With a new album coming out in 2015 entitled “Can’t Fly Without Gravity“, and having just released his latest music video, WiLD4TheNight, Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter and producer, k-os is back at it.
And while music is his mission, there’s also no denying that over the years, intentionally or not, k-os has fashioned himself into a bonafide style icon.
Today, he gives us a glimpse into his personal style, how it developed, and how one’s sense of style “can be a commercial for what you feel at any given time.”
How would you define your personal style and where did it stem from?
When I was in Grade 10, on game day we had to wear a necktie for our school teams. Even though my dad was a Minister and I regularly had to wear standard dress clothing for ‘church’, that day I chose to wear a yellow polo button down with a blue tie, blue jean cut off shorts, and brown leather travel fox boots with NO socks. It was nothing too crazy for me, but for Whitby, Ontario, I guess it was a weird choice. I went to go get dressed for the rugby game and this dude named Lee sat next to me. He was shaking his head and looked over at me to angrily say, ‘Why would you wear that… You’re such freak! Are you a girl?’ Then he got up and exited the room with disgust. When he left, I just laughed a devious, deep laugh to myself, almost to the point of tears…That was my first real expression of personal style.
Do you work with a stylist for shoots and shows or do you prefer styling yourself?
Stylists can be complicated. I have had only a couple of styling romances over the span of my career. Although they styled me solely for my music videos, I feel as though they were the only stylists that ever just got me. I think Zeb Munir from Nomad also counts as my stylist. Everything I wore from the album Joyful Rebellion onwards was given to me from Nomad. I would go to the shop to see Zeb and leave with a bunch of gear. I’d wear the hell out of the pieces he gave me and when he saw that I was over them, he would just gimme more. That type of styling is like walking meditation, you don’t have to sit and pose to do it, you’re just acting aware in the moment.
Do you think that fashion and style is imperative for a positive portrayal in society today?
Unfortunately, we all walk around the streets looking at people and judging them. It could be a good judgment, a bad judgment, or one of indifference – but we all do it. I think that what you wear can be a commercial for what you feel at any given time. What you wear can make people interested in your soul, or make them wanna be like you. I think that being able to reach down deep and reflect what your soul feels in an outfit takes talent! Maybe that’s what people are attracted to whether they know it or not, which can be a fairly positive thing. However, when yang follows yin and the cloning process begins, people start to wear what other people wear because they want that same soul shine, or to be perceived like someone else they look up to. This is approach to fashion is dark to me. It is unoriginal and in my mind, not the way a musician with their training wheels off should manifest their perception of fashion. This is just my opinion. Not any type of law of generalization I am trying to pontificate.
Do you believe fashion to be crucial to your profession?
In a way, stylists and producers ruined the ‘Music Fashion’ game. Both of them get paid the big bucks to manufacture people into sounding and looking like everyone else. It’s boring to say the least. They also don’t let their ‘clients’ keep the clothes that they dress them in, so how can the artists they style ever ‘own’ a look? How can that person experiment at home, which is the fun and essence of the game? It makes no sense. Some of dem stylists be tha clothes HOARDERS…ha.
I am no fashionista, but at this point in my life, when you see me wearing a pair of pants, those are the pants I chose to wear. That’s what made hip hop fashion so in vogue and cool back in its Golden Era! Back then it was just a plethora of different creative people wearing things that belonged to them.
What is your most memorable piece of clothing?
The pair of blue and white Tretorns I wore all throughout high school and how they looked once they were ‘worn in’ and busted up.
Do you consider fashion a form of art?
Fashion, like music, is art when its main motive is not to move units or make money but instead to express an original idea clearly and ‘beautifully’.
How would you define Toronto’s fashion?
Safe on the surface, but in Toronto’s underground deep blue sea, fashion superstars exist in GANGS breathing under the water of the trendy.
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