A Quote by Kehinde Wiley
For years, I've been painting black men as a way to respond to the reality of the streets. I've asked black men to show up in my studio in the clothes that they want to be wearing. And often times, those clothes would be the same trappings people would see on television and find menacing.
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Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkly clothes, and cowboy boots. I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I've worn black clothes ever since.
I'm about looking at each of those perceived menacing black men that you see in the streets all over the place, people that you oftentimes will walk past without assuming that they have the same humanity, fears that we all do.
I think, at the L.A. County Museum of Art, I saw my first example of Kerry James Marshall, who had a very sort of heroic, oversized painting of black men in a barbershop. But it was painted on the same level and with the same urgency that you would see in a grand-scale [Anthony] van Dyck or [Diego] Velazquez. The composition was classically informed; the painting technique was masterful. And it was something that really inspired me because, you know, these were images of young, black men in painting on the museum walls of one of the more sanctified and sacred institutions in Los Angeles.
I was wearing black clothes almost from the beginning. I feel comfortable in black. I felt like black looked good onstage, that it was attractive, so I started wearing it all the time.
It would be much easier to just make black, brown and beige clothes. But I do not see the world in black and white and beige. I find colors incredibly important.
Music is an expression of who you are, and - at least in that sense - I think I epitomize Black Lives Matter. I'm a big black man, and I'm easily misunderstood. Before I started wearing these African clothes, people would assume that I was a threat and that it was O.K. to be violent toward me.
I've seen people wearing clothes that don't look good on them, but they're really loving those clothes and the experience of wearing those clothes. Fine. At the end of the day, it's fashion.
Just wearing all black comes from Johnny Cash. I'm on the road so much that if I wear all black, my clothes never get dirty. You can't tell if I've worn the same shirt twice.
Just wearing all black comes from Johnny Cash. I'm on the road so much that if I wear all black my clothes never get dirty. You can't tell if I've worn the same shirt twice.
I'm not talking about my children's father'he's a wonderful black man, the hero of my life, and he's never disrespected or betrayed me. But I'm talking about what I see in the streets and in the media, this naked hatred that black men have towards the authentic black woman'which is really an indication of black men's hatred for blackness itself.
Women wearing men's clothes are chic, men wearing women's clothes make us fall on the floor laughing.
Wearing baggy clothes makes me look shorter. I just don't know anything about fashion. I know what I like wearing. I'm always accused that I wear too much black. I love wearing black.
Growing up, there was this explosion of B television. 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air,' you have 'Family Matters,' 'A Different World.' I had examples - of black children, black families, black women, black men - that represented who I was.
It's very hard to find men's clothes that do what you want, especially when you go through them as quickly as I do. I need them to be flashy, but I never like to be overdressed. I need to make a statement, but I hate wearing too many clothes.
I have so many clothes, but really, I have the same variations of the same thing, usually black jeans, black jumpers, black double-breasted coats.
I started to draw and design clothes that I couldn't find, because everything was all luxury, fashion clothes or very straight. So I mixed all of that together: Who says I can't put a man in a skirt? Who says that a man can't wear lace? Who says that men can't wear Swarovski? Who says that men can't wear makeup? You know what I'm like; for me, straight, gay, women, men, trans, we're all the same. I don't see difference.
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