Hip-hop star Lil Wayne is draped up in "A Bathing Ape" (BAPE) gear on the cover of popular urban mag Vibe. The Houston rap star (who now lives in Miami) wears the iconic pink and aqua camo gear made popular by BAPE designer Nigo in Japan. We're sweet on the massive BAPE belt buckle Lil Wayne rocks in the photo. Few can sport a buckle like that and get away with it. All this BAPE gear on a Vibe magazine cover just goes to show the extent of BAPE's full-on adoption by (or is it "conquering of?") of U.S. hip-hop culture and style. It's evidence of BAPE's brilliant under-the-radar, word-of-mouth marketing strategy that, like music and fashion, can be impactful on a transcultural, global level.

On Tuesday, Apple Computer's Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod Hi-Fi, the first of the company's major iPod accessory products, as well as its first foray into audio equipment beyond the iPod itself, which technically -- let's remind ourselves -- is basically just a memory storage device, albeit a very innovative and well-designed one. Apple has been selling several models of iPod stereo systems in its stores for a few years now, including models from Bose and other well-known audiofile brands. But all of those systems are small and lacked sonic heft; they left us wanting much more when we tested them in the Apple store. From appearances alone, the new iPod Hi-Fi unit seemed to have power, that volume and size that was missing from all the other systems. In terms of looks, think of he iPod Hi-Fi as a highly stylized and futuristic boombox designed accordingly to the iPod aesthetic. It's gorgeous, simple and much larger in speaker size from anything else offered thus far. So it seems like it can pack a punch and look justas cool as the Ipod itself. Yes, we want one ... and we want it now!!!

From the Global Graphica file this week ... Here's an amazingly crisp stencil portrait of a girl's face we found on a lamp-post base along West Broadway (between Houston and Prince streets) in Soho yesterday evening. More images at Global Graphica. (Global Graphica /Ivan Corsa Photo).

From the Global Graphica file ... We were out of town visiting Washington, DC last weekend and snapped this series of graf images in the Adams Morgan district of the Amercian capital. Washington is a famously clean, well-groomed and orderly city (or, at least, it is in most of the city, that is, in those areas where the well-heeled work, live and play). While in Adams Morgan, the only graf we saw was hidden in narrow back alleys. Most of it was aesthetically insginificant, but some, like the throw-ups we found in this alley off 18th Street, across from the Caribou Coffee, was really good, first-rate stuff. (Global Graphica / Ivan Corsa Photo)

The item also says the rapper-producer was the force behind the trucker hat fashion phenomenom a few years ago. Sorry, but we disagree. That's a style that came from the underground up, from over-educated, under-employed urban hipsters fashioning an iconic white-trash artifact into a new style with an ironic, knowing smile. Sure, by dint of his fame, Pharrell may have helped spread the style after adopting it, but the same could be said for Ashton Kutcher, Paris Hilton and half the people under the age of 30 living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn between 2001 and 2002.

Actually, Ashton Kutcher probably deserves more cred for spreading the style because many months after the blue-collar mesh-foam baseball cap emerged among the indie kids, Ashton was the first celeb we saw actually wearing truckers hats on TV -- this was when he hosted the series "Punk'd." Apparently, others have made a similar observation.

No dis to Pharrell -- he does have great style and a sense of putting nice things together and looking good. He was one of the first hip-hop stars to champion BAPE, but lets not give the guy too much credit for starting a headwear fad that most of us would rather forget ever came and went.

We've been spending a lot of time watching the Internet animation series "Weebl and Bob." This website for this cartoon is one of the most popular, most-visited sites in the world. The Flash-animated series is a British production created by Jonti Picking and is actually official called "The Everyday Happenings of Weebl and Sometimes Weebl's Friend Bob." The series is now on its 102nd episode. We're addicted.

Apple has just posted "A Scanner Darkly" movie trailers on it's Web site. "A Scanner Darkly" is the forthcoming Richard Linklater film based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name. The movie stars Keanu Reeves, Wynona Ryder and Robert Downey Jr. Like Linklater's 2001 film "Waking Life," this movie appears as animation, but it's actually a digital film that has been processed using sophisticated animation-editing, rotoscoping and effects software to give it the look of animation. It is stunning and beautiful from what we can tell from just viewing the preview and the official "A Scanner Darkly" movie site. This is one of our most-anticipated film realease of 2006 -- we will be in the movie theater on premiere night!

Cable music video channel Fuse TV has just rolled off a spin-off Web site that has some of the hottest, freshest Web design, illustration and animation we've seen in along time. The site is called "Just for the 'F' of It." When you land on the splash page, you can try to shoot down an flying angel with a bow and arrow. Once in the site, on the main page, you get to see a small French, beret-wearing rodent sitting in a comfy chair, smoking and watching telly. Good, fun, tongue-in-cheek Web design from some very talented creatives at Fuse. P.S., we think the site's name is brilliant.

