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Music

A Celebration of Bucket Hats

A guided tour of bucket hats in rap throughout the years.

Earl Sweatshirt and fellow OWFGKTAers took credit for the bucket hat's uptick in popularity last summer. Sure, Earl's been rocking the bucket for a minute, but let's not forget the rest of the brave souls dedicated to keeping their head cool at every angle. We've compiled a list of our favorite bucket hat wearers of the past few years. Go 'head and look:

TONY YAYO

Remember in 2003 at the height of 50 Cent's popularity, when everybody used to scream "Free Yayo?" And then Tony Yayo came out of jail and kinda sucked and it was a total letdown? Think about it again, but only consider Yayo's impact on bucket hat culture. Yayo wore one when almost everybody else had stopped, and his suckitude is probably partially responsible for part of the bucket hat hate that proliferated the Internets (and real life) for a couple of years. But Yayo is a bucket hat soldier, and he deserves the top spot (in anything, for the first time in his life).

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SCHOOLBOY Q

ScHoolBoy Q once said this about bucket hats:

You can see Kendrick go "WHAT?" in admiration of Q's dedication to the bucket hat lifestyle. If that list is in order of importance, bucket hats are only slightly less important to Q than his daughter and more important than weed.

CAM'RON

In between pink furs, Cam was known to don on a bucket or two, usually in camoflauge.

Because one must always be under cover in the purple jungles of Harlem while counting money.

DIDDY

Speaking of Harlem, here's Diddy, walking along in a white bucket, thinking of what other language he can translate "Big Poppa" to and sell it to Taco Bell.

EMINEM

Eminem is a consistently terrible dresser. Take this caramel doo-doo colored ensemble, complete with crusty bucket.

JA RULE

This picture is pixelated because the internet refuses to fully acknowledge the fact that Ja Rule existed, and that he used to wear leather bucket hats. This is from the video where someone threw a bucket of water on Mary J. Blige and she pretended it was rain.

FAT JOE

I can't tell if this is a fresh leather bucket or a gross leather fedora. Either way, Fat Joe had a way of making Eminem look like a style icon.

J. COLE

Cole world, no snuggie. Just bucket.

RICK ROSS

RUN-CCC

GUCCI MANE

Bucket Hat La Flare. Like everything else, Gucci took the bucket and elevated it to an obscene level. This was pre-Ice Cream Cone, when Gucci was your favorite trapper and all he needed in life was one stove.

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MAC MILLER

Mac Miller is pictured here with the Holy Grail of bucket hats, the Gucci Bucket. It's unknown how Mac Miller got his hands on this priceless piece of couture, but it certainly masks any flaws that he may have.

RiFF RAFF

Though RiFF RAFF doesn't perenially rock the bucket, his inclusion makes any list valid.

NAS

There is no better way to celebrate the fact that life is good than sitting near the brick wall from Do The Right Thing while wearing Timbs, selling your own LPs out of crates, and wearing a mean bucket tilted to the side.

FRENCH MONTANA

French Montana is a man who knows his rap history and does his best to show it, whether it's by remaking Jay-Z album cuts or rocking a solid bucket, carrying on tradition that's bigger than him and deeper than rap.

Honorable mention: My boy PZO who looked for a Gucci bucket hat at Goodwill for 6 months, only to finally find one too small for his head.