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Hip-hop is music – and jewellery: big clunkers for big success. The opulent volume “Ice Cold” is a homage to the hedonism of hip-hop culture.
Rope-thick gold chains, fist-sized platinum rings and plate-sized chain pendants with colorful gemstones. This jewelry is a game of superlatives. Because hip-hop is more than music. He is style.
“Hip-hop emerged from jazz and is rooted in the broader culture of Afro-American history,” explains the American Vikki Tobak, the author of «Ice Cold». “What hip-hop looks like is closely linked to the music from the start.”
Legend:
Pioneer of bling: Rapper Slick Rick poses in this shot from the 1990s with numerous jewelry, which he mainly bought from New York jewelers.
“Ice Cold”/Clay Patrick McBride, New York, 1999
“My jewelry is my superhero suit,” says the 57-year-old US rapper Slick Rick. “I tell stories with my clothes and jewelry, just as I tell them with beats and rhymes.”
Inspired by dealers
Jewelry was already a topic in the early days of hip-hop, in the 1970s. “The early hip-hop makers looked to people in their community who they felt had made it,” explains Vikki Tobak. “They were often hustlers, drug dealers, people from the street who made money. The young rappers emulated them.”
Hip-hop was born at the infamous party that Kool Herc and his sister threw at their Bronx apartment building in 1973. Kool Herc and others wore jewelry – but only leather jewelry and pearls. Kurtis Blow became the first rapper to wear gold chains on the cover of his debut album in 1980.
The chains became more popular – and above all thicker. Pendants with initials or names dangled from them. But also depictions of Jesus, Egyptian motifs and Mercedes stars. Chunky rings first adorned one finger, then the whole hand.
Blockbuster hip-hop jewelry
It was cocky, boastful and free-spending. Hip-hop culture even ennobled street clothes. Run DMC was the first formation to enter into a deal with a sporting goods manufacturer: because of their song “My Adidas”.
Legend:
Pioneers of “streetwear”: Run DMC pose in New York in 1985 in their well-known Adidas outfit.
Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives
When a manager saw her fans holding up their sneakers at a concert, he saw the potential of hip-hop. As part of the contract, he gave Run DMC gold rope chains with a sneaker on. “These chains became part of her look,” says Vikki Tobak. Hip-hop jewelry has become a value chain over the years.
Platinum and precious stones soon followed gold, including diamonds, known as “ice” in hip-hop slang. The jewellers, like «Jacob the Jeweler», also became stars.
Role model Mayan culture?
The “Grillz” – cult tooth ornaments made of gold and stones that are worn like braces – show that jewelery has other references than the slums of the USA.
Legend:
The “Grill”: Rapper A$AP Rocky had his tooth framed in a golden way.
«Ice Cold» / Mike Miller, Los Angeles, 2018
“The first people to adorn themselves with it were wealthy women in Etruscan times in Italy,” says Vikki Tobak. “And the Mayans also decorated their teeth with jade.”
Bling-bling also carries danger
But again and again rappers were killed because of their jewelry. Recently, 30-year-old PnB Rock at a restaurant in Los Angeles. This is the flip side of this brilliant story.
Legend:
Rapper Megan Thee Stallion with her “Hot Girl” necklace: It consists of about a kilo of 14-carat gold and VS diamonds.
“Ice Cold”/Marcelo Cantu, Los Angeles, 2020
Perhaps it will lead to the end of megalomania. Because Vikki Tobak makes a rethink in the hip-hop scene. “People like Jay-Z or Nas are demanding to build companies and industries to create wealth for generations.”
That, according to Tobak, would be the true size of the American dream. So, jewelry in hip-hop would be one of the keys to that – a highly embellished one.