Spungie is not thrilled that the song Vans by California's the Pack is getting hip-hop fans to embrace the once-dorky sneakers. The song's lyrics boast:
Man, we be sportin' Vans and we throw away Nikes
If you wanna get right, stop buyin' those Nikes
Get some new ...Vans and you'll bet you look icy
The song started as a MySpace phenomenon. Now its video, made three weeks after the teen quartet signed with Jive records in June, has received more than 800,000 views on YouTube. The video shows people tagging walls and break-dancing with innumerable close-up of various Vans styles. Its success inspired Jive to release a Pack EP called Skateboards 2 Scrapers last week.
Young Stunna, a member of the Pack, understands the testiness of skateboarders such as Spungie.
“If it ain't what you do,” says Young Stunna, whose real name is Keith Jenkins, “people are going to have something to say. Be prepared to hop on that board. As for me, I ain't worried about that backlash because I really do this. ‘Cause I'm out here straight up.”
In fact, he was taking a break from skateboarding with his friends at a Walgreens in Berkeley, California, to be interviewed. Young Stunna began skateboarding seven years ago and considers it an important stress reliever. He remembers being one of the few non-whites doing it at that time. “When I started,” the 19-year-old notes, “people weren't having that, especially black people.”
Group member Lil B suggested they write a song about Vans. “I'm like, man, let us rap about something that nobody's wearing,” says Lil B (Brandon McCartney). Although he doesn't skateboard, personal experience taught Lil B that there would be an audience for it.
“From the outside looking in,” he says, “skateboarders are punk-rock white kids. [But] I know people who are hood rats who skateboard, black people who listen to hip-hop.”
That community, as well as a wider crowd of non-skateboarders, is now heading to stores such as Orchard, a skate shop that opened in Mission Hill (Boston) in February, to purchase Vans.
“We have definitely not our normal clientele coming in,” says Jon Devoe, co-owner of Orchard. “We have people from Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan — all over. It's crazy.”
Vans publicist Chris Overholser says the shoes had been gaining acceptance in the urban community before the song was released. But Devoe estimates that about half the hip-hop clientele visiting his store to buy the US$40 sneakers are being lured by Vans.
“We have people who'll come in our store singing that song,” Devoe says. “It's definitely two worlds colliding. But it's great, it's really good, really positive.”
Of course, not everyone sees it that way.
“It's really funny,” says Spungie, “how some idiot can make a song about Vans and everyone out here thinks they need a pair of Vans. The funny thing is two years from now those kids aren't even going to be wearing them. I don't believe in that type of hype.”
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