I went to frat parties at at least a dozen colleges east of the Mississippi during my [del]professional drinking[/del] college days (1999-2004) and the prevailing musical genre among rich suburban frat boys was white blues (with a side of pop punk, depending on how close you got to the coast).
Think Dave Matthews (ugh), O.A.R., etc.
Hip hop was a distant third, and only came into play at parties.
I always thought that roll-tops were the hip-hop version of Timberland boots.
I’ve seen all sorts of (to me) horrifying combinations like metallic leather and checkerboard or Burberry plaids. The ones on that Timberland page are very sedate compared to what I’ve seen on eBay.
With so many good boots out there I’ve never even tried a pair on. All the ones I’ve seen are then light tan variety and I would never wear a light colored boot. They scuff too easy. Doc Martens, Danner, even a good pair of military jungle boots properly seated are the best I could ever hope for.
Sometimes that’s the point.
Some Hip Hop events see themselves as more high class. They want to be the ‘Hip Hop Executive’ crowd, where people are ordering bottles of Cristal rather than hoodies drinking budweiser. Usually they ban sneakers next to baggie jeans.
When I lived in Cleveland, a new Timberland-branded store opened in the “mall where white people used to shop” a couple of miles from my house. I like Timberlands, but … yeah, they’ve jumped from the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder to MLK Boulevard.
There’s an article in the December 8 New Yorker, about a former policeman who now does security for hip-hop concerts. On page 75:
“Tonight was to be an Urban party, and the promoters, for security reasons, wanted an upscale crowd without too many gangster overtones. In dress-code terms, that ruled out baggy jeans, white T-shirts, gold chains, hooded sweatshirts, flat-brim fitted baseball caps (“fitteds”), do-rags, gang colors, and Timberland boots.”
So** that’s **where “this is how we roll” came from! 
Hmmm…it may have been jeans and a sweatshirt with a hood, but that was a coincidence. “Rapper’s Delight” was probably the only rap song we would have heard.
Just out of curiosity, what’s the music mix going to be at these events?
The rap equivalent of an oldies station, with the gangster end of the genre clipped out?
What do you mean, ‘now’? Please cite a time in which they weren’t.
“Now” meaning 5+ years ago, when this thread was started.
He means six years ago.
I contend these boots have been associated with urban counter-culture going all the way to the mid 1990’s (and that just when my own surburbian self got wind of it, so it was probably even much earlier).
And that was so important that you had to resurrect a thread for it? :dubious:
I resurrected nothing. The topic was simply simmering while we all contemplated the far-reaching implications.
Since this answer was already given six years ago and no new information has been added, I’m going to close this thread.
Those who wish to further discuss this may open a thread in IMHO or MPSIMS.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator