In Sacha Jenkins’s documentary Fresh Dressed, which outlines the long-living relationship between hip-hop and fashion, Kanye West notes, “Being fresh is more important than having money.” Throughout the film, Jenkins asserts that style has always been an inherent pillar of hip-hop, since the ways rappers visually brand themselves play a pivotal role in how they’re recognized and perceived. And over hip-hop’s timeline, stylistic braggadocio has persisted as a mainstay.
Some argue it's an expression of hyper-masculinity, while others theorize that, historically, rappers from impoverished environments have used expensive clothes and accessories to symbolize transcendence from the deflated conditions of their surroundings. To quote Jay Z, “If you grew up with holes in your zapatos, you’d celebrate the minute you was having dough.” No matter the psychological reasoning, from Run DMC to Young Thug, it’s customary for rappers to give in to materialism with the acquisition of fame.
Enter Allan Kingdom, Minnesota-bred rapper whose sartorial aesthetic is not on par with hip-hop's stereotypical style standards and certainly not in tune with some of the high profile names he’s surrounded by (we’ll get to those in a minute). Instead, it sits somewhere in the intersection of a Northern woodsman and Woody Harrelson in White Men Can’t Jump. He can throw on a pair of all-black Jordans and patchwork pants one minute, don a thrifted fur-lined denim jacket and striped scarf the next, and re-appropriate your dad’s dorky outfits in his high school yearbook photos the next. Clearly, he's not following any sort of formula—to him, it’s all natural.
“When I get dressed, the clothes I wear have to reflect how I feel or how I want to feel,” he says. “I just go with my first instinct when it comes to music, dancing, or anything visual, like my clothes. I’ve seen people hurt themselves and not be as happy as they could be because they don’t do the same thing.”
Bravado is an expectation that comes with enlisting in the culture—it’s as if you need to boast opulence in order to maintain the untouchable-ness that’s embedded in the definition of celebrity. The extravagant possessions we see rappers brandishing in music videos and Instagram pictures portray their worths as higher than our own, and they become illustrious entities, rather than ordinary, relatable people. So when a rapper, like Allan Kingdom, doesn’t live up to these tropes, that exclusivity-via-fashion is removed, and suddenly, the way we subconsciously approach his authenticity shifts.
Allan Kingdom (née Allan Kyariga) grew up around Canada before eventually landing in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he now calls home. His frequent migrations through his adolescence never allowed him to settle in one environment; that part of his identity never having been fixated gave him room to explore his many facets. It’s not that he doesn’t have a firm hold on his self-perception, but rather that he finds fulfillment in wandering around any sort of calculable identity.
I just go with my first instinct ... I’ve seen people hurt themselves and not be as happy as they could be because they don’t do the same thing.”
“Moving around has impacted the way I dress a lot. When I get dressed, I always want to be versatile because I never know what kind of situation I can be walking into. I meet and talk to all types of people from all walks of life. I don’t know if I’m gonna end up at a nice restaurant or at someone’s apartment in Bedstuy. There are these different parts of me that I’ve come up in and I want to represent each one.”
One listen through Allan Kingdom’s Future Memoirs EP, and it’s clear his music doesn’t play by the rules, either. Scattered with cartoony ad-libs and eccentric vocal tendencies, his sonic profile, like his visual distinctiveness, takes few nods from the traditional formats nailed into hip-hop’s framework. Instead, the self-described "Peanut Butter Prince" has removed himself from the standard and focuses on sincerely manifesting pieces of his imaginative mind—as whimsical and unpredictable as they may be—into artistic contributions.
“My thing is just to be myself, and if I happen to push boundaries a certain way, then I will. But you can’t just be out here trying to push boundaries, because then you end up being someone you’re not. I’m more so trying to create a space where people like me can feel comfortable and have fun and spread love.”
While Kingdom certainly isn’t the first rapper to question hip-hop’s fashion norms, he’s an illustrative example of an overturn we’re seeing in hip-hop, wherein anti-conformist themes are peeking through the clouds of materialism. Newcomers like Kevin Abstract and London O’Connor are exhibiting the power of unpretentiousness, amassing fan bases through written letters and purposefully unsophisticated fashion choices. Also, because of the industry’s shifting landscape, more independent artists are cutting out the record label middleman, which results in unfiltered representations and dismisses unattractive traces of commercialism. As these adaptations take place, Allan Kingdom is at the forefront, self-ruling his brand around his bona fide humbleness.
even if someone’s subject matter is different than mine, I don’t look at it as greater than or less than, I just see it as different.
Earlier this year, Kingdom gained recognition for his feature on Kanye West’s “All Day,” and the two have been merging paths—in part due to industry vets Plain Pat and Jonathan Kaslow by his side—ever since. While Ye is a heavyweight in the fashion world (Ralph Lauren was boring before he wore him), you’d be pressed to find Kingdom in RL unless it was a thrifted Polo jacket— creating a peculiar juxtaposition in the dynamic of the partnership. But Kingdom doesn’t feel pressure to flex like his idols.
“I sometimes feel like an outsider,” he says, “but then when I listen closely, I’m not really rapping about anything different. At the end of the day, rappers just want to have fun, enjoy life and express themselves, and I feel like I’m doing the same thing. Just because we’re not saying things in the same way and just because I’m not wearing a $25,000 gold chain doesn’t mean I don’t like to floss. I’ll just wear a scarf. At the end of the day, it’s all similar intentions.”
“Even if you’re just endlessly talking about how much you love bitches and money, you’re still expressing yourself. Even if someone is beating someone else up, they’re still expressing themselves, even if it’s not in the best way. Any action that anybody does is a form of self-expression, so even if someone’s subject matter is different than mine, I don’t look at it as greater than or less than, I just see it as different. Everyone goes through different things and comes from different places, so I can’t say what I’d be doing if I were that person.”
While self-expression is the thread that weaves fashion and music in any artist’s profile, Allan Kingdom’s resistance to the expensive accessories he’s collecting access to with his climbing success constructs a sort of cultural criticism. Rather than following the flashy examples set by the icons of the hip-hop generation before him, Kingdom goes against the unwritten rapper’s handbook, and in turn, doesn’t rely on a materialist facade to lift him onto a pedestal of eminence. And because he—among other rappers who take the low end style route—isn’t building a wall of unreachable possessions between himself and his listeners, his relatable nature becomes one of his most valuable assets, making us rethink hip-hop’s historic reliance on flamboyance in fashion. With no intention other than to be himself, Kingdom opts to give us an unfiltered translation of his thoughts and inspirations, no matter what that looks like.
