A$AP MOB - COZY TAPES VOL. 1 . The album has a fun opening skit, which portrays the crew in the bodega, interacting with the store owner. The sounds of a new york corner store, the new york accents, the banter... The skit is an interesting insight into the role fashion plays in the crew´s life. I love the juxtaposition of the new york city bodega to high fashion. The bodega - where the prices are low; a corner store; cheap and gritty - where you will find a cat asleep on the bread, where the music is loud. The boys in the skit themselves are looking for cigar wrap to roll their weed with. Again, the juxtaposition of moral systems, from cheap thrills to high fashion. What is luxury and who can afford it?
"What do you call those things that hold the socks up? - the sock holsters - the sock holsters! - cozy! "
Cozy is playboy boxers, with a playboy baseball cap. Cozy is also the Valentino pinstripe shorts with the goose down jacket. The list of clothes they mention - what they are wearing - conjure up ridiculous images. All in good fun and in the desire to be extravagant. To branch out. To take risks. It´s almost like the high fashion serves as an allegiance to the drive, to the desire to be somewhere else. To be out there - As Sun Ra wrote, linking space travel to the empowerment of the people: "If we came from nowhere here, why can´t we go somewhere there?"
I saw ASAP Rocky mention his approach to fashion, something along the lines of, "if it feels good, if you want to wear it, then wear it"-in other words, take risks. It´s a sweet endearing skit that reminds me of New York, and made me a bit nostalgic for the corner store, for the dollar coffee and the bacon egg and cheese: for meeting your friends to show off your new outfit.