Multi ethnic urban extravagance

Those mad urban kinds are it again! As I've been straying further and further outside of the city limits of NYC, I've been noticing that the kids on the West Coast, in the Dirty South and down in Miami are having an extravagant hair moment. In Atlanta this weekend I was astonished at the variety and complexity of hairstyles parading past in the shopping malls and clubs that constitute the central social life of that city. A lot of my NY friends are snobs when it comes to Southern style, accusing it of being that most terrible of things..."late". But I wasn't looking at the clothes. I was astonished by the heads. How do they get the locks to grow that long? Diana Ross would throb green with envy!

Even the shorties have the style on lock

TI loves it. Here are some choice clips of some cool looks the new kids are profiling on the streets, in the clubs and on-line. Thanks to everyone who responded so enthusiatically to the first "Let The Children Play" post. The London massive, it seems is especially taken with this unexpected branch of High American style!

The sculpted fade is back !

Let the children play
Let them have their way

Ellos tienen que jugar
Ellos tienen que jugar

Let the children play
Lyrics from Santana:

Know what I love most about this Myspace generation of kids? The mass cultural narcissism of picking up a cameraphone or a digital camera and posting an image of yourself, right there in the bloom of your youth. Its a really brilliant moment for self-portraiture . They're not waiting for anybody mainstream to justify their style. The kids are doing IT for themselves. I love that the urban digital kids are creating this incredible document of their hairstyles and tattoos and mad little styling ideas with bandanas and sunglasses and 80's vintage looks . When the Zeroes are done I think its going to be an incredible database. For the first time we'll be able to look back on a youth culture the way that youth culture saw itself. It is sort of like Jamel Shabazz's "Back In The Day" but via an electronic medium by the subjects themselves. I love too that the NY digital kids have come up with a look that flies in the face of hip-hop convention. Yes thug style still persists with the white T's and baggy Levi's and fresh tan Tims but on the streets of deep Brooklyn radical kids are rocking skintight blue cordorouys, with these candy colored basketball kicks and these brightly coloured tight t-shirts.