From Run DMC to Jay-Z: The History of Hip-Hop Told Through Bling: NPR

Slick Rick is known for his eye patch and the crowns he often wears.

Janette Beckman/Courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery

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Janette Beckman/Courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery

Slick Rick is known for his eye patch and the crowns he often wears.

Janette Beckman/Courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery

Flavor Flavor‘the clock. Nicki Minaj’s Barbie pendant. Smooth out Rick’s crown and eyepatch. They are famous symbols of hip-hop. But perhaps the most iconic piece of all is Ghostface Killah’s eagle cuff.

The gold bracelet weighs 5 pounds and features an eagle, wings outstretched, resting on the cuff. And it is currently on view at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Ghostface Killah wearing his iconic golden eagle cuff.

Atsuko Tanaka/American Museum of Natural History

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Atsuko Tanaka/American Museum of Natural History

Ghostface Killah wearing his iconic golden eagle cuff.

Atsuko Tanaka/American Museum of Natural History

“I was a really big Wu-Tang fan,” said Kevin “Coach K” Lee, guest curator of “Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry” and co-founder and COO of Quality. Control Records. . “So I remember when (Ghostface) got this piece and showed it – and to see that in person today? It just blew my mind.”

From chains to diamonds

But the first hip-hop artists didn’t start with giant gold eagles, diamond-encrusted nameplates, or Rolexes.

Instead, said Vikki Tobak, a music journalist and guest curator of the exhibition, they shopped at small community jewelry stores, usually owned by immigrants. “There weren’t a lot of diamonds, just, you know, a gold cap for your tooth, a simple nameplate, just to show off your achievement.”

From there it went to Run-DMC’s thick gold strings, pendants like the NAS QB pendant, representing Queensbridge houses, and the diamond-studded Roc-A-Fella medallion for the label co-founded by Jay-Z ; and finally onto fun objects like A$AP Rocky’s jewel-encrusted Lego figure, complete with fully functioning arms and legs.

This playful Lego pendant, designed for A$AP Rocky by Alex Moss

Alvaro Keding/© AMNH

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Alvaro Keding/© AMNH

This playful Lego pendant, designed for A$AP Rocky by Alex Moss

Alvaro Keding/© AMNH

“Hip-hop jewelry grew with the music and culture,” Tobak said.

As hip-hop became more mainstream and artists became wealthier, jewelry became more expensive and elaborate.

Not All Coins Are About Wealth

With so many spectacularly shiny objects, it might be easy to miss a humbler one nestled in a box: a rectangular ring with the letter “R” in the center.

It’s a Juice Crew ring, on loan from radio host and battle rap pioneer Roxanne Shanté — her signature song “Roxanne’s Revenge” was recorded when she was 14 and living in Queensbridge.

“Back then, a person who drank juice was respected and in control of their neighborhood and their situation,” Shanté said. “So if you saw someone with the Juice Crew ring, then you knew that was a person that you could trust. You knew that that was a person that you could go to to solve your problems. So you had to earn it. The Juice ring could never be bought. It had to be given to you.

She said people earn this ring by doing things like helping send a child to camp or mediating a dispute.

For her, it’s a symbol that hip-hop is a family.

Roxanne Shanté, a member of the influential hip-hop collective Juice Crew as a teenager in the 1980s, is the only rapper to have received a Juice Crew ring, adorned with a diamond-encrusted “R.”

Alvaro Keding/© AMNH

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Roxanne Shanté, a member of the influential hip-hop collective Juice Crew as a teenager in the 1980s, is the only rapper to have received a Juice Crew ring, adorned with a diamond-encrusted “R.”

Alvaro Keding/© AMNH

Other pieces in the exhibit have African iconography, such as a leather pendant worn by a member of De La Soul. Curator Tobak said the exhibit deliberately connects these pieces to other anthropology sections of the museum, as the history of hip-hop and jewelry is intrinsically linked to the African diaspora.

“What we choose to put on our bodies is such a human thing that hip-hop has just taken it to the nth degree. And I think that’s the most important and powerful story here,” a- she declared.

“Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry” is located at the American Museum of Natural History as part of the Allison and Roberto Mignone Rooms of Gems and Minerals.

Alvaro Keding/© AMNH

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Alvaro Keding/© AMNH