The Origin Of Baggy Clothes In Hip-Hop And Gang Culture...

Here's another one by Chance. With all of the "baggy clothes crap" going on, I thought I would show how the "baggy" craze TRULY started.

Read on...

The so-called "baggy look."

http://chancellorfiles.typepad.com/chancellorfiles/2005/12/the_origin_of_b.html


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The Origin Of Baggy Clothes In Hip-Hop And Gang Culture

Chance writes: Baggy clothes and Hip Hop are united like husband and wife before you criticize the baggy clothes style. You should first try to find out the origins this is what the thoughtful one’s do

Category-Social commentary & Hip Hop Culture
The Origin Of Baggy Clothes In Hip-Hop And Gang Culture
By Chance, The Chancellorfiles

Chance: The baggy clothes style was started by black American crip and blood gang members.It all started in the 1970's at the Los Angeles county jail in Los Angeles, California.When people got arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department and once they arrived at the Los Angeles County jail. The Los Angeles county sheriffs would take the inmates belts and shoe laces away. The reason for this procedure was because some inmates would use their belts and shoe laces to kill themselves. There were inmates who didn’t want to do time in jail or prison so they would commit suicide. So the Los Angeles County Sheriffs started taking belts and shoe laces away from all inmates.

Now some of the Black inmates were gang-members these black gang members were Crips and Bloods. When these black Crip and Blood gang-members were released from the Los Angeles County Jail and from the California prison system.

They remembered the way their pants would fall down because the sheriffs took away their belts; and their shoes were loose because of no shoe laces. Also, they remembered how they where given white-t shirts that were too big for some of them to wear. So these black gang-members kept the style that they got from jail and prison.

Example a black gang-member in Los Angeles who wore a 34inch waist in pants would buy a size 40 inch waist in pants. Also he might be a size large in shirt but he would buy 3x large t-shirt (triple x large). Because he remembered being locked up in jail and prison having no choice but to wear white-t-shirts and other shirts that were too big for him.

Chance: Also Hispanics Americans (Latinos) in California have been wearing white-t-shirts since the 1940s. These Hispanic Americans were called Chicanos (Hispanic of Mexican descent). The Hispanic gangs of California back in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s were called Pachucos. The Pachucos had their own neat and clean pants, shoes, zoot suits and shirts, Pachucos would sometimes wear white-t-shirts and white tank top t-shirts also. The Pachucos dressed very clean and neat - and they were Hispanic gang-members.

But the reason you see black gang-members wearing white-t-shirts is because a white-t-shirt was one of the shirts they were given to wear in jail and prison. When people saw black rappers on television, music videos, and album covers wearing baggy clothes.

That’s when people from all ethnic-groups started wearing baggy clothes. Baggy clothes are no longer the sign of a GANG-MEMBER because people who enjoy HIP-HOP - and those who don’t like HIP-HOP wear BAGGY CLOTHES for fashion, not because they’re in gangs.
Also the fashion industry has been influenced by baggy clothes just look at some of the designs of the latest fashion clothing. Even today jails and prisons still give inmates white-t-shirts to wear as an under-shirt.

California Started The Baggy Clothes Style In General

Baggy clothes did not originate in New York cities Hip-Hop community, baggy clothes was introduced to Hip-Hop culture and gang life by Blacks from California. Also, Latinos who were called Pachucos wore their double pleated baggy dress pants back in the 1920s all the way to the late 1960s. And, in Califonia’s subculture Blacks and Hispanics were already wearing double pleated cottlers, Parachute pants, and lock pants.

The first New Yorkers to start wearing baggy clothes were the freestyle dances and Webo dancers this is how New York break dancers started wearing baggy clothes. Freestyle and webo dancers were New York break dancers. And then by the late 1980’s baggy clothes became more popular at hip Hop events in New York and the entire East coast.

The California and the West coast already had the baggy clothes style before the East coast. Black California gang members who became Hip Hop gangster rappers (gangsta) then started making video’s and more and more people of all ages saw the baggy clothes look that black gang members got from California’s jail’s and prison system.

So New York created the Hip Hop culture and California created the baggy clothes style and the two merged and united and came together to form one Hip Hop community.

Through Hip Hop and baggy fashion clothes (the baggy clothes) the East coast and West coast united young people of all racial groups and ethnic back grounds.Hip Hop culture has done what politics and religion sometimes have a hard time doing and that is uniting people of all ethnicities, political, and religious back grounds.

Hip Hop is a culture
What is a culture made of?

1. Politics
2. Religion
3. Economics
4. Music
5. Clothes
6. Literature – books, poetry, educational and books on any subject.
7. Heritage
8. common experiences
9. Relationships – family, friends, casual acquaintances, husband and wife, boyfriend and girl friend, co-workers, etc.
10. Psychology
11. Language – a language can be a dialect or in metaphors or slang.
12. Ideas – Opinions and thoughts on any subject, situation and circumstance that many members of a particular culture find important to the members of their culture.
13. Foods
14. Written and unwritten - rules and codes of conduct on what to say and do and what not to say and do.
15. Philosophy- opinions about certain situations and circumstances in life also - opinions about certain intellectual, political, educational, and religious topics. Also there are many other things that can make up culture but these are the major ones.

Hip Hop is the culture and music is a part of the Hip Hop culture, rap music is not culture rap music is a part of the Hip hop culture. And rap expresses the cultural and personal experiences of the rapper.

Eric Eazy-E wright is the God-Father And Founder Of Gangster Rap
He Is The One Who Started It

Look at Gangsta rap (Gangster rap) it is the most popular music among all ethnic-group also rap music especially Gangsta Rap music is the most widely sold music on the planet. Now not all Rap music is Gangsta rap, some rap music is about relationships between male and female, some about life, some rap songs are about being aware of your culture, some rap music is about being intelligent and some rap music is about the gangsta life.

In the late 1970’s and up to the mid 1980s your Hip-Hop rappers like Run-Dmc, Ll Cool J, Dougie Fresh, Whodini, and many others were not gangsta rappers. They were Hip-Hop performers, entertainers and rappers but not gangsta rappers (Gangster rappers). Yes other music categories like Rock ‘n’ Roll, Classical, Country, and all the other musical categories sell millions of albums also. But Generally Hip-Hop Music and Gangsta Rap Music sell more albums than any-other musical category.

So as previously stated rap music currently is the number one most sold music on the planet and numbers don’t lie. There are many reasons why rap music is the most WIDELY SOLD music in music store Retail and the most internet DOWNLOADED music on earth.
One of the major reasons is that people from all ethnic and racial groups buy it more people from all ethnic-groups also buy Rock’n’ Roll, Country, Classical, and all other musical categories. But they buy Rap music more than any-other. The Hip-Hop culture is open to all ethnic and racial groups. Also, people from other ethnic groups don’t feel like it’s a Black American cultural thing only.

Why? Because black people welcome all people from every ethnic background to their culture there-fore it becomes humanities culture. Someday the whole world will be united just like the Hip-Hop community is united by all ethnic groups. All ethnic groups united, representing one international-humanity just like the Hip-Hop community.

By chance (Chancellor)
Written during the 21st century by Chance.

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I was NEVER down with the baggy look.

As Bill Cosby would say,

"PULL YOUR PANTS UP!!"