Roots of Oaktown grow deep in city
Native credited with coining the name has abiding love for his home
James Copes says he came up with the nickname while he was in the clothing business, going to trade shows around the country.
The people he met either didn’t know Oakland, or associated it with crime. Copes wanted to spread the good word about the city he loved. The answer was “Oaktown” — which he started putting on clothing in 1987.
“When you go to New York, people would say ‘ the Big Apple.’ When you go to Detroit, they call it Motor City, ‘ Motown,’ ” Copes says. “But we didn’t have anything to match our flavor. So I was trying to think of a name that
would fit our flavor here in our city, the city of Oakland.”
Oaktown, or the Town, has grown algorithmically in the 30 years since it first appeared in Copes’ East Oakland store, on an “Oaktown is Kickin’ It” T- shirt. Rappers have immortalized the word in hit songs. At least a half dozen local businesses have Oaktown in their name. And the Golden State Warriors basketball team will debut their Town jersey this month.
But the man who says he popularized the term — and carries around old newspaper articles to prove it — says the meaning hasn’t changed for him.
“I love Oakland with all my heart. The people, the neighborhoods, the community,” Copes says. “I’m appreciative that people appreciate the name, the city and the culture and its people. That’s respect. And it can only make us more popular and help to create the flavor and spread the love all over so people will know about Oakland.”
As Copes explains his life story, every turn seems to contain a different Oakland badge of honor. Born in Highland Hospital, Copes grew up in Harbor Homes, a port- side Oakland housing project that was connected to land with a wooden plank and infested with foot- long harbor rats.
He went to five elementary schools, moving all around the city, as his mother struggled to make ends meet as a Kaiser Permanente nurse. A tennis prodigy at Oakland Technical High School who knew Arthur Ashe, Copes still looks fit in his mid- 60s.
But as Copes takes his time to talk about his Oakland upbringing, the tone is never negative — even the rats seem like a fond memory. When he set up clothing businesses as a young man in the 1970s, becoming the youngest member of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, his positive outlook was constant.
The reviews for “Oaktown,” however, were not initially raves.
“One day I said to my mom, ‘ Mom … I finally came up with a name for Oakland,’ ” Copes remembers. “She said ‘ Oaktown — boy, that sounds like the country. Ain’t nobody going to buy no damned Oaktown.’ ”
He created “Oaktown is Kickin’ It” anyway, filled with bright characters drawn by local artist Jerry Harris. Rapper Too Short, who had played arcade games and sold cassettes for $ 1 in Copes’ first store, wore “Oaktown is Kickin’ It” shirts onstage at his concerts in the 1980s. Copes remembers two of MC Hammer’s enormous dancers coming into his Eastmont Mall shop and asking for the shirts; he was the only local T- shirt shop that carried size 4XL.
Too Short won’t dispute or confirm Copes’ account that he was the first to use Oaktown. ( Copes acknowledges hearing a claim that the word was used on the streets before his shirt came out, but insists he came up with the term independently.) But the Oakland rapper says Copes was instrumental in bringing “Oaktown” to the masses.
“It’s definitely a staple in the city,” Too Short says. “You can’t take that from him, and you can’t take away the fact that he ( named) the city, and his logos were worn by lots of people, who represented in town and out of town. Probably a lot of college kids took his shirts and hats away to school because they were so unique, just to say, ‘ This is where I’m from.’ ”
Copes says rapper Dangerous Dame used Oaktown in a song first, followed closely by Too Short, who released the track “In the Oaktown” on his hit “Short Dog’s in the House” in 1990.
Hammer spread the term internationally, producing the female rap group Oaktown’s 357 in 1989, then dropping it in tracks including 1991’ s “2 Legit to Quit.” (“Hit you with a dose of Oaktown power/ And charge you by the hour.”)
Meanwhile, the word grew bigger than Copes. He was hailed in a 1993 East Bay Express article as the “Mayor of Eastmont Mall”; the piece also credited him with coining “Oaktown.” Then he was driven out of his mall clothing shop in 1993 after new management took over.
Copes now sells clothing at various events in Oakland; he’s a regular during the Saturday Grand Lake Farmers’ Market, on Lake Park Avenue near Lanesplitter Pizza. He has a new website, www. oldschool copes. com, where he sells Oakland- themed products, including a popular “Born and Raised” shirt with a port crane and Oakland tree. The “Oaktown is Kickin’ It” shirt comes back into circulation every few years, with the 30th anniversary edition out now. He’s bringing a popular early 1980s “Christmas in Oakland” shirt back, too.
Copes has a heavy nostalgia for his days at Eastmont Mall, now called Eastmont Town Center and long past its peak as a retail center.
“Give some love to Eastmont Mall!” he says.
All the while, Copes doesn’t complain about the changes in the city, or others co- opting the Town name — even if they don’t know where it came from. For Copes, the Town was always bigger than one person. And it was never about money. The root of Oaktown is love.
“Life brings about change. Time brings about change. But the city is still great. The neighborhoods, the culture is still here,” Copes says. “What we have to do is work together and go beyond our differences. Speak to each other. Say, ‘ Hello.’ This is a great city, people are great in this town. It always will be great.”