This Week in Dulture…
Approx 6 minute read:
🗼 Tokyo streetwear lore
🎵 Rozaay’s latest album
🦝 A raykin is famous
👟 Yeezy Boosts are officially retail priced
Dulture weekly mix
After getting through Rick Ross’ latest album in the car this week, Kardinal Offishall popped up into the algo. Kardi is Canada’s Jaÿ-Z I would say. The amount of rappers he’s supported and put on, not to mention his own career that spanned the globe, is something to admire no matter where you’re from.
I decided we’re going down the before Drake was famous Canadian rap rabbit hole this week. We had legit music before Drake, just no distribution so none of y’all Americans heard any of it - until now.
This week’s list features one of my favourite songs of all time - Husslin by Kardinal Offishall. The music video for it is so Toronto.
I have this theory that there’s a good sized chunk of North America that has this strong infatuation with Japan buried within them and it only gets unlocked once they visit.
And I think it has started to get proven out ever since Japan opened up after Covid. Sure, people were just dying to travel after being stuck inside for a couple years but hear me out…
90’s kids were subliminally brainwashed by Japan.
In the best way possible, might I add. Growing up in the 90’s, your life consisted of TV, movies, video games, and going outside, with the TV and video game portion heavily dominating your time.
A lot of American cartoons in the 90’s were outsourced to Japan for cheaper animation. And I don’t need to tell you about the countless popular games from the 90’s that also all came from Japan.
So think about it - everyday, after school, for a good decade, a tiny little bit of Japanese-ness gets embedded in your subconscious and you don’t even know it. And while all of this is happening, the Godfather of streetwear is in Harajuku secretly building the foundation for hypebeast fashion that we know today.
Frustrated by the rigidness of Tokyo fashion in the late 80’s, Hiroshi Fujiwara decided to take it upon himself to create clothes that bridged the gap between high fashion and the skate/punk scene that typically drove Tokyo youth style. Dude was a prominent DJ and tastemaker, having travelled to London and New York in the 80’s experiencing both the UK punk revolution and the birth of hiphop in NYC and bringing that all back to Tokyo.
Fujiwara in the 80’s
If he wore a skate brand from the US or featured something in his monthly column, Last Orgy, it would sell out the next day. He built up GoodEnough, his brand and answer to fashion at the time but never told anyone the brand was his as he wanted people to buy the clothes because they liked them, not because they were made by him. Last Orgy became teenage lore with the likes of a young Tomoaki Nagao, who left his small town in Gunma prefecture to go study fashion in Tokyo, later becoming best friends with Jun Takahashi, who later introduced Nagao to Fujiwara.
Fujiwara took a grand liking to Nagao and offered to take him under his wing. Nagao, who dressed exactly like Fujiwara, sporting the same style and even the same haircut eventually was dubbed Fujiwara’s number two, or NIGO - now you know who I’m talking about??
Left - Nigo, Right - Jun Takahashi - early ‘93
Nigo (and Jun Takahashi) would go on to open a small boutique funded by Fujiwara in Harajuku called NOWHERE in 1993, where Fujiwara’s then underground secretive brand GoodEnough would finally be put on shelves in a physical store, well, half the store was Nigo’s curated American goods and collections including GoodEnough and the other half was Takahashi’s brand, UNDERCOVER - yup that UNDERCOVER.
NOWHERE was located in the back alleys nestled in the Harajuku neighbourhood of Tokyo. If you walk through today, you can easily stumble into some cool spots no one would ever tell you about, inspired by the roots planted by Fujiwara, Nigo, and Takahashi.
SO…FULL CIRCLE. All of this is happening in the 90’s, you’re growing up HADUKEN-ing everything in sight. Fast forward, all of the sudden you have adult money to travel and the Japanese Yen is very favourable to USD (and CAD for that matter) and that random urge to go to Japan becomes VERY VERY real.
I’m telling you, when I went back out Tokyo as it was opening up in 2023, it’s like I was Robocop being hit by a ton of flashbacks of who I was in the past.
If you haven’t been to Japan then you need to go and experience Tokyo, walk through Harajuku and Shibuya, there’s so much lore to explore. And if you are going, then you need the Tokyo Dulture List.
I just gave you a snapshot of the birth of streetwear. And in the Tokyo Dulture List, I give you all of Tokyo’s streetwear scene mapped out, 39 stores, 7 districts across the city, where to shop, what it’s like (like fr fr, not just some Tripadvisor blog), where you should stop to eat, walking routes from store to store, maps, brand indexes, the weather, and the list goes on and on. I’ve gone through these neighbourhoods so many times now, I’ve gotten lost, I’ve gone into random stores, you name it - I’ve got the context on where you should actually go and what it’s actually like.
