The American Museum of Natural History is holding an exhibition about the evolution of jewelry in hip-hop. The watches featured are both striking and historically important.
Fall is a busy time in New York. Everyone is coming back from the Hamptons or Europe, ready for auction season and Fashion Week to begin. As an art industry professional and a style writer, I find it particularly busy.
In the fall of 2022, my old colleagues at TASCHEN invited me to the book release of their beautiful tome, Ice Cold, at Dover Street Market. It was the first day of Fashion Week. I had just gotten back from England, then Nantucket. Exhausted, I almost didn’t go.
But boy, am I glad I did. The book’s author, Vikki Tobak, brought to light the illustrious connection between jewelry and rap. I had no idea how many pioneering jewelers became the artists they are because of the hip-hop community.
Now, there’s a Tobak-curated exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History by the same name as her book. The images in the book are beautiful (TASCHEN can do no wrong). But seeing the jewels and watches in person is remarkable.
The timepieces are a sight to behold. They’re also an important part of watch history, music history, and American history. Specifically, they relate to the history of New York, where rap began.
The Ice Cold Exhibit: Small but Mighty
Appropriately enough, the Ice Cold exhibit was in the museum’s gems and minerals section. It was in a small gallery with its entrance, each side flanked by a security guard.
I walked into the dark gallery, walls black, lighting sparse and strategic, to an excellent playlist. I believe A Tribe Called Quest was playing. Jay-Z, Erykah Badu, Tupac, and the Notorious BIG were also in the mix.
The pieces sat in what I can only describe as floor-to-ceiling vertical aquariums. The displays behind the 360-degree glass featured different levels and angles. I wouldn’t call it haphazard; it looked intentional.
It reminded me of an abstract manifestation of the way a breakdancer contorts their body.
Even the displays within each aquarium are pitch black. The entire set-up makes the watches and gems shine like stars.
Vikki Tobak turned this room into a Yayoi Kusama light installation using the bling of hip-hop jewelry.
Between the small space and spotlighting, the watches looked big and sparkly — as big as they were important.
The 4 Watches
The first watch I gravitated towards was Takeoff’s Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore. Takeoff was a member of the hip-hop group Migos. Sadly, the talented rapper is no longer with us due to a fatal shooting.
Takeoff’s Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore
As I had described, many of the watches shone like stars in the dim gallery space. The Royal Oak, however, was a mini constellation of stars and planets of its own. Takeoff was known for his watch collection and his penchant for sparkle.
The entire 18k rose gold body of the Offshore is diamond-encrusted. The bezel features larger diamonds, while the bracelet and dial flaunt smaller, more compact pieces.
Even the indices have fitted gems. It was inset by Wafi, the jeweler who, according to Tobak, employed innovative diamond applications.
You could see this watch from space. Stevie Wonder could see this watch from space.
Hip-hop is a social movement as much as it’s a celebration. There’s something poignant about this watch. It symbolizes time when Takeoff was tragically taken from us.
Fat Joe’s Five Time Zone Watch From Jacob the Jeweler
The next thing that caught my eye were the splashes of lively color on Fat Joe’s Five Time Zone Watch. In addition to the local time, the dial displays time zones from New York, LA, Tokyo, and Paris in playful shapes of blue, red, and yellow.
Jacob & Co, who is lovingly referred to by the rap community as Jacob the Jeweler, set the diamond bezel. If any watch represents the now important relationship between hip hop and jewelry, it’s a piece by Jacob & Co.
In the ‘90s, he had a kiosk in New York’s Diamond District. The Notorious BIG was a fan, and he introduced himself to his friends in the industry.
Jacob the Jeweler has been namechecked by almost every legendary rapper, including Jay-Z and Nas. As a millennial, I remember first hearing about him in a 50 Cent song.
In Get in My Car, he mentions bringing a lady to the diamond district to meet “Jacob”. He tells of how he likes to “keep (himself) icey.”
Jay-Z’s 10th Anniversary Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore
In 2005, Jay-Z celebrated a full decade in the industry. Audemars Piguet then asked the rapper to help design a piece in celebration of that.
Though this watch just looks like a slightly blingier version of any old Offshore, it’s rife with symbolism. Once, the luxury industry shunned the hip-hop community. This had obviously changed by the mid-aughts.
In his memoir Decoded, Jay-Z talks about how, in the ‘90s, he urged his fellow rappers to elevate their game in classier ways. Instead of bigger chains, go for obscure, refined brands, he’d say.
Cristal Champagne heard that they were one of the brands he was promoting to display these tastes, and they weren’t happy about it.
In 2006, The Economist asked Frederic Rouzaud (then the managing director of Cristal) how he felt about rappers drinking Cristal. Rouzaud responded by saying that there’s nothing they can do to stop them from it.
In true rapper fashion, Jay-Z fired back on a track. In his song On To The Next One, Jay-Z raps about how he “used to drink Cristal” but “switched gold bottles on to that Spade…”
He also stopped serving Cristal in his New York nightclubs.
FERG’s Rolex Day-Date President
There always has to be a crown representation. FERG’s all-gold President is the “plain Jane” of the group, a testament to the rap community’s lively tastes.
Though there aren’t any aftermarket gems on it, the gold pie-pan bezel still glitters under any light. Plus, the rapper mentions this watch in his Still Striving mixtape.
Hip Hop and High-End Jewelry: Once Worlds Apart, Now Inextricably Connected
During the Ice Cold reception at Dover Street Market, I caught up with some of my TASCHEN colleagues. I spoke to my former coworker and friend, Bernard (he and I can trade some art for world war stories).
Bernard is now the Senior Brand Advisor at TASCHEN. He has some truly relevant insight into the relationship between hip-hop and jewelry.
He mentioned how many of the legacy jewelry makers, the Tiffanys and the David Yurmans of the world, didn’t often work with rappers in the ‘90s. It’s as if the hip-hop community wasn’t considered worthy. Even as these rappers started to amass wealth, the gatekeeping remained.
Let’s remember that the Grammys didn’t even have a rap category until 1989.
This is why the Notorious BIG had to go to New York’s Diamond District to consult with an immigrant, non-branded jeweler. The bright side to this? It allowed this community to create its own culture of aesthetics.
What were the chances that, at the time, Bulgari would have blinged out a giant chain for Eazy-E?
And as the hip-hop-specific style of jewelry proliferated, the higher-end brands still stuck their nose up at their “gaudy” tastes.
This is a classic tale of society learning about different cultures. Different cultures and different subcultures use color and sparkle differently than others. It’s not a matter of gaudy versus classy.
It’s similar to how French food is anchored down, featuring subtlety of taste. Indian food, on the other hand, hits higher notes, featuring a loud chorus of spices. Or, look at a bride’s dress in England compared to, say, a Balinese bride’s dress.
In this analogy, hip-hop jewelry is more like the latter.
Now fast-forward to the present day.
Jacob the Jeweler is very popular, and not just among rappers. Jay-Z and Beyonce star in a 2021 Tiffany ad, in which Beyonce sings Moon River. Today, there is a celebration of the rap community’s horological and gemological point of view.
What’s remarkable is that it’s in the same building that houses the works of history’s greatest minds in every practice.
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