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Bling Blank
Calling all hip hop practitioners; it’s that time again. “Bling-bling every time I come around your city bling-bling,” stop it’s the recession remix! Recently The Wall Street Journal wrote a fascinating piece on the hip hop culture of bling. In this segment the periodical analyzed the overzealous jewelry aficionados during the times of this economic slump. Could this era of hip hop crass consumerism be at a near end?
For many years we’ve witnessed the bright investments of our rapping heroes dangle heavily from their necks, fingers, earlobes, and God knows what else. The glitz and glamour of wearing these shiny elements inspired some while often creating envy along the way. Whatever your position, we all recognize that being icy as now become synonymous with hip hop fashion. Remember the saying “A fool and his money soon do part” so what happened to all those rappers who where wearing your 401ks on their chest or a mortgage payment on their wrist. During these depressing times we find that rappers too can not afford the price of cool.
The story reported -After years of starring in rap-music lyrics and videos, “bling” is losing its ring. The recession is cramping the style of hip-hop artists and wannabes many of whom are finding it difficult to afford the diamond-encrusted pendants and heavy gold chains they have long used to project an aura of outsized wealth.
In an attempt to keep up appearances, celebrity jewelers say rappers are asking them to make medallions with less-precious stones and metals. Some even whisper that the artists have begun requesting cubic zirconia, the synthetic diamond stand-in and QVC staple. Times are hard, ain’t nobody rocking it like that anymore,” says rapper and record executive Bryan “Birdman” Williams, who co-founded Cash Money Records. Wow, this from the same man who once had diamond teeth, how ironic. Jeweler Johnny Dang says he is adapting to the changing climate by giving customers the less-expensive jewelry they want. “The look is still big, it is still bling, but people are going with smaller diamonds and lower-karat gold,” trading down from 18- and 14-karat alloys to 12k, which is only 50% gold, or less, says Mr. Dang. A Vietnamese immigrant, he started out at flea markets and now has a shop in the Tony Galleria mall next to Neiman Marcus. To survive, Mr. Dang is relying more often on machine-made versions of his jewelry that can cut the cost of a $10,000 handcrafted pendant in half. Mr. Dang’s “grillz” sales also have fallen off 60% in the recession. He and his business partner, the rapper Paul Wall, helped popularize the bejeweled dental retainers earlier this decade, when diamond-laced varieties molded with platinum were selling for tens of thousands of dollars.
The article proceeds to expose that a lot of hip hops favorite rappers not only can no longer afford this expensive fad, but many are secretly copping fake goods to put one over on the public. Say it aint so? The reality is that phony or inferior ice has been around as long as rappers’ traditional standard gear of two-turntables-and-a-microphone. But with Internet piracy cutting into musicians’ record sales and the recession shrinking attendance for live shows, jewelers say the stuff has never been more widespread. If this culture shrinks what would be left? Can you imagine not seeing a rap star with a huge gaudy glittering pendent to announce his presence. The good news is maybe now the music will return to a previous state of normalcy and become enjoyable once more.
For more info:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124329128994052323.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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