Wealth & Money Quote by Andre Benjamin

Andre Benjamin is calling out a very 21st-century flex: the performance of not performing. When he says style is "real important" now, he isnt talking about peacocking. He is pointing at a cultural moment where the loudest signal is studied indifference, a kind of anti-style that still takes work, money, and taste to pull off. The punchline is in the economics: if the dominant look is "I dont care", the market will happily sell you that carelessness at a premium.

The line about companies getting rich off "torn" and "worn" clothes is more than a gripe about pricing. Its an indictment of how authenticity gets manufactured. Distress is supposed to mean labor, time, survival, a life lived hard enough to leave marks. When brands pre-distress your denim, they are laundering that story into a purchasable aesthetic. You skip the experience and buy the residue.

Coming from Andre 3000, this lands with extra bite because his own career has been built on intentional presentation: OutKasts fashion didnt just decorate the music; it argued with it, expanding what Southern rap could look like. His subtext is almost parental: stop letting "effortless" be the default aspiration. Style, in his framing, is a form of authorship. If you dont write your own visual language, someone else will sell you a generic one and call it originality.