The Tanning of America

by Steve Stoute

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Introduction

  PART ONE - HOW TANNING HAPPENED

  CHAPTER 1 - WALK THIS WAY

  CHAPTER 2 - HARD KNOCK LIFE

  CHAPTER 3 - FOR US BY US

  CHAPTER 4 - ALL BUSINESS IS SHOW BUSINESS

  PART TWO - THE POWER, PITFALLS, AND POTENTIAL OF TANNING

  CHAPTER 5 - MARKETING CDS WITH SHOELACES

  CHAPTER 6 - MIRRORS AND THE VELVET ROPE

  CHAPTER 7 - FUTURE SHOCK REMIX

  CHAPTER 8 - SELLING MIND-SETS, NOT PRODUCTS

  PART THREE - THE FUTURE OF THE TAN WORLD

  CHAPTER 9 - 1520 SEDGWICK AVENUE–1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

  CHAPTER 10 - TAN IS THE NEW COOL

  CODA: - CULTURE’S NEXT IN-CAR-NĀ·TION

  Acknowledgements

  GOTHAM BOOKS

  Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First printing, September 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Steve Stoute

  All rights reserved

  Gotham Books and the skyscraper logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Stoute, Steve, 1970–

  The tanning of America : how hip-hop created a culture that rewrote the rules of the new economy / Steve Stoute with Mim Eichler Rivas. p. cm.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-52911-9

  1. Marketing—United States. 2. Hip-hop—United States. 3. Consumers—United States. 4. Rap (Music) 5. Hip-hop—Economic aspects. 6. Hip-hop—Social aspects. I. Rivas, Mim Eichler. II. Title.

  HF5415.1.S76 2011

  306.1—dc22

  2011004316

  Set in Cheltenham Book

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

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  TO MY DAUGHTER SOPHIA . . .

  May you grow up in a world without divisions that are based on color or ethnicity, a place where aspirations become shared realities.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: ON DEFINING UR·BAN

  adj ˈər-bən

  From Webster’s - of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city

  - Latin urbanus, from urbs city. First known use: 1619

  Notes for The Tanning of America

  Prior to the 2000 census, the term urban referred to all territory, population, and housing units located in places with a population of 2,500 or more. After the 2000 census, the definition changed to incorporate a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile.

  However, in marketing speak and with everyday dialogue, the word urban has come to refer to inner city youths and is loosely associated with minorities.

  As we use urban in this book, our aim is to speak to density and not to make reference to race or creed.

  INTRODUCTION

  Graydon Carter

  It could be fair to say that Steve Stoute is one of the more noticeable figures in the recent flurry of Madison Avenue ad talismans. That’s partly because he is African-American. But it’s also because he still has the unfazed complexion of a baby—a baby with a mustache, mind you. He doesn’t look much older than he did when I first met him almost twenty years ago. Back then, Peter Arnell, who was on his way to becoming a certifiable ad legend, used to frequent the same Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village that I did. Peter was a big fellow in those days and he would often share a table with a lot of main courses and a good-looking young kid named Steve. Steve had the sort of winning way that indicated he might be going places, and I just assumed he was Peter’s assistant. A few years later, I was surprised to discover that not only was Steve not Peter’s assistant, he was his partner. Not only that: They had just sold their marketing company for a good many millions of dollars.

  In a way, if you were there, you could see it all happening in front of you. Steve was like a sponge. He wanted to know about everything and everyone. He trimmed down, got a great tailor, and even figured out how to show up for lunch on time. Beyond that, he had the passion, the curiosity, and a willingness to try anything that all successful people have. And he had enough moxie to fuel the long journey from Queens across the East River to Manhattan. For the son of hardworking immigrants from Trinidad, that is about as tough and as far a distance as you’re ever going to travel in this country.

  Steve founded Translation Consulting & Brand Imaging in 2004. I’m never quite sure what branding people do exactly, but I know that Steve is broadly admired for his lucrative pairings of the well known and the well made. He’s fashioned himself into the host of a kind of commercial cocktail party where some of the world’s biggest stars and some of the world’s biggest companies couple up at just the right moment. And in advertising, as with show business or the hospitality industry, timing is everything. Steve is the architect behind Gwen Stefani and Hewlett-Packard, Justin Timberlake and McDonald’s, Jay-Z and Reebok, Lady Gaga and MAC Cosmetics. The list goes on.

