My fashion questions

Hey, what's up? This is Chuck Kriegmer. I'm the CEO of AllHipHop.com and I'm about to

answer a few questions about this fashion show, which we're about to do because, you

know, I am a fashion guru. First question, tell us your name and what you do. I just

told you. My name is Chuck Kriegmer, aka Jigsaw. I'm the co-founder and CEO of AllHipHop.com

And what I do is hip hop. But more specifically, I have dealt with hip hop from a media perspective

for 25 years or more. I started out in the game as a fan of the culture and a student

of the game and someone who was looking for a place in the culture. And I learned through

rapping that I was good with writing. And eventually I fell into journalism and melded

that with social activism, with art and music, and put it all into the Internet in the form

of AllHipHop.com. All hip hop is the longest continual running hip hop platform. We're

an award winning platform. We're the only website digitally that matters. And I don't

mean that arrogantly, but I mean that from a standpoint of us really, truly paving a

road for just about everyone to cruise on. And we cover the spread in terms of hip hop

And when I say cover the spread, I mean the culture. We don't just podcast. We don't just

report the news. We don't just opinion over hip hop. We actually do all of that. And most

sites don't. So we do all of it. So that's a big burden, but we carry it. Yeah, so, you

know, we've gotten accolades from everyone from Jay-Z to P. Diddy to Russell Simmons

to, I mean, just about everything. We've interviewed almost every artist and we continue to

interview other artists and stay in line with the core values of hip hop. Third question

How did I become involved with the hip hop fashion show? Well, this fashion show, I can't

exactly remember, but I know that myself and Nicky Robinson, aka DJ Nicky, got together

after having some conversations and stumbled into the idea of doing a hip hop fashion show

And it eventually evolved into, you know, a Hip Hop 50 thing since we're now celebrating

50 years of hip hop. I immediately thought of of Kai because I knew that she would be

a person, first of all, that's been on the Internet for 25 years like myself in business

which is something I can't overstate is really hard. Number two, she's hip hop, obviously

but really knows the ins and outs of the game, the culture. Number three, you know, she's

fashion. She is fashion. She is hip hop fashion. So I immediately pulled her into it as well

and knew that she was lined up with a lot of veterans like April Walker, Dapper Dan

and other people who are really solid individuals in hip hop. Number three, four question

Excuse me. Why is fashion important to hip hop? Fashion is not an element of hip hop

but it really is. You know, it really is an element. One of those other elements that

we don't always name is to me, it's just, you know, as important as rapping. It's just

as important as the DJ and break in and graffiti and knowledge itself. It's a reflection and

an expression of who we are. You know, I have I have been through many phases and I

can know exactly where hip hop was by what I was wearing at that time. Mostly, you know

I mean, when Big was wearing coochie sweaters, I was not doing that because I was not in

that space. But better believe I had on my Tim's. I had on my baggy clothes. At some

points I was dressing, dressing up. At some points I was wearing sneakers. At some points

I was wearing a number of things. And I think that I think that hip hop fashion is one of

the most influential things in our culture. And I think we were always ahead of the curve

And now that we're celebrating hip hop 50, I think that we're getting more recognition

because we're seeing people like Dapper Dan, April Walker be validated when at one point

they were villainized. There are other brands that deserve recognition to like FUBU, Carl

Canai and, you know, even Rockefeller, Rockawear, Sean John and E.J. and and so many other streetwear

brands that, you know, weren't really called streetwear, but they they absolutely set the

table for what would eventually be a genre and that streetwear. So people that were not

appreciated by the masses are now being revered and uplifted. And that's an amazing thing

You know, this fashion show has been difficult. We're all busy running our individual lives

We're all running around. We're all really, you know, pushing our individual efforts

And so I think that it's been very difficult to get this thing running. But what I do appreciate

is our collective effort and sort of coalescing around the vision and paying homage to people

who are not as recognized. And also, and that includes ourselves, you know, Kai has been

on the Internet for 25 years. All hip hop has been on the Internet for 25 years. We

hosted a fashion show many years ago. And so I would love to, you know, jump back into

it and see what, you know, what the possibilities are. I remember what I wore when we did our

fashion show in 07 and it hasn't aged well at all. However, you know, knowing that we

hosted a show at LL Cool J and Lyric's Cross, who's a supermodel is like, you know, is like

you know, historic, basically. My favorite era of hip hop fashion has to be the 80s

the later, the latter part of the 80s. I think that was just a classic era. You know

you got your LL Cool J era, your Run DMC era. And that was like when streetwear, so to speak

became cool. We were wearing tracksuits, Adidas sneakers, Nike sneakers. We might have on a

Kangol. Sometimes the Kangol would match. It would always match, actually, your outfit. And

you know, our hair was done up in a way that was matching our outfits. I love dookie ropes to this

day. And the big gaudy jewelry that really just became classic hip hop. I also appreciate the

90s too. But the oversized look actually is back, but at that, you know, there was a period where

that didn't age too well. But, you know, our Timbs could be scuffed back then. And that was

that was okay. In fact, they should be scuffed because that meant you were getting busy and all

that. So, but yeah, I'm definitely going with that 80s era. And it was also an originality

thing too. You know, when you're talking about De La Soul, that's hip hop fashion in the 80s

And I was daring, you know, writing on your clothes is daring. I was an artist. So I used to

paint girls jeans and stuff. I used to stencil my own t-shirts as an expression of being original

And, and I think that hip hop has absolutely shaped fashion. A lot of the villains in couture

culture are now are now using the stuff that we made hot back in the day, but they were too busy

turning their nose up to us to appreciate it. And now, you know, they consider that high fashion

Now Dapper Dan works for these fashion houses. And, you know, I've seen, I've seen April Walker

and TJ Maxx commercials, which by the way, I do shop at TJ Maxx. And I shop at a bunch of places

because at the end of the day, fashion is not to me, at least, is more than just what brands you

wear. It's actually how you wear it and what you, what you put into it, what your energy is in those

clothes. If a nerd is wearing a certain brand like Gucci, you're still a nerd. It's like, doesn't

really change it. That fact. So hip hop is everything in fashion and you can see it everywhere. You can

see these brands and they're utilizing people like ASAP Rocky and more just to put forth the cool

that we exude to the general population, which really wasn't the case. Models were skinny. They

were thin, they were white. They were what they used to call classic American style. And now we

are actually classic American style. So take that. So as far as this fashion show is concerned, you

know, it's a labor of love. We're bootstrapped. We're trying to pull everything out. We have 10

days to go to make it happen. And I'm like, what are we going to do in those 10 days? So we're just

gonna make it happen. I just talked to Lyris Cross. She's very much open and down to, to host

again. We have to figure out ways of, you know, getting her her money, her ends because she didn't

get paid last time. I'm like, dang, you know, we got, we got to figure this out. So shout out to

Lyris. She's a beautiful woman and a friend and someone I have so much respect for. As a model

she has really carried that burden and wave that flag for the diversity that we have in hip hop. So

shout out to her and shout out to everybody. Shout out to Nikki and shout out to Kai. Shout out to

me. As you can see, I'm a, I'm all fashioned out Adidas to this day. My hat, you see the hat when

it says, and we all keep doing stuff in the spirit of counterculture, but also reclaiming our place

in American culture. And that's how I feel. And that's it. Peace. Oh, okay. Don't do that