The NBA’s Attack on Hip-Hop Culture, Re-Visited.

While it’s hard to imagine now, the league once set out to sever ties between music and the game.

When Commissioner David Stern implemented the NBA’s dress code in the Fall of 2005 — effectively outlawing the styles and accessories that made basketball ‘urban’ — the league was looking to fracture the symbiotic relationship that had developed between basketball and hip-hop.

This connection was nothing new. Ever since Kurtis Blow referenced Dr. J and Moses Malone on his 1984 hit ‘Basketball’, NBA players had hip-hop to thank for their increasing cultural influence and notoriety. Throughout the 80’s and 90’s, the two spheres grew closer and closer together, sharing the same clothing and lifestyles. By the 2000’s, the two worlds were indistinguishable. The players of that era had grown-up on hip-hop culture, often hailing from the same neighbourhoods and living under the same socioeconomic conditions as the rappers they were emulating. NBA players stepped even further into that culture by launching their own hip-hop careers, and bringing hip-hop style to the NBA’s sideline.

From oversized everything, to gaudy bling, to throwbacks, the NBA’s fashion was a far-cry from where it is today. There’s an entire generation of fans who haven’t seen Shawn Marion on the bench with a Coogi Jacket and iced-out watch, or Iverson rocking a durag to a post-game press conference. Taking this style out of the game, and ending the association between the two worlds was exactly what Stern intended with his infamous ‘Dress Code’.

When it was first introduced, players spoke out vehemently against it. As Stephen Jackson famously said, the NBA was scared of being “too hip-hop,”and as a result, tried to limit the personalities and looks of some of their biggest stars. Allen Iverson became the defacto face of this push, as the league tried to reform his ‘thug’ persona to make the NBA more appealing to mainstream sponsors. While it looked like this change might sever ties between hip-hop and basketball, the opposite happened.

The next generation of the NBA’s stars took the dress code and made it their own. They used is as an opportunity to leave their own mark on the fashion world, upgrading their personal styles from FUBU and Rocawear to Balmain and YSL. Players like LeBron James and Chris Paul were making the cover of GQ for their off court fashion statements as much as for their on court dominance.

As this trend slowly become the norm in the NBA, we say that the relationship between basketball and hip-hop was more symbiotic than previously thought. The old adage “athletes want to be entertainers and entertainers want to be athletes” held more than true, as we started to see the styles in the hip hop world emulate that of the NBA. Fitted clothes and co-ordinated designer styles, things that had at one time been absent from hip-hop’s urban communities, now became a regular fixture. Artists like Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper have been featured in the fashion outlets that LeBron and Chris Paul had graced before them.

This week on Roll The Tape, we dive into the history of the NBA’s dress code. No one is going to argue that the dress code wasn’t motivated in part by race, and by a fear of the “thugish” ascetic that the NBA’s biggest stars had been importing from the hip hop world. Despite that, a new generation of NBA players have taken the limitations of the league and made them their own. Rather than severing the connection between the game and the music, the NBA dress code led players to make their own contribution to the collective influence that ball and hip hop have on the urban world.

Show Notes

How did Basketball and Hip-Hop become so intertwined to begin with?

Who was most affected by the NBA’s dress code; players, rappers, fans or brands?

How could one construe the dress code to not have racial overtones?

What did players do to combat the implementation of the NBA’s dress code?

How does the dress code impact David Stern’s legacy?

Additional Reading

How David Stern’s NBA Dress Code Changed Men’s Fashion (Rolling Stone)

The NBA Has Had A Long History With Hip-Hop (ESPN)

How the NBA became the world’s most stylish sports league (Telegraph)