X-Clan Airbrushed Shirt

Airbrushed style of print was a major fashion statement and design that represented the vibrant colors of graffiti art and allowed artists to wear airbrushed designs of their names, groups, self-portraits and cartoons to represent who they were and wear they were from. One of the major airbrush painters of the 80s during the birth of Hip-Hop was King Phade who was painter and co-founder of the Shirt Kings who grew a fan based with his custom airbrushed t-shirts and sweaters who remixed transformed street culture and street art onto clothing and became the first to popularize and commercialize their graffiti as a Hip-Hop clothing brand. 

X-Clan is an American Hip-Hop group from Brooklyn, New York. Known for its Afrocentrism and militant activism as a member of the Blackwatch movement, X-Clan gained fame for the political controversy in their music. The group consisted of Brother J (Jason Hunter, b. 1971), Lumumba Professor X "The Overseer" (Lumumba Carson, 1956-2006), Sugar Shaft (Anthony Hardin, d. 1995), Paradise (Claude Grey, b. unknown), and they were joined by a cast of associates, which included MC Isis (Lin Que Ayoung, b.1969). 

The group's primary members activists outside of music as well; they were Blackwatch members and  vocal supporters of several pro-Black organizations. Many Afrocentric, politically oriented Hip-Hop groups formed during the late '80s and early '90s. Many of these groups like X-Clan discussed racial injustice and Black pride and unity in their music. For X-Clan, their name paid homage to their Islamic faith (“X” representing the practice of denouncing surnames that were generationally passed down from white American slave masters) and the religious lessons from the 5 Percent Nation of Gods and Earths known as the 5 Percenters.