Jadakiss wasn’t a big fan of the shiny suit era.
The LOX member shared his grievances with the actual suits he initially wore in the late ’90s. “We hated the shiny [suits],” he told Nas and Miss Info on The Bridge: 50 Years of Hip Hop podcast around the 12:25 minute mark below. “We never felt comfortable one time wearing [it]. Mase loved it. … ‘I’m wearing this one.’ When he looked in his dressing room and seen that shit on the hanger…he knew what he was doing. ‘Going for the money guys, don’t mind me.’”
Jada added, “It didn’t really work like that with us. We ain’t feel right with that shit. It didn’t feel right. You look good, you feel good. We ain’t look good, we ain’t feel good. … We wanted to be there, so we didn’t start complaining just yet.”
Nas provided some more context surrounding Jadakiss’ thoughts on the attire. “At the time, everything was about platinum. So I think we were all trying to figure out what was the look—what was that money look. Mase was going for the money. It was a shift—it was like a look that we needed, a star look.” Nas continued, “We was trying to find that glow for the stage that would match it because everyone’s coming from the street. … How do we make this work for arenas? Everybody tried to step up and do something different.”
Jadakiss has touched on this topic before. In 2013 he discussed his love-hate relationship with the shiny suits after Diddy introduced them, telling Combat Jack on his podcast that Jada disliked the attire from the start. “I was probably the most complaining one,” Jada said. “Once we started getting feedback from our fans, that’s when we were like, we know we wasn’t bugging. Get these suits out of here.”
The Bridge is a Mas Appeal and Spotify Original talk show that features conversations with hosts Nas and Miss Info as guests join to dissect how hip-hop has impacted the world. Elsewhere, Jadakiss touched on the first time he met Nas and Diddy, how Mary J. Blige helped The LOX get signed, his solo career, and more.
Listen to Jadakiss’ The Bridge episode below.
