Like diamonds, hip hop is the result of a certain amount of pressure. Political, social, cultural, even religious. His narrative escapes none of these factors, not even the visual. In fact, it is his image that conveys meaning and power, worth and transcendence, identity and riches, just as much – sometimes more – than the urban poetry he dispenses. When the metal plaques disappeared from hundreds of Mercedes hoods in the early 1980s, it was more than hooliganism. Wearing this car symbol strumming on the chest was very ambitious. If the street is your catwalk, you have no choice: the psychological need to show and demonstrate is imperative. As a culture/society where nobody gives anything and everything has to be earned, hip hop had to establish its own iconographic codes, not only as a form of (self) expression, but also as a testament to a shared history that goes on from the ancient African ones kingdoms to the streets of Brooklyn and Harlem. Therefore, from the very beginning, jewels have been one of the best, quickest, and most effective means of conveying the message. Freezing. A Hip-Hop Jewelry History (published by luxury coffee table-sized bags) is the book that now tells this story, which has a lot more to it than meets the eye.
Eric B. & Rakim David Corio (bags)
“To regard these gleaming boulders and gleaming metals as mere ornamentation is a reductionist exercise because their symbolism and power are simplified. Hip-hop’s love of jewelry is based on a story of visual cues related to status,” says Vikki Tobak, author of the monumental volume. The journalist of Kazakh origin grew up on the streets of Detroit in the late 1970s, just as lyrical rap was beginning to supersede soul and funk as an African-American musical expression, the perfect breeding ground for sparking her interest in a phenomenon that is his own Leib would learn as soon as he moved to New York at the age of 19 and got a PR job at Payday Records, the record label that released Gang Starr, Mos Def and Jeru The Damaja. “I was a nighttime bouncer at a club called Nell’s, which is very popular with rappers, so I kept the music busy between jobs. As marketing director, I was also responsible for public relations, and that’s how I discovered how hip-hop artists forge their identities and how style plays an integral part in the construction of their images,” she says.
Using his baggage, he published in 2018 Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop, a look back at 40 years of the genre through more than a hundred throwbacks from some of the most emblematic photo sessions of his first swords, including this Ice Cold that can be seen as a natural continuation . It’s normal that many of these snaps (signed by Barron Claiborne, Danny Hastings, Matt Gunther, Phil Knott or the sensational Janette Beckman) are repeated here.
The pioneering Salt-N-Pepa trio, pictured in 1988, with gold rope chains. Dapper Dan; Janette Beckmann (bags)
Tobak says that since its inception, hip hop has shown the world that jewelry is a different way of documenting one’s time, a testament to individuality but also social order. “Once it was the pharaohs, the kings, the immortal gods, who covered themselves with gold. Today, the new gods sparkle at the corner of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and West 125th Street,” he writes in his book. Incidentally, it is not easy to date the beginning of such a gold rush.
Some cite Slick Rick as an original reference, as the rapper himself, one of the most influential producers and MCs (Masters of Ceremonies) of the early days of New York block parties, reveals in Ice Cold: “I told stories with my clothes and decorations the same way.” , which I said to them simultaneously with rhythms and rhymes”. And there are those who bet everything on Kurtis Blow, disc jockey and MC believer in the genre’s first gold record, scored by The Breaks, which was included on their debut album in 1980 and on the cover of which he appeared already laden with gold chains around his neck . The fundamental gesture that prompted subsequent generations of rappers and presenters to bolster themselves with jewelry to showcase their career milestones. When duo Eric B. & Rakim released their first album, Paid in Full, in 1987, the carats of their yellow medallions, links, and rings would have knocked them to the ground had they fallen into the Hudson River. The chains alone were estimated at $100,000. Everyone.
Sean Combs, pictured in 1999, with diamond and platinum pendants, a material then competing with gold. Albert Watson (Bags)
The need for the African-American community in the 1980s to create its own representation of success — the American dream version of wild neoliberalism that obviously wasn’t invented for everyone to get rich or die — swings the hip with hop bling heart. But since the 1990s, the colossal amounts rappers are paying for their tracks have been nothing more than another demonstration of the power dynamic established in hip-hop, which has become a multimillion-dollar industry with a global reach, a corporate system . The scene’s aristocracy – artists, producers, record executives and drug dealers alike – then made diamonds their quintessential means of communication, preferring to display them as trophies at concerts, as Mr. Cee, the DJ who laid the foundation for Big Daddy Kane, in Bling Bling: Hip-Hop’s Crown Jewels, a 2005 book by popular American radio host Minya Oh: “It was all competition. If one came out with a new piece, the others would appear even swankier with others shortly after.”
One of the members of City Girls wears tags with the duo’s name and the initials of their label, Quality Control. Mike Miller (bags)
This rivalry gave rise to a goldsmith ecosystem (and thriving business) with its own stamp and name. To the legendary Tito Caicedo, founder of the New York company Manny’s, who passed away in 2016, we owe the jewel among hip-hop jewels: the gold and diamond pendant with the face of Jesus Christ, commissioned by the unfortunate The Notorious BIG , which he paid $10,000 for (he got a few to give away to his teammates as well). Since then, Jay-Z wears it as a pendant every time he records a new album. The controversial artist, formerly known as Kanye West, has twice redesigned it to his liking: The first time in 2004 in collaboration with Jacob The Jeweler Arabo, owner of Jacob & Co. in New York’s Diamond District, to which every professional rapper flocked. ; and the second in 2007 with esteemed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. Contemporary artisans (see Ben Baller, Alex Moss or Eliantte) are now working on highly personal designs in new materials such as titanium or carbon fiber and using techniques ranging from 3D printing and enamelling to sustainably produced diamonds. When it comes to shine, hip-hop has always been at the forefront.
Meek Mill, in 2018, wears an insane amount of diamonds.Ahmed Klink (bags)
As the genre ascended into the commercial sky, the jewels associated with it evolved in parallel, becoming bigger, flashier, and swankier. The simple gold chains of the late 1970s gave way to chains of bulky links (known as truck jewelry as popularized by Miami’s Cuban community). The medallions reached the size of wheels, and the rings and sigils increased in length to cover four fingers. The usual gold tooth caps were transformed into so-called grills, removable or non-removable crowns made of precious metals, sometimes set with precious stones, that add an air of wealth and status to the smile (a practice with more than two millennia of history). worn by Etruscan and Mayan women), also in white, from Madonna to Rosalía, by Katy Perry (in possession of a million-dollar mouthpiece). And from the second half of the 1990s, the diamond-studded delirium in an escalation of whimsical and extravagant designs that eventually led to the blinding onomatopoeia bling-bling being implanted in the American lexicon. Of course, it was no longer just a matter of men wanting to show who had it – and still has – but women in hip-hop have made their own contribution with pioneers like MC Lyte or Salt-N-Pepa and stars out the current move of Cardi B or Megan Thee Stallion. Additionally, they were the ones who most appreciated the jewelry connection with its African origins, with pieces that speak directly to the type of adornment worn by Nubian women in the fourth century BC, signifying beauty, spirituality and sexuality without ambiguity. .
Just-Ice, with gold and diamond grilles in 1986. Janette Beckman (bags)
“Hip-hop was never about asking permission for anything. As a cultural expression, it asserts its visual codes as a sign of identity and declaration of power, dominance and wealth in an environment that has never escaped racism, especially when we talk about pop,” concludes Tobak. “And historically, jewelry has always been associated with this type of demonstration. Even if the gold chain is a trifle.”