Peter proffered a theory over Sunday breakfast a while back. 'Gangsta' rappers and their imitators are aping the sartorial disarray of prison inductees. When you arrive at the slammer, the Man takes away your belt, so your pants fall down. So 'gangsta' rappers and their imitators are preparing themselves for prison life or else showing their solidarity with their incarcerated brothers.
Thinking that this might just be an urban legend, I headed over to Snopes, where I find Peter's theory confirmed. The droopy drawers dudes in prisons are not advertising their availability for sodomy, as some have surmised, but expose their butts because of over-sized beltless prison garb , the belts having been taken away to keep the miscreants from hanging themselves.
The question remains, however, why the rappers and their acolytes would choose criminals as their role models.
In all my years of blogging, this is only my third sartorial post. The other two are lodged, appropriately enough, in the category, Sartorial Matters. One mentions Montaigne, the other Adorno.
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