  The Tanning of America chronicles the economics, politics, and poetry of hip-hop culture and how it propelled the rise of brands as diverse as Tommy Hilfiger, Cristal champagne, Versace, Timberland, Nordica, and Woolrich. Insofar as I have come to understand him over the years—both as a friend and as someone I just generally admire—Steve’s success comes from being a master observer. He has the great adman’s ability to pick up on imperceptible ripples in the culture—ripples that will in time become waves. And then he just gets on top of them and rides the big ones to glory.

  an act, process, or instance of translating: as (a) a rendering from one language into another; also : the product of such a rendering (b): a change to a different substance, form, or appearance

  OVERTURE: TANNING IN TRANS·LĀ·TION

  Our story begins on a sweltering summer night in New York City—Friday, July 19, 1986, t
o be exact—during a sold-out show at the legendary Madison Square Garden, which some twenty thousand exuberant fans, mostly in their teens and early twenties, mainly African-American and Hispanic, had traveled from near and far to attend. For most observers of popular culture at the time, little significance would be attributed to the events of the evening, despite its being one of the first rap concerts to command the Garden. But for those fortunate enough to have been there—and those like me, then a sixteen-year-old growing up in Queens, already obsessed with hip-hop yet sadly unable to score a ticket—this night was about to take on biblical relevance in our generation’s cultural DNA.

  Across the five boroughs and beyond, the streets had been humming with anticipation for weeks. The Garden’s promoters, however, along with the rest of the mainstream media, were apparently so disinterested in whatever this ghetto-born musical oddity was, the only advance published mention of the show appeared the day before in The New York Times. In a brief attempt to characterize the concert’s lineup of Run-DMC, LL Cool J, and newcomer Whodini, the Times asserted:Rap music—syncopated rhymes atop electronic funk—has become a long-running rock style, in no small part due to the popularity of Joey Simmons and Darryl McDaniels, better known as Run-D.M.C. Shouting in unison or filling in each other’s lines over the funk drumbeats and hard-rock guitar chords supplied by the disk jockey Jam-Master Jay, Run-D.M.C. boast about their exploits and put down others’ follies. Some of their rhymes were once supplied by James Todd Smith, alias L. L. Cool J. (which stands for Ladies Love Cool James), now becoming a rap star in his own right—a cocky word-slinger who is fond of polysyllables and unexpected pauses.... While recent rap concerts . . . have been marred by incidents, the security force inside and outside the arena will be, a Garden spokesman said, “beefed up a lot” for the concert. Tomorrow at 8 P.M.; tickets are $17.50.

  Even if the writing seems quaint by most standards, the Times got one thing right: The threesome—Joseph “Run” Simmons, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, and Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell—were already considered titans of the small but expanding kingdom of rap. After first appearing on the scene in the spring of 1983, the trio from Hollis, Queens—not far from my neighborhood of Queens Village—had been blazing trails across urban America, gathering momentum. Three years later, Run-DMC were on their way to becoming the first true superstars of hip-hop. In terms of record sales, they were riding a meaningful wave with Raising Hell, their aptly named third album, released earlier that year. Dropping hit singles one after the other, the album would go on to be certified multiplatinum and, in time, would be critically hailed as a genre-defining masterpiece.

  But the tale I’m here to tell is less about the music itself and more about the atomic reaction it created, a catalytic force majeure that went beyond musical boundaries and into the psyche of young America—blurring cultural and demographic lines so permanently that it laid the foundation for a transformation I have dubbed “tanning.” Hip-hop had come about in a time, in places, and through multiple, innovative means that enabled it to level the playing field like no other movement of pop culture, allowing for a cultural exchange between all comers, groups of kids who were black, white, Hispanic, Asian, you name it. Somehow this homegrown music resonated across racial and socioeconomic lines and provided a cultural connection based on common experiences and values, and in turn it revealed a generationally shared mental complexion.

  Granted, the journey of tanning—as we’ll be exploring it—didn’t begin or happen solely with the advent of hip-hop. But without a doubt the trajectory was significantly altered on July 19, 1986, at Madison Square Garden during one of the final numbers performed by Run-DMC. Unlikely? Yes. Even more unlikely, tanning history was made that night, all because of a sneaker.

  And not just any sneaker. Of course, I’m referring to that most coveted, finest of German imports, the white shell-toed Adidas athletic shoe with the iconic three black stripes, worn with either no laces or, later, with fat laces and a popped tongue. This was not only the sneaker that was part of Run-DMC’s early signature style—along with track suits, big-ass gold chains, and black-brim fedoras—but a shoe that the trio had immortalized in a single they proudly entitled “My Adidas.”

