Dapper Dan: Harlem Shifted From Number Games to Drug Culture in 1960s
Dapper Dan · Making Culture, Making Influence -- Dapper Dan in Silicon Valley · Sep 2, 2019 · at 14:39
Fashion designer Dapper Dan describes the socio-economic evolution of Harlem street life between the 1950s and 1960s during a conversation with Ben Horowitz.
0:00 / 0:48exact quote · 48.4s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“The drug epidemic didn't hit to the sixties. So the first part of Harlem, you see, was like numbers, the number game, policy, that used to take place, and everybody used to bet on numbers, and then it was like, They had people who was like had maybe drinking problems, but they were functional. Right. Nowhere near like the drugs was. So the Harlem I grew up in, then in the sixties when the drugs hit, and then we start seeing all the drug dealers with all this money, all the shiny things that we wish we had, and then they, we started drifting away, and then a drug, it went from a, the street game, the street thing went from a number culture, To a drug culture, and that's when Harlem changed.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Dapper Dan
Dapper Dan: Gucci copied his 1980s Diane Dixon jacket design
“Gucci created this jacket that I created in the eighties for Diane Dixon.”
Dapper Dan: Sonia Sotomayor represented Fendi during a raid on his store
“Sotomayor. Anybody know who she is? Sotomayor. She's a Supreme Court Justice. At this time, she's working for Fendi, as one of the lawyers for Fendi's. She comes in the store with the team.”
Dapper Dan: Major luxury brands copied his all-over logo format
“Today you see the reason Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Fendi, Every major brand is using the format that I use. When you go to the store, look around, look at the artists, they have logos all over, and that's what I gave birth to, that idea.”
Dapper Dan: Luxury brands forced MTV to blur his custom clothing
“They go to Ted Demme and tell Ted Demme, if you show anything that Dapper Dan wears, we're not advertising with you. And that's when you start seeing the blur on what the rappers was wearing.”
Dapper Dan: Louis Vuitton hired Virgil Abloh reacting to his Gucci partnership
“Soon, as Gucci gives me this partnership, Louis had been number one for years, all of a sudden Louis brings up Virgil. Right? Now, you know that's a reaction, because Gucci put me in, and we got a collection ready, and we're shooting it out. Louis Vuitton reac…”