Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1540686
6. "Even when you're wearing a ring, necklace and watch, grills stand out most. It's diamonds in your mouth!" case filled with dental molds of Dang's glittering clients, a few names caught our eye: Jay-Z, A$AP Rocky, BossMan Dlow (who recently dropped $120K on a GIA diamond-encrusted set), Drake, Will Smith, Katy Perry, Shaq, GloRilla, Ludacris, Kim Lee, J Prince, Cam Newton, Jeremy Peña, Post Malone, Dream Doll, and Saweetie. We entered the throne room, aka the private client domain. This over-the- top chamber is also the setting for the Flawless podcast led by Dang and retailer/ personality Mike Mills, whose streetwear/ sneaker boutique is located upstairs (our art director did a little shopping for Labubus). In between a constant stream of cool industry insiders and staff, we chatted up the charismatic Dang. Grillz: A Primer + The House of Johnny Dang But first, a grillz primer. As cited in Taschen's Ice Cold, wealthy women of the Etruscan civilization (precursors to the Romans) had their front teeth removed and replaced by gold versions to underscore stature in high society. Tricked-out teeth as wealth signifiers were also the order of the day for Mayan kings and queens; instead of gold, jade roundels adorned the upper teeth of their mystic royals. In 14th-century Philippines, removable bands of gold worn over front teeth, chakang, were passed down through generations as venerated family heirlooms. Centuries later, with the nascent emergence of hip- hop in New York City, bling reigned. "My jewels are my superhero suit … a gift from ancestors who sat on thrones and reigned with rings and rocks the size of ice cubes," says Ricky Walters, aka Slick Rick, in the foreword to Ice Cold. Author Vikki Tobak traces the presence of grillz in hip-hop baubles to the genre's beginnings in the 1970s. "Even the term bling first came to be used on the streets of Brooklyn as Jamaican slang made its way over from the West Indies," she writes. "As the legend goes, the lack of good dental care in Jamaica made gold teeth popular replacements. Bling was the sound of shine." The word grillz, Tobak says, specifically references "the ornate grilles of luxury vehicles." Twenty years ago, the term — Johnny Dang, The New York Times Magazine 95