angry snowman 4 eva....

If you're looking for the year's best and most memorable hip-hop T-shirt, then look no further than the angry snowman. (Depending on which T-shirt design you've got, your snowman may be equipped with a nontraditional accessory: a bandanna headband.)

The snowman is the logo of Young Jeezy, the Atlanta rapper who has established himself as hip-hop's brightest new star. His excellent major-label debut, "Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101" (Island Def Jam), was released at the end of July, and it is one of the year's biggest musical success stories. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard chart and has yet to drop out of the Top 20, with a hit single that just reached the Top 10; it has already been certified platinum, for shipping more than a million copies to stores. And, in perhaps the most impressive proof of Jeezy's success, his angry snowman has become one of the year's most heavily bootlegged T-shirt designs.

The snowman's success is proof that Jeezy has a knack for self-promotion, but it's also an example of the way rappers use coded language to juggle multiple constituencies. A casual observer might see the snowman as just one more improbable hip-hop fashion trend. (Half a decade ago, hip-hop fans bedecked themselves in oversize shirts and sweaters emblazoned with characters from Looney Tunes or "Peanuts.") Some listeners might be willing to accept Jeezy's deadpan explanation that he calls himself the snowman because of all his ice, or diamonds.

But most of his fans have heard Jeezy offer a different explanation for his deceptively cute alter ego. In one of his first hits, he rapped, "Get it? Jeezy the Snowman/I'm iced out, plus I got that snow, man." Jeezy's rhymes are full of cocaine-dealer boasts, and on his CD itself, the snowman rests suggestively atop a pile of something white and powdery. If the gnomic power of the snowman itself isn't enough, some T-shirts come with a quotation that drives the point home: on the back, they say, "I got that snow ... man!"