Guest
Nina Simone’s mournful cover of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” segued into Kanye West’s furious sampling of it on “Blood On The Leaves” as a model in the palest of lime—from his baseball cap via tailored topcoat and collared hoodie down to his Adidas—descended the Hollywood Bowl’s white ego ramp in a state of pristine and slouchy pomp. Shortly behind him was another immaculate walker toting an Adidas branded gym bag. As America Gonzalez in black tailoring had opened this Fear Of God show earlier, via Ovaflow and Lesun’s sampling of Jupiter Sharps’s battle-prayer in “Glory”—and after a gorgeous live performance by Sampha—there had been more musical messaging reflecting the collective trauma of Black American experience. Suddenly, a brand that has built a broad global fanbase with its precise and carefully neutral Essentials line was being anything but neutral. The adjacency of luxury and trauma was sweet and sour, discomfiting and true. As Fear of God founder Jerry Lorenzo put it backstage, he
