (which is
essentially party/bad-boy rap), but not their new side, which had much
to do with the cultural and economic openness of a postracial
hiphop.

For years, the skateboard world had appropriated elements of rap
culture. The Pack, on the other hand, were one of the first black
hiphop crews to openly appropriate elements of (white) skateboard
culture. They could do this without a sense of shame because we live in
a period that is witnessing the thawing of the black identity. The
emerging generation is less concerned with keeping it
real—meaning, keeping it black—and more with blending
cultural codes.

Tied to this emergence is the fact that the Pack also represent
cyberspace more than an actual geographic place. With this generation’s
postracial hiphop, place or hood is also dissolving. For example, the
fact that the Cool Kids come from Chicago has as much or as little
commercial value as the fact that the Pack come from Berkeley. The real
home for both acts is the World Wide Web; it is there that their fame
began and there that it will most likely die.