How One Rap T-Shirt Collection Tells the History of Hip-Hop

Perched atop the fabled gold couch sitting in Lenny S's office, DJ Ross One is unpacking a huge suitcase that runneth over with rap tees. When looked at in rapid succession, a sensation similar to an acid flashback ensues. And then I realize something: Something about rap music and its culture sucks you in immediately. Almost any rap fan I know can recall the exact moment they heard hip-hop for the first time. And for DJ Ross One—real name Ross Schwartzman—who grew up in Cincinnati, OH, his moment was seeing Yo! MTV Raps for the first time. Just that glimpse hooked him for life, which led him to New York City where he'd become an established DJ within the scene.

Aside from being a DJ repped by behemoth Roc Nation, Ross has recently published a book through powerhouse entitled Rap Tees. This isn't a trip through history of hatchlings sprouting wings and flying into multi-million dollar business land of full on clothing lines brands like Phat Farm and Sean John. This is ain’t Grateful Dead concert tees either though. Covering the best in rap T-shirts and other merch from 1980 to 1999, Ross gives kind of a hip-hop history through T-shirts.

No Guns & Roses tees need apply.

Noisey: So tell us about your early days when you first experienced rap.
DJ Ross One: I got into rap when I was really 11 or 12 years old. It started out back then with just kind of what I had access to. In Cincinnati the access to hip hop was limited especially in the 90s when I was a kid because I wasn't driving or anything like that yet. So it was kind of just Yo! MTV Raps and the occasional magazine. So I started out by listening to what I was seeing on TV. Groups like Digital Underground and even like, X-Clan, Public Enemy. That was the stuff I remember in 4th and 5th grade. Before that I was a fan of the Beastie Boys a lot and once I got into my teens I discovered Public Enemy. That was huge for me. Then Native Tongues were a big deal for me. The main thing about the shirts was again, access was so limited back then that I was always left wanting more. So it was through magazines like Rap Pages and The Source and music videos and you'd see the shirts in the videos or you'd see them in magazines but there was absolutely no way to get them.

So how'd your start actually buying them?
There were some artists I liked that maybe you could get at the mall like the Beastie Boys. You might get lucky and find and Ice-T or Ice Cube shirts at the mall. But my first Public Enemy t-shirt came from a mail order form in the CD booklet. Certain artists that were up on their merchandising game would include a mail order form or create some sort of fan club.

That was not the case with your favorites live Native Tongues though right? Those were hard to come by even in NYC.
Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul… it was completely impossible. Even if I would go to a concert they wouldn't even be selling t-shirts. I'd see the shirts here and there, in the videos and it was just like "Whhhaaaat!"

So how'd you bridge that gap?
I started coming to New York with my dad, who is originally from New York. I'd be on the streets searching. I'd go to Canal Jeans a lot. When I was a kid I liked going to Triple 5 Soul, Phat Farm… just trying to find those unique things. Early Echo shirts, PNB, Haze… the early stuff that I couldn't get in Cincinnati. All the money that I saved would get spent on those trips. I might buy a Kangol and a Triple 5 Soul shirt but the hip hop tees were still so impossible because back then they were mostly promo items. You kind of had to be around the groups or somehow with them on tour.

How did DJing help your quest for these shirts?
Well I started DJing when I was about 16. I had one wack Gemini turntable and a mixer. As I got into digging for records a lot more as I was digging for records at the record shop I started digging for shirts too. My main thing was still to find all this old funk and soul as I started getting into the original samples but I would dedicate time to looking for tees too. When I started going to college in Rochester I would find great shops that had stockpiles of old concert T-shirts.

You ever try to dig through Goodwill bins?
Always. I used to work at the Salvation Army. Basically all through college and high school I was working at a Salvation Army or a record store. Usually the record shop was paying me in records and the Salvation Army they didn’t pay anything. It was just to get first dibs on items I wanted. I was living in a house with ten of my friends so there was like no rent so the job was an excuse to get first dibs on records and tees.

But finding hip hop shirts at the Salvation Army was really tough. Maybe I’d come across like a Kurtis Blow or Def Jam tee but honestly I wasn’t checking for some of the mid 1990s stuff because it had just happened. I just wanted what I was a fan not what I might be a hot commodity 15 years down the line. Like, I would've never thought that a Notorious B.I.G. shirt would be hard to find. It wasn't until late 2000s that I started to appreciate those. Now when I look back it reminds me of that time. At the time though I would look at those bootlegs and think they were kind of ugly and a mess.

Especially the bootlegs. But now like A$AP Yams memorial shirt is done in that motif.
Yeah it has that street corner look. The earliest ones of that style that I have are like 94 or 95. They made them for Gang Starr and Tribe and AZ and Nas had a bunch. But they were just street corner, flea market bootlegs. They were really disposable made on shitty shirts. Most of them wouldn't last six months. And it's hard to track down anybody who mad them because no one had permission to produce them. It was completely illegal and no one had permission to use the photos. Plus there was a likelihood they would get confiscated or trashed because they were illegal so people didn't want to invest too much into these things. Not to mention you were also selling them for practically nothing. People wore them a couple times when the album was hot and then used it for a rag.

I remember seeing a lot of Wu Tang themed ones like that, especially with the "C.R.E.A.M." acronym.
Wu had a lot. Anybody who was hot in the street where it was like someone would want to buy it from a street vendor had a bootleg. Nas had a bunch and there were Firm ones, Lil Kim, all from that era. Then No Limit came in. They were using that Pen & Pixel aesthetic so it was almost like the art was taken from the bootleg. You didn't know which came first the album art or the bootleg.

Do you recall any shirts in particular that really spoke to you as a young consumer of rap from Cincinnati?
Definitely. This Ice T t-shirt for “Home Invasion” is probably one of my favorites for that reason. Just like the kid with the headphones listening to all these things that his suburban parents are trying to shelter him from but the music in his headphones is exposing him to that element. Early on I really related to that image.

That original Echo shirt, the Stretch & Bobbito one, is a gem. That was when “Ecko” was still spelled “Echo.”
Yeah there are some shirts that really capture a period in hip-hop. Like some of these original Bad Boy ones from the mid to late 90s for instance. They’re very basic, with the logo on the front and the back.

I heard A$AP Ferg’s dad, D. Ferg (RIP), designed the Bad Boy logo and like the Uptown Records logo also I think.
Yup, that’s right. I was actually trying to get a hold of Ferg to talk about his dad for this book but we weren’t able to lock it in in time so… But yeah his dad did some of the better-known logos in hip hop in the 1990s.

So the book is a pretty decent size but it seems like there’s still so much more than could’ve gone in there. Is there going to be a Volume 2? Maybe include some of the Dip Set stuff.
Maybe. There was definitely a lot left on the cutting room floor and the cut off is 1999 so the early 2000s stuff got left out. The thing is, especially in hip hop, the recent past is never respected. It usually is kind of shunned until enough time passes that nostalgia and appreciation for that period grows.

J Pablo is a writer based in New York.

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