The Hard Core Of Cool

Cool to Come

It's tragic that the cool that represented freedom to black men has chained them to images of death and degradation. But brothercool has always been bigger than the music, clothes or attitudes that inform it.

The decision of what's in "is made by youth," says Andrew "Dru" Ryan, 30, who teaches hip-hop culture at George Mason University. Thanks to the Internet, Ryan says, what's popular doesn't always show itself in the mainstream media.

It shows itself in bars and clubs, where Kanye West's pastel polos and Pharrell Williams's skateboard chic thrive. It's revealed at schools, sporting events and shopping centers like Westfield Montgomery, where Greenbelt's Will Boykin recently noted the rising number of brothers under 21 who favor "Goth and skateboarder looks, fitted pants and bright jackets . . . looks that are more artistic, more individual."

Attitudes, too, are changing, he said, as thug-life cool becomes less brutal and "more materialistic." "Now it's about 'I drink this, I smoke that, I do what I want with women.' It isn't violent. . . . But it . . . makes you blind to other things that matter."

While commercial hip-hop's negativity reflects artists' "limited experiences," Ryan says, the Internet expands people's vision, recognizing international underground artists such as France's MC Solaar and Toronto's Kardinal Offishall who "show less objectification of women, fewer drugs, guns." Ryan also sees this "movement toward normality" in stars like popular Tappahannock, Va.-born singer Chris Brown, 16, who show "you don't have to be gangster.

"We're seeing a new type of cool."

It's demonstrated by actor Will Smith, whose insistence on promoting his films overseas ensures his box office invincibility. You see it in Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco, 25, the underground phenom whose hit album "Food & Liquor" features toys and art items from Britain, Japan and Singapore that he keeps in his book bag.

Brothercool is demonstrating black men's increasing diversity in income, interest and attitude. The "new cool" that black men are forging could be more like the old: deriving its edge from the risks that accompany growth, expansion, the embrace of other cultures, the hot breath that signifies life.

It could reflect what Ryan says fuels ex-scowler and Fiasco producer Jay-Z's recent tour of South Africa and his activism to address the world's clean-water shortage: the desire "to find some . . . joy in all this."

Anyone who has trouble connecting cool's edginess to joy should consider the man Boateng cites as the ultimate embodiment of cool, a global icon who understood black men's struggle but whose rage never doused his joy: Muhammad Ali.

The boxer "always looked fantastic," Boateng says, but it was his persona that "spoke to everyone -- Ali had a magic." Ask for a younger example and you can almost hear Boateng's transatlantic shrug. Real cool "stands the test of time," he explains. "It has to be earned."

And learned. And expanded, for it -- and the men who most embody it -- to survive.