April Walker of Walker Wear fame pulled up to the Amazing AllHipHop Podcast. This time, she talks to hosts Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur and Rose D. about being an un-bought, un-bossed force in Hip-Hop. As an icon of the culture, she has worked with a proverbial who’s who in Hip-Hop, effectively laying a blueprint for where we are today. However, it has not been an easy path. As an indie force, she has made decisions for the sake of the culture that allowed others to benefit from.
Even culture vultures have found space on April Walker’s shoulders. She began her career in late 80s and early 90s when Hip-Hop fashion first started to manifest in broad ways. Inspired by Dapper Dan, she jumped in with both feet, opening a retail store and eventually Walker Wear. Snoop Dogg, Biggie, Tupac, Aaliyah, Run-DMC, Naughty By Nature and numerous others. She got her respect by being one with the culture and simultaneously moving it forward. Black creatives like April Walker are owed a debt that can never truly be repaid for creating this multi-billion dollar industry called street wear/Hip-Hop/ urban fashion.
“There’s appropriation in there’s appreciation. I could respect the appreciation more if we were participating in the appreciation with revenue streams,” she says in the interview. “I don’t need you to go ahead and take this style and say OK now we get it and we don’t participate I think there has to be a bridge and that bridge has to be intentional and is almost like reparations know like the same kind of space. The intentionality has to be better. We also have to be more intentional about supporting our own tables.”
So, here is some profound appreciation from the AllHipHop Team.