Hip Hop Bicycles

Hip hop culture has usually been automobile-centric. That is, rappers and R&B artists have usually been shown driving expensive, customized, and tricked out cars, usually with loud radios, hydraulic lifts to make the car bounce, etc. Interestingly enough, I have seen two new hip hop videos on YouTube that are all about bikes and their place in hip hop culture.

The latest video I discovered was called Scrapper Bikes by a San Fransisco/Oakland based group known as the Trunk Boiz. While I find the video, song, and overall theme of the so-called Scrapper Bike scene rather bizarre, I think it is interesting that bikes are merging with hip hop culture.

If you listen to the lyrics closely, you'll hear: "I don't need no car..." on the songs chorus. With fuel prices and general cost of vehicle ownership on the rise, will hip hop include more references to bicycles as inner city folks choose or are economically forced to use something other than cars?

Watch 'Scrapper Bikes' here:



Less recently, I've been listening to Cool Kids on YouTube. They are a rap group from Chicago with a style reminiscent of 1980's rap. From the little I've listened to their stuff, they, to quote another viewer on Youtube, "got mad style". Anyway, they have a song/video out called "Black Mags", which highlights the love for their BMX bikes. The chorus chants "...Dyno with the black mags..." while they rap about how they trick their bikes out, pick up girls on their pegs, and fill their spare time on their bikes. Pretty cool song and video.

Watch Cool Kids' "Black Mags" here:



While I enjoy the Cool Kids' more than the Trunk Boiz (probably because I am still a big Run DMC fan, and they share similar styles), I wonder if we will see bike and hip hop culture intersecting in the future. I think that more middle and upper class folks will be riding bikes out of an active choice to reduce their commuting costs and in an effort to improve the environment, and there may be an increase in references to bikes in mainstream popular culture because of this trend. However, I suspect that lower and lower middle class will have a greater impact on bicycles in popular culture, especially in hip hop, where a lack of economic potential equates to street credibility. I suspect that while mainstream pop culture may show some bicycles to sell goods to reflect an increased environmental awareness, hip hop culture will more accurately reflect the transportation trends that poor folks are having to make, especially as more poor folks are relegated to taking the bus and riding bikes as costs associated with vehicle ownership rise . Hip hop culture is often about individuality, and it is displayed in vehicle customization, and interestingly enough this carries on not just in cars with spinning wheels and hydraulic lift kits, but also in custom painted Scrapper Bikes and BMX bikes "tricked out like MacGyver".

It will be interesting to see how popular culture shows bicycles as transportation costs continue to rise.