Derek at Pop Life emails to say that the rap kid's T-shirt must be derived from a Mobb Deep lyric on The Infamous:

"It's not where you at kid,
It's where you from,
'Cause where I'm from,
Niggas carry nothing but the big guns"

And a whole bunch of people emailed to point out that "Ian Brown's maxim" actually comes from Rakim, in "I Know You Got Soul":

Now if your from Uptown, Brooklyn- bound
The Bronx, Queens, or Long Island Sound,
Even other states come right and exact,
It ain't where you're from, it's where you're at

According to Steve Kiviat, it also appears in "In the Ghetto" (Thrifty Rakim! And why not, a good line's worth recycling), viz :

Going for self wit a long way to go
So much to say but I still flow slow
I come correct and I won't look back
'Cause it ain't where you're from, it's where you're at

and several other points in the track

So evidently Mobb Deep are playing on that hip hop quotable, it seems fairly unlikely they're massive Stone Roses fans.

If memory serves, Ian Brown said it at the press conference before Spike Island, someone was asking him about the Manchester scene, and he says "it's not where you from, it's where you're at, man". Or maybe he said it onstage during that ill-starred concert.

At the time I thought this was a cool remark as I was opposed to the whole idea of scenes and the mystique of certain cities (specifically Manchester, when really there was only the Roses and the Mondays carrying the whole baggy movement). Well of course since then I've revised my thoughts on the subject quite a bit.

"Where you're at" and "where you're from" both seem to have things in their favour, though. And it's also the case that whatever "at" you're, er, at, will always carry traces of the "from" that was your departure point. C.f. Puff Diddy as sampled by Roll Deep: "sometimes I don’t think you motherfuckers understand where I’m coming from, where I’m trying to get to.” Bryan Ferry with the traces of Geordie accent lingering in his croon. David Sylvian growing up in Catford, his real name David Batt. Sun Ra's belief that he's from Saturn inseparable from the alien-ation of being in born in Birmingham, Alabama.

Slogan spotted on a rap kid's T-shirt:

"It's Not Where You're At, It's Where You're From"

Seeing that on the subway gave me a rush.

(Then almost immediately thought of the acrimonious debates earlier this year about a certain mud-hut dwelling young lady whose publicity shots invariably depict her crouching on a jungle tree branch; that bizarre net-spectacle of folks who disdain the concept of authenticity engaged in frantic authentication!)

I wonder if the T-Shirt creator actually had Ian Brown's famous "it's not where you're from, it's where you're at" catchphrase in mind as something to be refuted?

Either way, the slogan beautifully captures the rockism at the core of hip hop.

Don't ask me to say which of the two statements I agree with though; I take things strictly on a case-by-case basis. Both propositions have their merits, their utopian/counter-hegemonic/libertatory potential, depending on context. Pop-rock-whatever is a tissue of realness and fantasy, of roots 'n' future, of the earthy and the outerspatial. Wood and plastic*. Where you're from and where you're at.

*a micro-critique of Morley's Words and Music, which exalts plastic and demeans the importance/allure of "wood"/woodsy etc in the history of poprocketc. But why do we have to choose between The Band's "Whispering Pines" and Kraftwerk's "Neon Lights"?

big big round of applause for Langdon Winner for his having identifed, in 1975 believe it or not, the essence and mechanism of Rockism (in the bad sense we all agree on), in his review of Born To Run in the Real Paper, which bore the witty title "Bruce Springsteen's Nobel Prize Bid," and noted how Brucie "has gone to the finest pop schools. He respects his elders. He bears the finest credentials and upholds the highest standards. Like all dutiful epigones, he threatens to become the consummate bore..... [Born to Run is] the complete monument to rock and roll orthodoxy."