A trip down memory lane to when customization and art reigned supreme in New York City. Jamaica, Queens, New York in the mid 1980s. Rappers and hip hop fans came from all over the city to get their own customized T-shirt by The Mighty Shirt Kings. The style traveled all over the world through record covers, magazines and music videos and the Shirt Kings designs soon became synonymous with Hip Hop and the culture of making something out of nothing. Shirt Kings - Pioneers Of Hip Hop Fashion looks at the early days of urban fashion through the lens of the pioneering group of artists known as the Shirt Kings. By adapting the graffiti skills from the trains and spray cans to shirts and airbrush they created a new look for a new generation. Edwin PHADE Sacasa is a founding artist of the group and it is through his archives that we are transported to the 1980s in New York City where the fashion of the day was loud, colorful, and filled with cartoon imagery on clothes; but not just any cartoon imagery for the cartoons were urbanized. Mickey Mouse with a Fila suit, Casper the Friendly Ghost with gold teeth, Roger Rabbit with a flat top hair do and Pink Panther with gold chains and guns - it was the reinterpretation of American classics but with an urban and gangster lean. The Shirt Kings were the inventors of this style and everyone across the city was well aware and made there way to Jamaica, Queens, to a small shopping mall known as the Coliseum where you could easily bump into the biggest names in Hip Hop of the day placing orders. HipHop Artist like DJ Red Alert, LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane and Mike Tyson - they all had to have their Shirt Kings designs. Shirt Kings - Pioneers of Hip Hop Fashion chronicles the art, the styles, and the people who were loyal supporters of the Shirt Kings style and takes us on a trip down memory lane to when customization and art reigned supreme in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

"Shirt Kings brought the Hip Hop element into the clothes for real and integrated it, and it was the first time I saw Hip Hop culture completely merged with clothing." 
- LL Cool J

"The Shirt Kings network was fashion TV of the times, and advertising and promotion way before it became trendy." 
- Chuck D, Public Enemy

"The first shirt I ever threw on that had anything on it that represented my heart was Shirt Kings." 
- KRS One

About the Author

Born in East New York, Brooklyn, Edwin PHADE Sacasa studied photography at the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan and graduated from Savannah Collage of Art and Design with major in video production. PHADE has been airbrushing for the entertainment industry for more than two decades and founded the Shirt Kings store in the mid 1980s, where he serviced many of todays Hip Hop stars and pioneers, such as Jay Z and Run DMC. PHADE is working with youth in the inner city and have developed a program that teaches urban fashion through airbrushing, art therapy and entrepreneur skills.

Hardcover: 144 pages

Publisher: Dokument Press (April 15, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 9185639575

ISBN-13: 978-9185639571

Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.8 x 11 inches

Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

   It was just a hop, skip and a jump from Oaklandish toSolespace, for the opening of “Electric Kingdom,” a group show by the bicoastal TMT crew, curated by Oakland aerosol legend Refa One. The show, which runs until the end of September, features works by Refa, Chain 3, Tean 5, Kade, Sak, Skeme, Shame 125, Web, Stem, Cre8, Mad, Kufu, and Enk 1, plus guest artist Soon 1. It’s a notable exhibit in that it connects West Coast aerosol artists to their Bronx, NY counterparts.

On Friday night, Drasar Monumental and Planet Rocker, of the Northstar Zulus, spun old-school hip-hop, as heads mingled amidst the exposition of the culture’s first element. That was followed by an artist talk featuring Skeme, Refa, and Kufu the next evening, moderated by artist and author Duane Deterville.

Some interesting things came out of that conversation, such as Skeme revealing that the controversial word “graffiti” – which has been eschewed by aerosol practitioners of late – is actually his preferred term. “I ain’t no aerosol muralist, I’m a graffiti writer,” declared Skeme, who noted that the original Italian word graffiti is derived from, graffito, is a technique which involves making a drawing by covering a surface, then etching away at it, revealing the undersurface.

Skeme also ran down the storied history of the original TMT crew, whose moniker stands variously for The Magnificent Team, and Ten Million Tags, among other acronyms. The veteran writer encouraged younger artists to learn about the artform’s history, and also decried the cultural appropriation of graffiti by Caucasian writers whose efforts, he opined, tended to be more linear and less “funky” then black and Latino artists.

Refa explained the show’s inspiration came from Twilight 22’s classic 1983 electro-hop song as well as the energy conducted through the process of making art, which he said had “flow, vibration, rhythm.” There’s a connection, added Kufu, between present-day urban hieroglyphics and “ancient Egyptian electro-magneticism” reflected in color patterns which remain similar through “spans of eons and millenniums.”

-Eric K Arnold
For the full Article click the link
http://oaklandlocal.com/2013/08/oakulture-art-soul-shimmies-electric-kingdom-shakes-first-friday-funkitizes/