Hip-Hop In Akademiks

In one of the many urban clothing brands today, Akademiks is considered as one of the best when it comes to trend setting hip-hop fashion and styles. But what makes it so popular with the hip-hop devotees aside from other hip-hop and urban clothing brands?

You may not know this but the founders of Akademiks, Donwan and Emmett Harrell, once have worked with big names of the fashion industry inlcuding Donna Karan, Ecko, Phat Farm, and Nike (Donwan being one of the former top 10 designers at Nike).

The brothers then met up with the owner of Dr. Jays (a top brand of urban and hip-hop clothing shops), Elliot Betesh, where they were asked to design a new brand of hip-hop clothing line. Betesh was the one that inspired the brothers Harrell to start a new brand of clothing lines in which they called akademiks.

The name Akademiks is an intentional misspelling of the "academics". The name Akademiks is spelled akdmks, or occasionally AKS, on many of the company's garments. Some apparel also bears the Akademiks "A.S.A.P." insignia, standing for "Akdmks Small Arms Patrol".

Because of the huge popularity of Akademiks in the urban community, some personalities of the hip-hop industry started to take notice of the the brand's unique trend of fashion and style. akademiks has gained popularity in the clothing industry due to the number of celebrities who wear the brand's PRPS jeans, such as rappers Dizzee Rascal and 50 Cent .

Akademiks was popularized in 2001 by Brooklyn rapper Fabolous whose lyrical content advertised the brand. He also wore an akademiks velour on the inside cover of his debut album Ghetto Fabolous.

But other than fame and popularity, akademiks also gained notoriety when its advertisements on New York MTA buses, which included the tagline "Read Books, Get Brain", were banned. Although MTA officials had not originally realised that there was any double meaning in this phrase, it was later pointed out that "get brain" was in fact a slang term. Akademiks then released another small group of ads for the MTA in early September, 2006. The ads are clean and without controversy.