  So what exactly possessed the threesome to rap about their love for a sneaker? A logical question with a logical answer. No, it wasn’t just how cool the shoes were or how even more f**kin’ cool it was to wear them without laces, at the same time that you kept them blindingly white, spit-polished, tissue paper stuffed inside when you weren’t wearing them to make sure not a wrinkle or a blemish ever marred the virgin leather. But the coolness of owning and wearing an elite brand that informed the owner’s identity wasn’t what inspired the song. As it turns out, the idea had come from none other than Russell Simmons, hip-hop impresario, founder of Rush Management and cofounder of Def Jam Records—not to mention Run-DMC’s manager and Run’s big brother. According to lore, Russell had glanced at Joey’s sneakers one day and had thrown the suggestion out to the group, saying something like, “You should make a record about all the places where your sneakers have been.”

  The concept, as I understand it, was to tell a story about their shoes as a metaphor for how far they’d traveled already, coming basically from nowhere along a path that was leading onto the largest, grandest stages of the world. Case in point: In 1985 Run-DMC was the only rap group invited to participate in Live Aid, the first-ever intercontinental telethon rock extravaganza, a fund-raiser to end starvation in Africa, starring marquee artists Sting, U2, Sir Paul McCartney, the Who, Madonna, Bob Dylan, and Led Zeppelin. Hence the lyrics: “My Adidas walk through concert doors and roam all over coliseum floors / I stepped onstage, at Live Aid / All the people played and the POOR got paid . . .”

  Released as the B-side to the megahit “Peter Piper”—a medley of nursery rhymes in rap—“My Adidas” didn’t do much out of the box. That is, at first. Then something happened and suddenly it began to appeal and sell to consumers from zip codes where rap wasn’t even on the radio, much less being stocked in the record stores. Suburban, white zip codes. Where before black-bred music that went on to appeal to the masses was known to cross over, moving from R&B to pop charts, records like “My Adidas” were beginning to hint that hip-hop (a term intended to refer to the music and the urban youth culture surrounding it) was different. Instead of adapting to the mainstream, it was causing something along the lines of a reverse crossover. Hip-hop was an invitation to join in the cool it embodied. It often required the audience to come to it, to travel beyond borders just to buy the records, to walk in somebody else’s shoes. And meanwhile, with those buying patterns changing, with concert-goers arriving at shows sporting their own Adidas sneakers, Russell and the rest of Rush Management recognized immediately that the modest hit had sparked a fashion trend.

  A risky plan came together to take advantage of that trend at Madison Square Garden. Not knowing how it would play out, Russell and his team convinced Adidas executives to fly over from Germany for the show. What specifically was said to get them to make the trip—not to mention attend a rap concert populated by a constituency not aligned with their brand—I don’t know. What I can report is that in the mid-eighties, after dominating the world’s sports shoe market for decades, Adidas was struggling.

  Adi Dassler, the company’s founder—who had spent sixty years putting Adidas at the front of the pack and who, early on, was the first to sign an African-American, Jesse Owens, to an endorsement deal—had passed away some years earlier. Internationally, elite athletes and soccer enthusiasts could still be counted in the Adidas camp. But in the United States, at a time when Nike was making its first couple billion with Michael Jordan and when Reebok was still raking in sales (thanks to the aerobics craze), Adidas was facing extinction. In fact, together Nike and Reebok controlled half the North American athletic footwear market, while Adidas was down to 3 percent of U.S. sneaker sales. Given the landscape, the decision makers at Adidas appa
rently figured they had nothing to lose by attending the concert, and even opted to send Angelo Anastasio, their head of marketing, along with an entourage of company heavyweights, across the Atlantic to see what was going down.

  Up until the moment of truth when Run began to chant the first line of “My Adidas,” Russell and his people had to have been holding their breath. In other venues, the crowd reactions had been so ecstatic that there was no reason to expect this audience would be any different. But then again, this was Madison Square Garden, New York City, where concertgoers were unpredictable, even mercurial. So it was only when Run and DMC, backed by Jam Master Jay’s spinning turntables, roared into the first verse and the crowd immediately chimed in, full-throated—twenty thousand strong—that they knew the Adidas guys would be wowed. Nothing could have prepared them, however, for what happened next.

  As if driven by the fervor of the crowd, suddenly Run reached down and removed one of his shoes, rapping out its name in the singular—“My Adida!”—and held it high over his head, like a warrior holding up his blade for all to see. Egging the audience on, Run and the others dared them to respond. And they did. On cue, as hoped for, they all reached down to remove one of their sneakers and then held it in their hands above their heads, so that it looked like a pulsating sea of the black triplestriped Adidas emblem on white leather waving in unison over the heads of everyone at Madison Square Garden.