Public School and New Era Tap Nas to Model Limited Edition MLB Hat Collection

Public School and New Era tap NYC legend Nas to model their historic Mets and Yankees hat collaboration.

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Image via Complex Original
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Public School and New Era recently announced a historic MLB hat collaboration where they will be updating the iconic New York Yankees and New York Mets logos for the first time ever, so it only makes sense they would tap Queens legend Nas to model the collection.

Of course, the hip-hop mogul represents his native borough with the New York Mets PSNY dad cap and the Where NY Lives snapback, although he also sports the Yankees version for the ad campaign.

"When you think of New York leaders, especially in the context of a Yankees or Mets hat, there's no other person that comes to mind before Nas," explained Public School designer Dao-Yi Chow in a press release. "Growing up in the city in the early and mid-'90s, around the time when Illmatic dropped, was like a sociology lesson. Nas was both painstakingly real and beautifully poetic at the same time. He was able to sum up our entire city/universe in 10 songs. And so there was only ever one person that could fully do justice to this campaign and our ode to NYC."

The campaign, shot by photographer Bon Duke, was inspired by a series of Chi Modu images of Nas in 1992 with recreated sets of the rapper's childhood growing up in Queensbridge Housing Projects serving as the backdrop. The other half of Public School design team, Maxwell Osborne, had no doubt when it came to drawing inspiration from those early photographs for the campaign. "Chi Modu's early Queensbridge images of Nas were so iconic and seared into our consciousness that we knew we wanted to reference them for this campaign. His documentary style captured the raw energy of Nas and NYC at the time."

The limited edition hats will cost $75.00 and will be sold exclusively from Sept. 29 to Sept. 30 at the Public School and New Era pop-up shop in NYC. The hats will also be available for a limited time online right here.

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