Chicago’s first one-stop hip-hop shop will be ready to bop Saturday.
Triple X, an equal mix rap, jazz and reggae outlet, gear shop, politically correct bookstore, classroom and poetry center is taking over the empty Rainbow Donuts storefront at the Damen/Milwaukee/North Avenue traffic jam. “What brings us together is not just the music it’s the culture-youth uprising-it gives us a common ground,” says Bobby Sox (a k a Norbert Caillouet), 32, one of five friends who met on the party scene and schemed to open their own hip-hop haven more than a year ago. “All these stores open that don’t know anything about hip hop,” he says. “They’ve got a bunch of fat cats who don’t care about it.”
The Triple X crew takes the opposite approach, living what they believe is the hip-hop ideal of racial harmony, multicultural understanding and good music. Together, they’ve been remodeling the storefront by hand, down to the papier mache, graffiti-splattered subway cars that will run across the ceiling.
For the past year, after their day jobs as doormen, book dealers and receptionists, the friends have run a pilot version of Triple X out of the Wicker Park studio of Greg Place, 34. There, they silk-screen shirts celebrating Krylon spray paint, sell books (from Cheryl Broussard’s “The Black Woman’s Guide to Financial Independence” (Hyde Park CA, $19.95) to children’s ABC primers) and invite neighborhood kids to wander in for art lessons and a shot of confidence.
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding between other people and the hip-hop generation,” says Place. “Rap has always been dissed on (disrespected) for gang violence and graffiti. Myself, being an artist, I see graffiti as art. We definitely want to put out about stopping violence, that’s what we want to teach the kids.”
Triple X is at 1588 N. Milwaukee Ave.; call 312-252-7064 for more information.