Hip-Hop and urban clothing brands come and go so quickly, you usually don't even have enough time to get attached to them. FUBU was a different story.
Founded in 1992, FUBU was created by Daymond John with $100,000. John brought on three friends (Carl Brown, J. Alexander Martin, and Keith Perrin) to help him run the company. The real jump-off for the brand was when LL Cool J became its spokesperson. Hell, LL even wore a FUBU hat and name dropped the company in a 1996 TV spot for The Gap:
That's what kind of influence FUBU had back in the day. The Gap wanted the rub from FUBU. Imagine a mega corporation letting an upstart Hip-Hop/urban clothing brand promote their product in its TV spot...wild.
At its peak, FUBU (For Us, By Us) was grossing over $350 million in worldwide sales. As the years went on the company saw a steep decline in popularity. In fact, as I was writing this piece I was shocked to see that FUBU was still around. Their website shows that the company now sells...tuxedos? FUBU tuxedos?
I may be mistaken, but I thought that the Gap didn't realize that LL was mentioning another clothing line in their ad, and once that come to light, they yanked his commercial.
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