Tokyo has such a unique take on streetwear and shopping, I think if that world interests you, you owe it to yourself to visit and if you’re going to go, allow me to help you prepare in advance for it.
Unc Rap
There’s this weird thing that has happened with everyone’s age.
Like no one knows how old anyone really is anymore...
As an “early” millennial, I’m the perfect example. I have no clue how old I am - the other day buying my kid stuff in Hollister the girl at the cash was like what, you have a daughter? I was like, I got 3 - she was blown away. Then I was blown away - am I old? Am I young, wtf am I???
Translation: I still dress like I’m 16
I think the notion of feeling young for a lot longer is because everyone we grew up with also seems young. Think of all the artists you listened to in high school. If they’re still making music now then they aren’t no spring chicken no more but Jaÿ-Z at 56 kinda still feels like Jaÿ-Z at 26 🤷♂
Enter 50 yr old Rick Ross.
Would you ever know Rozay was 50? Remember when he tried to butt his nose (no pun intended) into the Drake and Kendrick beef?
This was coming from a 48 year old man obsessed with another man’s nose while trying to coax him into a rap beef:
I honestly had no clue how old Rick Ross was at the time, I already thought what he was doing was corny to begin with but didn’t realize dude was pushing 50 trying to get into a rap beef - which we obviously knew was so that he could feel relevant again.
Lest us forget his biggest track on Spotify is actually a Drake track...correction, his top 3 tracks on Spotify are with Drake.
Heck if Jaÿ-Z is still rapping at 56 then you can’t question Rick Ross still releasing new albums at 50. Ross just released Set in Stone, his 14th album. Yup, fourteen albums about cocaine, alcohol, women, and expensive things.
I was prepared to sh*t all over this album but ngl, there’s a bit of replay value. If you’re a die hard Ross fan then I think you appreciate this already.
The album isn’t heavy with the Ross of yesteryear BMF-type anthems but there’s a certain level of class to Ross’ raps now, I guess hitting half a century does that to you. You hear this right out of the gate with the jazzy melancholic Caviar Bumps.
Honestly Ross should just do jazz albums from now on, like smoke a cigar in a mahogany room type vibe - I could listen to that like it was Lofi Girl for hours.
Even though the album is riddled with features (19 tracks, only 5 solo tracks), it’s pretty enjoyable, like something you’d just throw on while you’re vacuuming the house or writing a newsletter.
Also, is it me or does he look like Mr. Freeze on the album cover?
Yet Another Viral Animal
How many mf-ing viral animals are we gonna get this year?
Earlier this year for a good month my algo was riddled with Punch the monkey, as I’m sure yours was too. It was an international story every time he got shunned, beat up, or hugged by another monkey.
What ever happened to that monkey anyway??
Moving on, we now have a viral raccoon screwing up the algo. Jimothy, a raccoon who runs around like he’s a pick pocket in Paris, was first spotted in Seattle and has become celebrity.
Jimothy has short spine syndrome which causes him to run like he’s stealing pizza like the raccoon in my kid’s Secret Pizza Party book.
The internet moves way too fast, the raccoon now has:
A Reddit community with 64k weekly visitors
1,000+ merch listings on Etsy
An official bobblehead
A cameo in Roku City
A Google Search Easter Egg
An official Dungeons & Dragons character card.
A Seattle city council member plans on proclaiming that summer 2026 is “Jimothy Summer”.
Is there nothing else going in Seattle this summer?
A mural of the raccoon, why not?
The Lost Boost
It’s been over 10 years now since the iconic Yeezy 350 boost V2 came out and for some reason every time I see someone wearing them, I think they’re fake.
You almost never see Yeezy Boosts out in the wild anymore.
Remember when they used to be evvvvverywhere - resold for double, triple, or even more. A lot of coveted colourways, a lot of coveted rare shoes - when skinny jeans were a thing and the Yeezy Boost silhouette went perfect with them.
I totally forgot that Adidas ended up doing major drops for these shoes, effectively emptying warehouses and flooding the market with Yeezy’s everywhere.
What once was a shoe that demanded like $800-$1000 in practically any colourway, is now easily found on resale sights for anywhere from $100-$300 most of the time.
It’s super weird to see Yeezy Boosts so available, again it feels like these shoes are fake. I guess it’s also because you could barely find them anywhere for sale when they launched a decade ago.
Look at these prices!!
If you’re an Adidas head, I’d highly recommend grabbing a few pairs. The shoe itself is still a classic silhouette, something I’d probably deadstock just for the nostalgia and the storytelling years from now.