J'Nae Phillips

This is why I just buy stuff I genuinely like and don’t care what people think.

About five years ago, there were some fashion editorials about whether Sambas were dead. One started with a hip New York scenester who went to a hip book reading at a hip bookstore and was turned off by seeing some other hip people she deemed not as hip as her wearing Sambas. So she decided "Sambas are now uncool." If you play this game where you let fashion influencers tell you what's cool, you will forever be cooked. It's an utterly pointless game — one minute, such-and-such is cool, so they get you to buy these products (which, by the way, they're getting paid on the back-end through sponsorships or affiliate links). Next minute, they tell you it's no longer cool. Why? Because too many of you followed their advice. The trick is recognizing that none of these people is actually cool. We know this because whenever they declare something is cool, they reach back to some other cultural touchpoint. When Sambas started becoming popular, there was a slew of articles about hip hop and British football culture. Which is correct, as those are the permanent cultural landmarks that make Sambas cool. As long as you understand cultural history and learn how to style things using that language, then it doesn't matter if influencers declare something to be dead, because they were never the source of coolness in the first place. I think back to Rachel Tashjian's GQ article many years ago about how "the most sustainable thing in fashion is personal style." It's fine to pick up on and play with trends. But personal style is about being willing to continue wearing something even after it has been deemed uncool. If you are constantly chasing the next thing and worried about whether yesteryear's item projects you as uncool, then you're uncool by definition. Cool has meant many things across time and culture, but a continuing theme is confidence.

Cardi B goes off on the US government about the $120 Million Dollar budget cut in New York that'll effect Schools, Libraries, The Police Department, & Sanitation while funding wars.