From the Global Graphica file ... Here's a close-up of an awesome color paste-up by the artist Bast (or Bäst) in Chinatown, New York City. The subject of this wheat-paste work is John Gotti, the late, convicted NYC crime boss who was dubbed the "Teflon Don" by the media. This black-and-white version of this artwork appears in Nolita, a few blocks to the north of C-town and Little Italy, where Gotti managed his business out of a storefront "social club." (Global Graphica / Ivan Corsa Photo)

Essential Linkage
"Teflon Don" Gotti Paste-up by Bast - No. 1 [Global Graphica]
Global Graphica

There's an excellent profile-interview of photographer Ryan McGinley on Artnet. Penned by by Ana Finel Honigman, the article is titled "24-7." By now, you may have seen his work without knowing that McGinley was photographer. Or, given McGinley's meteoric rise and influence, you may have seen images used in advertising and produced "in the style of" McGinley. (Yet further appropriation by marketers ... Whateva'.) His subjects are often young people, his friends, partying, mucking about, and just being themselves. What first garnered attention for McGinley was a self-produced and self-published 50-page book of his photos. The D.I.Y. art tome was called "The Kids are Alright." According to Artnet, he sent copies of the book to a hundred magazine editors and artists. Later his work started appearing in mags like Index, Vice, and Dazed and Confused. Our favorite image by McGinley of all time is a photo titled "Dash Bombing," which as the title suggests, shows the graf writer named "Dash" perched on a building spraypainting his tag in the dark of night. We've been a fan ever since we saw this image.

Essential Links
Interview with Photographer Ryan McGinley [Artnet]
"Dash Bombing" (2000) by Ryan McGinley [Artnet]
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/honigman/honigman6-21-7.asp
Ryan McGinley Web Site]

The ever-reliable music journalist Sasha Frere-Jones positively reviews "Show Your Bones," the new disc by the Brooklyn-based indie sensation the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, in this week's issue of the New Yorker magazine. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and their iconic frontperson Karen O. broke onto the scene with an forceful, original indie-pop album two years ago. The band's 2004 gold-certified-selling album "Fever to Tell" and powerful live shows revealed that the group was as great as the hype had promised. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were the real deal. What sealed the deal for us was the song "Art Star," which was released in the body of Yeah Yeah Yeahs music a year or two prior to "Fever to Tell." The song blew us away. We found the track on an obscure Japanese pop CD compilation called "U.S. Pop Life Volume 15," which was produced by a friend of ours who runs a small label called Contact Records. Our friend was on to something. Yeah Yeah Yeahs will have a show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City later this month as part of a concert tour in support of "Show Your Bones," so you'll be able see them in the flesh and see what the talk is really all about.

Essential Links

POSITIVE ATTITUDE: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs new album [New Yorker]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Website
Bowery Ballroom Website

Fresh and tasty street art from our Global Graphica file ... Once again, the street artist Momo strikes the building at 11 Spring St., in Nolita, New York City. This wheat-paste is a sweet tongue-in-cheek poster. The black-and-white work is of a fictional New Yorker magazine cover depicting Momo in the act of pasting up his (her?) work. Brilliant, fresh stuff.
(Global Graphica / Ivan Corsa Photo)

Essential Links
New Yorker Cover Paste-Up by Momo at 11 Spring St. - #1 [Global Graphica]
New Yorker Cover Paste-Up by Momo at 11 Spring St. - #2 Detail [Global Graphica]
Global Graphica

Ok, just when you thought you had seen just about every conceiveable iPod accessory, there's Tetran, a rubbery, spiky sea-urchin like monster designed as -- you guessed it -- an "earbud cable winder," you know, that thingie for wrappping your iPod earbuds cord around so that it doesn't get into a tangled mess. The little figure has a "mouth" in which you can place the actual earbuds themselves. We think Tetran is pretty cool actually, because it looks so funky and can be used for something beyond which it was intended. That is, Tetran can be used as a fun desktop objet, something you can keep next to your Kid Robot Dunny figures and toys without it lookng out of place. Made by a company called Tunewear, the Tetran comes in a variety of colors, as pictured above, and can be ordered online, naturally.

Essential Links
Tetran by Tunewear
"Microbe TETRAN" walkman headset organizer [Akihabara News]

One of the gifts we received during the recent holidays was the latest, just-released edition of the FIFA 06 videogame for PlayStation 2. FIFA 06 is the officially sponsored classic soccer (or "football") game by gamemaker EA Sports. The videogame's realism is mesmerizing, while the game itself is a little harder than the last version we picked-up, FIFA 2004. (We didn't bother with the 2005 edition, because the changes didn't seem significant enough at the time to make it worth our money.) BUT ... FIFA 06 is a quite a leap from '04 and '05. The controls are slightly different, more varied and with more combinations, and the off-the-ball functions are gone. The gameplay itself is a lot more realistic, even in amateur mode.

One of our favorite features of the FIFA series has been the number of accurate real-life European stadiums recreated in the game, and fortunately there are now more stadiums than ever. The players and teams are all up to date as of August 2005, so if you currently follow any of the major European soccer/football leagues, you'll find all your favorite players there. Anyway, we're already spending way to much of our precious free time playing this game. Our rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Essential Links