Grandmaster Caz is hip-hop‘s first ghostwriter. He is also a self-proclaimed “sneaker pimp.”
The Bronx, N.Y.-born rap icon — who wrote hip-hop’s first major hit song, The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” — was the opening guest today in Detroit at the Black Footwear Forum, held at the Pensole Lewis College of Business & Design. He was joined on stage by “Culture Raises Us” podcast host Astor Chambers.
While on stage, Grandmaster Caz discussed his connection to footwear culture.
“I was a sneaker pimp,” said Grandmaster Caz, getting a rise from the audience. “That’s what they used to call us back in the day. They didn’t call us connoisseurs or sneakerheads or whatever. I was a sneaker pimp ever since I was a kid. When I had to, I’d put on some shoes. Other than that, straight sneaker pimp.”
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He also broke down why fashion was so important in terms of self-importance and self-expression while growing up in hip-hop’s early days.
“I grew up in the Bronx during the ’60s and ’70s, and one of the only thing you had as a statement that you were anything was how you looked. Money wasn’t flowing back then, but I always made sure that I was fresh,” the hip-hop legend said. “I got teased in junior high school because I grew up going to Catholic school. I went to Saints Philip & James School in the Bronx from fourth grade to seventh grade. When I came out to go to junior high school, I was like, ‘Now I can dress. I can wear all the things that I like.'”
However, just because he had more freedom with fashion, that doesn’t mean he made all the right decisions.
“Guess what I did? I bought all the clothes that I liked and I put them all on together. I had purple Converse, I had blue and white checkered pants, I had a red, white and blue pattered shirt, I had a blue velvet jacket — all on the same day. I went to school and you couldn’t tell me I wasn’t that dude,” Grandmaster Caz said. “Luckily, I met a friend, his name is Timothy Allen, he was like, ‘Yo, you can’t wear all those colors.”
The Black Footwear Forum is a multiday event created to improve access, education and increase opportunities for Black professionals in the footwear industry. This year’s event was held in Detroit at the Pensole Lewis College of Business & Design.
