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Grills for girls - In latest hip-hop fashion, ladies are accessorizing with dental diamonds
Diamonds are a girl's best friend - even when they're in her mouth.
A diamond-laced grill, a removable mouthpiece with gold, silver, or platinum
caps and diamond inlays, is becoming the all-important fashion accessory for
hip-hop fashionistas such as singer Kelis and rapper and radio personality Angie
Martinez, who spend thousands for a glittering smile.
And female hip-hop fans are following suit. A grill was as essential as a
corsage for some prom dates in California. And a school district in Texas, tired
of seeing students with gold and silver in their mouth, is planning to ban the
metal apparatuses, claiming grills "do not put students in an academic state of
mind."
But the women with flashy mouths say grills are just a fashion statement.
"It's just another place to accessorize, like jewelry," said Sunny Anderson, 31,
who paid $1,000 for one last year. "You have jewelry for your nose, eyebrows,
your lips, your ears. Girls put diamonds on their nails. There is no body part
left other than your teeth."
Grills, also known as fronts, have been around for decades, although with less
glitz, and rarely on women. Flavor Flav was wearing gold fronts back in the late
1980s. He hands them out on his "Flavor of Love" show on VH1. In the pre-Public
Enemy days, black people had a gold cap or filling as a sign of wealth, said
Carl Taylor, a youth violence and gangs expert at Michigan State University.
"Hip-hop is about excess in volume and content and parallels the excess of
American culture," said Rickerby Hinds, an assistant professor of theater at UCR
and a playwright. Although he does a lot of hip-hop theater, he said he doesn't
see any grills and doesn't expect them to become a West Coast staple.
Kelly Cortner, office manager for Dr. Alan Woodson, a dentist in Upland, said
she sees mouth bling in Los Angeles, but not inland. The office's clientele,
which she describes as Christian professionals, has no interest in wearing
grills. They're very upscale clients, she said. Besides, the flashy hardware can
chip and damage teeth, Cortner noted.
At Zales jewelry stores in Riverside, San Bernardino and Rancho Cucamonga, sales
associates said they don't sell grills and seldom receive requests for them.
"You had a gold tooth, cap or so forth, that was looked upon as, 'He is doing
well. He's making so much money,' " said Taylor. "These were older men, working
men, big power in the community, wearing them, even some preachers. It was
looked upon as crass by many in the middle class."
Preachers, of course, aren't wearing grills these days. Rather, the bling has
become a trademark for hip-hop's finest: Master P, Snoop Dogg, and Nelly, whose
2005 song "Grillz," glorified the precious metals and diamonds. The song,
featuring rapper Paul Wall, who makes grills on the side, compared the mouth
jewelry to a "smile on the rocks."
"As soon as I heard that song, I was like, 'Oh. It's going to be a hit,' " said
Raqiyah Mays, a DJ on New York's Hot 97. "Sure enough, it was a top 10 hit. It's
introducing mainstream America to another trend. That's always how it is. As
soon as you make a song about something, it becomes the new trend."
The Elegant Thug?
Men are still the primary market for grills; some stores report making as many
as 70 a week. But women usually follow male trends, said Elayne Rapping, a pop
culture expert from the University of Buffalo. And grills are no exception.
Rapper Jean Grae said she has been wearing grills for more than 10 years. She
said as a young teen she was folding aluminum foil over her bottom teeth to
imitate rappers like Just-Ice.
"New York was definitely rocking fronts in the early 1990s," said Grae, 29.
Texas had them too, said Anderson, who went to high school there.
"I think the thing about hip-hop culture and music is when everyone else hears
about it, it's already been going in our neighborhood for a good 20 years," said
Anderson, a radio/TV host in California. "You wonder if 10, 15, 20 years from
now people will they say the grill started with that song."
It's hard to deny that "Grillz" had an effect, though, particularly among young
women.
"I know a lot of women down south who are wearing them, and I think the Nelly
song is a definite reason," said LaTrice Burnette, new media manager for
Atlantic Records. "A lot of these kids follow music trends, and one of the
trends is to wear a grill. Paul Wall is doing it. Nelly is doing it. If all
these people are doing it, 'why not?' "
Grills still have that touch of thuggery, said Mays, also executive editor of
The Ave Magazine, a hip-hop publication in New York. She associated them with
drug dealers, rappers who grew up in the hood, or at least want to pretend they
did. The ladies who wear them emanate an edgy toughness.
"Women no longer want to be the girlfriends," said Rapping. "They want to be
tough and be just as tough as the men in their community. In hip-hop, (the
perception is) you have to be tough to make it in the world."
All About the Benjamins
Grae said a grill is something you can get individual with -- maybe spell out
your name in the caps, or have only a couple of diamonds. "You know exactly what
you want, and you are not going to look like the next person," she said.
But she added most people aren't getting them for that reason.
"I think it has grown to be a status symbol," she said. "How much money you can
fit in your mouth, which to me, is not the objective at all."
But isn't it?
Hip-hop artists love to flaunt their sweet rides and multimillion dollar homes.
A grill is an easy way to show wealth. All you have to do is smile.
"Diamonds have been a status symbol all over the world for hundreds of years,"
said James Allen Schultz, founder and CEO of James Allen Diamonds, an online
diamond retailer. "Diamonds are not as expensive as they used to be. If the
regular guy can now buy a diamond and display it, that's going to show his peers
that he is special and that he is successful."
Anderson said it's not that deep. She bought her grill because she thought it
was cute.
Burnette said she is considering getting one because it's cool. "I would wear it
as an accessory," she said. "If I'm going to a party, or chilling with my
friends, definitely outside of business hours."
Yes, the ladies agree bling bling is probably not coming to the board room. But
between the hip-hop artists writing songs about grills, and diamond retailers
marketing them to Gen Xers and Yers, the accessory is only going to become more
popular -- but who knows for how long.
Hip-hop trends come and go, said Todd Boyd, a hip-hop professor from the
University of Southern California.
"I haven't seen anyone wearing an African medallion in 15 or 16 years, and there
was a time when everyone had a fade and now that's gone," said Boyd. "There was
a time when pimp cups got to be so pervasive, you saw them everywhere. I think
this is a trend myself. I don't think it's going to be around forever. But who
knows?"
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