1. Blog Home
  2. Lifestyle
History & Hip-Hop Shoes: Styles That Changed the Fashion Game Forever

Lifestyle

History & Hip-Hop Shoes: Styles That Changed the Fashion Game Forever

Jul 30, 2025

Sneakers That Made The Culture

It’s been half a century since hip-hop emerged from an underground movement and into mainstream culture. And from the beginning, the sneaker game has been intertwined with hip-hop.

Why? Both footwear and hip-hop are artistic expressions. Hip-hop is so much more than just beats and rhythms. Spoken words, dance, art, stories, style and spiritual principles all define the culture.

Sneakers are sports shoes, and hip-hop is a type of music — and for a few years, that distinction was enough to keep the two separated.

But over time, we've seen the emergence and evolution of sneaker culture, hip-hop culture and their hybrid: hip-hop sneaker culture. Even before Run-DMC championed "My Adidas," sneakers and hip-hop have developed side by side, each shaping and amplifying the other.

Take a look at the iconic artists, branding moments and lasting trends that have created these two vibrant cultures, each with its own standalone appeal but intertwined with the other.

adidas Super Star

From the Block to the Booth: Hip-Hop’s First Sneaker Icons

Run-DMC's "My Adidas" dropped in 1986, a year after the Air Jordan 1 launched and made sneaker history. Another cultural landmark, the ode to Adidas Superstars brought fans to concerts with shoes in their hands to raise high when the song played. 

Michael Jordan's first deal with Nike in 1984 was worth a reported $2.5 million, a huge contract at the time. Run-DMC signed a $1.6 million endorsement deal with Adidas — an unheard-of figure for a shoe company to pay a rap group. 

Run-DMC's adidas moment showed shoe companies that artists could shape fashion from the stage and cemented sneakers as an integral part of hip-hop fashion sensibility. Every modern-day musician with a shoe collab owes their deal to Run-DMC, pioneers who locked in the hip-hop x sneaker connection.

Timberland boots

The ’90s Boom: Rap Royalty and Signature Sneaker Moments

In the '90s, music was still mostly collected as physical media: tapes, records, and CDs with album covers that popped up in magazines and on billboards. Rappers in this era quickly got associated with specific looks and brands. This was the era of Biggie and Timberland boots, Tupac and FILAs, and Wu-Tang Clan's legendary Nike Dunks collab.


Sneakers were no longer simply basketball shoes that hip-hop stars liked to wear. The '90s ushered in the age of hip-hop sneakers: shoes famous for being worn on stage (and on billboards and in music videos) rather than the hardwood.

A full-body shot of a person standing in front of a brick wall, wearing a light blue baseball cap, a white t-shirt with "CHICAGO BULLS" in light blue lettering, light blue track pants, and light gray and white sneakers. The person's head is tilted slightly down, and their hands are holding the waistband of their pants.

Air Jordans, Street Status, and the Rise of the Sneakerhead

No story of sneakers can fail to mention Air Jordans. Michael Jordan won all six of his NBA Championships and NBA Finals MVP awards in the '90s. And the decade's most dominant athlete wore the decade's most dominant shoe. 


Air Jordans were at the forefront of the rise of hip-hop sneakers, at a time when everyone wanted to be like Mike, including superstar MCs like Will Smith (big fan of the AJ5 "Grape" colorway) and Nas.

From the Three-Point Land, He’s all Water: Allen Iverson & Reebok

The Early 2000s: Bling, Brands, and Big Collabs

In 2002, Nelly dropped a hit song "Air Force Ones" and was swiftly signed to a string of Nike shoe collabs. 


Meanwhile, Reebok signed ambitious deals with Jay-Z and 50 Cent in a bid to compete with Nike's success in snapping up the biggest basketball stars. Industry reports suggested Reebok's hip-hop commercial partnerships brought the company an 11% rise in sales and a 20% boost to its share price.


The big shoe brands had discovered the value of design partnerships with artists, not just athletes.

The Role of Style, Storytelling, and Self-Expression

Nowadays, shoe lines and collabs are a standard part of the commercial mix for artists of a certain stature. For example, Travis Scott develops shoes with Nike and Jordan Brand, Kanye West and adidas had a massive collab in place with Yeezys, and Pharrell Williams also has an adidas line. 


Pharrell, in particular, is a master of the limited edition release, demonstrating an uncanny understanding of how to keep bringing fresh ideas to market in small batch drops that light up the resale channels and social media.

ry.

Mama Told Me There’d Be Days Like This: Wale & the DMV

Keep the Culture Alive: Where Sneakerheads Go From Here

Sneakers in hip-hop go way beyond fashion. Sneaker can be shorthand for status, as in Nelly's praisesong to Air Force 1s, or mindset, like A$AP Rocky telling us his heroes are fashion designers like Margielas.


Ultimately, the culture goes where you want it to go, reflecting what is relevant to the latest generation of collectors, influencers, and sneakerheads.

Hip-Hop Sneaker Culture FAQs

What shoes are worn for hip hop?

At this stage in the game, there is almost no shoe that doesn't get love from someone in the hip-hop world. Eminem has a string of Jordan collabs and even put his name to some AF-1s. We've seen Wu-Tang Clan in Dunks, Wale in Nike Foamposites (and he likes those Nike boots so much he wrote a song about them) and the Beastie Boys in adidas Gazelles. 

But hip-hop and sneaker culture are both about self-expression. Wear what works for you, whether it's Nike Dunk High Retro Premium shoes or Crocs.

Who popularized sneaker culture?

In the beginning, basketball and hip-hop icons were the champions of sneaker culture, with Michael Jordan and Run-DMC as some of the first emblems of the movement. But that's a universe away from today's limited edition designer collabs and YouTube unboxing videos. 

So who made sneaker culture what it is today? You did: the people who care about the shoes, who buy them, wear them, rate them and wait for the next drop. 

Why is sneaker culture a thing?

Because, like the sneaker itself, it's endlessly versatile. Sneaker culture today includes everything from high-performance running shoes to super-limited-edition, don't-you-dare-wear-these, designer works of art. Sneakers are cool, functional, flashy, casual — whatever you want them to be. 

Stay tuned in to the culture with our online channels, Hibbett.com and the Hibbett mobile app, for future drops and collabs rooted in the lasting legacy of hip-hop and sneaker culture. 

Related Categories

Shop the Story

You Might Also Like to Read

Recently Viewed

View All Articles