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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air&lt;/em&gt; is the show that turned Will Smith into a superstar, but when the fish-out-of-water sitcom made its debut on national TV in the fall of 1990, it achieved something bigger and more important (unless you're, like, the world's biggest Will Smith fan): The show helped introduce hip hop culture to mainstream America. Sure, by 1990 rap songs had already begun appearing on &lt;em&gt;Yo! MTV Raps&lt;/em&gt;), Spike Lee had already made the seminal &lt;em&gt;Do The Right Thing&lt;/em&gt;, and Nike had already released a series of Air Jordan shoes, but Smith's sitcom -- which frequently featured hip hop references, slang, and songs -- was on free TV every week, in prime time.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One sign that the Fresh Prince wasn't like any TV character we had seen before was Smith's wardrobe in the pilot: Vibrant, multi-hued clothes, and a pair of Air Jordans.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Jordans as a symbol of hip hop -- or, rather, \"blackness\" -- had already been depicted on screen a year prior in &lt;em&gt;Do The Right Thing&lt;/em&gt;, when Buggin' Out famously bugged out over a white man stepping on his Jordans. So it was probably not a coincidence that the opening shot of a pivotal scene in the Fresh Prince pilot was a closeup of Smith's Air Jordans. The camera than pan-up to show the rest of the outfit -- a tuxedo -- as Smith enters a wealthy dinner party.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Those shoes would become pop culture icons, so much so that when Nike announced they were releasing a special edition \"Bel Air\" edition of the Air Jordan 5s featuring a color scheme similar to Smith's wardrobe in the debut episode, sneakerheads and fans of the show got very excited.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Possibly, too excited.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There were lines outside shoe stores across America early Saturday morning for the release of the $185 Bel Air Jordans\u2014and in Wilmington, Delaware, two men were shot while queued for the shoes.\u00A0According to CBS news, the pair was camped outside a store when the shooting occurred at 5:30a.m. The two unidentified men were taken to hospital, where one is in critical condition.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this is nothing new. There's an alarming\u00A0history of shootings over Air Jordans in America. And perhaps the saddest sign that these incidents aren't entirely unexpected: The crowd outside the Wilmington store continued to wait in line for the shoes even after the shooting.\n(h/t NiceKicks)&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2013/10/06/air-jordans-bel-air-shooting-delaware-fresh-prince>