Style File Icon: *Kanye West*

When Kanye first burst on the scene with College Dropout back in 2004, I was elated, surprised (pleasantly), intrigued, and relieved. Relieved for the fact that FINALLY there was a brother out there in the mainstream spotlight that could relate to the youth of the ghetto without wearing pants and shirts 5x too large. I LOVED the fact that he was up on Karl Largerfeld, Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Oswald Boateng, etc.
Before his album came out, and he was the new and exciting fresh-blood producer at Roc-a-Fella Records, I had seen a segment on him. MTV had done a "you hear it first" on him, and showed him in the studio working on Jay Z's Blueprint album. I couldn't help but think to myself: "Damn, ol' boy has flavor!" I was peeping his Ed Hardy hoodie HAAAARD (and this was YEARS before the trend caught on). I think he was wearing James jeans-- destroyed denim. They were fit, but not tight-- and the whole look was clean. He looked educated like he had something to say besides "'nah mean"? It titillated me....

Now that Kanye has been in the game for a few years, he has really started to have an impact on our culture. His fashion sense has revived the days of the back-pack wearing, medallion-rockin, b-boys that used to chill in their stance with their jordan III's lookin wicked and fre$h. Kudos to you Kanye! Kudos to you!