How Running Culture Reached Hip-Hop
Artists like Gunna, Central Cee and French rapper Rilès are suddenly posting running content and using the sport's once-uncool aesthetic to promote upcoming projects.
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A few days ago, Gunna posted a cinematic clip of him out for a run to his five million Instagram followers. It wasn’t your average jog around the block, though. The video shows the Atlanta rapper gliding down the road in a full Adidas set and sneakers to the sound of his “Him All Along” track, flanked in formation by three SUVs clearing space for him to run without getting hit by other traffic and… holding his water bottle for him.
Notwithstanding that Gunna should hold his own water bottle and that there was a perfectly good sidewalk to run on, it became clear that this was the latest indication of running culture’s infiltration of hip-hop.
The post confirmed a shift I’d noticed in recent weeks in how rappers across the US, the UK, and France suddenly are posting about running, creating content with run clubs, and using the sport to promote upcoming projects.
As my old editors used to say, once you can point to three separate examples of a trend, it’s definitely a thing.
Stick with me now.
But first, here are three things my friends at OffBall and I are watching in sports culture this week.
The Super Bowl is almost upon us. The NFL is working with creators like Wisdom Kaye and hosting unprecedented fashion-related activations to bring sport’s greatest showcase to new audiences.
Louis Vuitton has added skateboarder Tyshawn Jones to its fast-growing stable of athletes, which already includes Wemby, Jude Bellingham, and many more.
Kyle Smith, the NFL's fashion editor, is profiled in a New York Times feature about his unique role.
Also, please don’t forget to refer your friends to SportsVerse for more of these insights and good times they can’t get anywhere else.
Running’s Unlikely Rise
Running’s rise to the height of popular culture over the past year has been nothing short of miraculous.
My friend Luke, writer of
, reminded me by chance the other day of the book, “Jogging,” written in 1966 by Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman—a formidable Oregonian track-and-field coach—back when running for fun was such an alien concept in American society that the authors felt compelled to espouse its health benefits across the front cover.
Even until recently, casual running was never seen as a “cool” sport like basketball or soccer, nor as an upper-class pursuit like tennis or golf.
But all that has changed. We now have brands like Nike, Adidas, and On selling out super shoe releases that cost $350-$500 per pair. Influencers make running content. Run clubs are now social clubs and also IRL dating apps, and new-gen running labels like Satisfy, Norda, Bandit, District Vision and countless others make fashion-forward clothing for people to run in and also to flex in at the coffee store after.
After fashion, it was only a matter of time before the music world caught up.
In April, I broke the news that singer-songwriter and dancer FKA Twigs had become an ambassador of running sneaker brand On, which has since built a new sportswear and training line around her.
In July, I noticed Pharrell Williams' conscious choice to wear Adidas’ $500 Pro Evo marathon running shoes when he carried the torch during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
Then, in October, UK-based singer Rasharn Powell announced The Roadrunner Club, a series of pop-ups in London, Paris, and Amsterdam. He’d lead a group of fans and like-minded individuals on a short run before ending at a venue where everyone would hang out while he performed music from his latest album.
But despite running’s inroads into music, it still took me by surprise to see hip-hop artists beginning to take up the sport and integrate it into their public personas and brands.
After I promised to unpack this new development following the Gunna video, my friend of Satisfy Running shared a post by French rapper Rilès. Rilès had been increasingly talking to his followers about his endurance exploits, including running 120km on a treadmill for over 12 hours.
Now, he’s inviting fans to come and watch him in what he described as a live art display called “Survival Run,” in which he plans to:
“Push the boundaries of human endurance by running non-stop for 24 hours on a treadmill, facing a latent and ever-present threat. The work explores the fine line between perseverance and obsession, between control and abandonment, questioning the capacity of the mind to surpass the limits of the body in a survival situation.”
Ticket slots throughout the 24-hour period have sold out, and fans are losing their minds. Some way to promote your upcoming music.
Central Cee also turned to running in the lead-up to his latest album launch, Can’t Rush Greatness. For the first time, he began taking fans behind the scenes with day-in-the-life voiceovers on TikTok, speaking about the importance of wellness and recovery. He also revealed for the first time how he’d taken up running and posted a very reasonable 26-minute 5k time on a treadmill after a flight to Tokyo.
Days after the album launch, Central Cee also appeared in images alongside the Nike-affiliated, cool kid fitness collective Youwasntder. A trip he took with that group to the Lake District in the English countryside—not the usual aesthetic of a London rapper—appears to have been the backdrop for his “Limitless” music video, in which he also repped Youwasntder’s merch.
Who knows what Bill Bowerman would have said if you’d told him back in 1966 that this is what would become of running.
Either way, there’s no denying that what was once an activity for retirees and bored suburban folk is now well and truly part of the culture.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the run.
Until next time!
DYM
I feel like hip-hop embracing running is a reflection of the way run crew culture has been led by Black athletes for more than a decade. In NYC emerging hip hop artists like Circa 95 have been leading running groups, am not surprise to see this bubble up to more prominent artists. Charlie Dark of RunDemCrew is a well renowned DJ too. TBH they’ve been the ones to make running cool - more than the brands.
Thank you for this analysis.
Aesthetic of both Riles or Gunna are to me, also inspired by cinema. I see a mix of the Creed/Rocky/Power franchises.
Doni Creed is running : with the boys doing wheels in Philly, on bridges, in the Californian desert (followed by the SUV). He incarnates the representation of an athlete sponsored by Nike from head to toe and married to one of the famous RNB singer/ producer of its generation with songs interpratwd by Tessa Thompson herself in chapter one. Soundtracks are key for the whole trilogy. Mythic scenes from Rocky are reinterpreted in a modern way totally imbued with hip hop culture.
In Power, Ghost runs in the docks of NY with its driver Shawn waiting for him in his big Escalade. With 50 cent both producing and acting in the series, it influences the tonality of the culture, the soundtrack and so. Mary J Blige joins the cast of Power Book 2. Hip
Hop singers are actors. Frontiers getting blurred since a while now and running being part of the new imagery