Cutting-Edge Choppers
Brace Yourselves: Designer 'Grills' Have Rappers Smiling

By J. Freedom du Lac
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 17, 2006

So this is what they mean by "flossin'."

Paul Wall has mastered the art of conspicuous consumption, and his favored medium is his mouth. Thus, if the Houston rapper has pearly whites, we wouldn't know: Wall never appears in public without wearing a grill -- a removable cosmetic mouthpiece made of gold or platinum with diamond inlays.

Wall is flashing one such designer dental piece, also known as a front, on the cover of his 2005 album, "The Peoples Champ," which is loaded with references to bejeweled bicuspids. ("Say cheese and show my fronts/It's more carats than Bugs Bunny's lunch," etc.)

His jewelry box of a mouth is also open for public viewing in the video for Nelly's smash hit "Grillz," an ode to oral ostentation in which Wall notes in a cameo: "I got my mouth lookin' something like a disco ball/. . . I got the diamonds and the ice all hand-set/I might cause a cold front if I take a deep breath."

He adds: "I put my money where my mouth is."

Whereas recording stars used to celebrate their hits by putting gold and platinum albums on their walls, they're now putting the precious materials directly over their teeth in the form of custom-fitted jewelry that can be taken on and off like dentures.

Very expensive dentures: Though grills can be had for as little as $40 for a single gold tooth, the more elaborate, diamond-encrusted pieces favored by the likes of Lil Jon, Snoop Dogg, Slim Thug, David Banner and the Ying Yang Twins tend to cost $10,000 or more.

Despite the prices, the hoi polloi are following the lead of the hip-hop elite, purchasing fronts in increasing numbers from dentists, shopping-mall jewelers, even Web sites.

"It's a fad gone wild," says Eddie Plein, owner of Eddie's Gold Teeth in Atlanta. "It's the big thing now in the rap community."

If the eyes are the window to the soul, then in hip-hop culture -- and particularly in rap's dominant southern division -- the mouth is the display case to the vault. (It's also occasionally a message board: Some of the fanciest grills include tiny lettering that spells out album titles, neighborhoods, nicknames.) "It's just like wearing a big gold chain around your neck; it's a celebration of success and excess," says Elliott Wilson, editor in chief of XXL, a rap magazine whose pages feature countless photos of artists showing off their fronts. XXL also carries a healthy dose of advertising for companies selling custom grills. (And there are plenty of them scattered across the country, with names like Gold Teeth America, GoldTeeth.com, Gold Tooth Masters and, of course, Mr Bling.)

"Having gold and diamonds in your mouth is the most audacious statement you could make," Wilson says. "It's an in-your-face way of saying: We're hip-hop."

And nobody says it quite like Paul Wall, who has a vested interest in perpetuating the fashion trend.

Wall isn't just a fan of fronts, he's also a leading source for them, like the Ronnie Mervis of dental diamonds or something. His Houston store, TV Jewelry, is widely considered the go-to source for grills, with a celebrity customer list that includes everybody from Diddy and Usher to Cam'ron, Bow Wow and pretty much any Houston rap artist of import.

It's no idle boast, then, when Wall raps: "Call me George Foreman cuz' I'm sellin' everybody grills." (And yes, you can actually understand what he's saying, even though fronts apparently aren't conducive to verbal communication. The Houston rapper Bun B told the Los Angeles Times that a grill makes it "real hard to talk; it builds up saliva.")

Wall started TV Jewelry several years ago with Johnny Dang, a Houston jeweler, to supplement his income as an underground rapper and to make connections that might help his career. The grill gambit paid off, with TV Jewelry doing booming business and Wall becoming a celebrity himself: "The Peoples Champ" topped the Billboard chart, and multiple TV Jewelry customers -- including Kanye West and Nelly -- have invited Wall to appear on their albums.

No wonder he can't stop flashing that million-dollar smile. Or, at least, that $30,000 smile, which is about what his grill is worth.

"Nelly knows that if he's going to make a record about grills, he has to get Paul Wall on it, because he's the go-to guy for other rappers," XXL's Wilson says. "But Nelly was smart enough to realize that nobody had made a song dedicated to this growing phenomenon. They effectively captured it."

* * *

The grills trend actually began taking shape in rap circles in the 1980s in New York. Eddie's Gold Teeth owner Plein outfitted Flava Flav, a fronts pioneer, with a set of simple gold caps, and other top New York rappers followed, from Big Daddy Kane to Kool G Rap. In the early 1990s, Plein moved to Atlanta and began designing flashier fronts for artists including OutKast and Goodie Mob, and then Ludacris and Lil Jon.

As with most things in hip-hop -- from gold "dookie" ropes to automotive rims -- bigger and blingier meant better. So the grills became more elaborate and expensive, with the idea being that laughing through thousand-dollar teeth is a fine way to celebrate success, particularly if you've come from a place of poverty. As Southern rap ascended (it's now the dominant form of hip-hop), so, too, did the glam-grills trend.

"Everybody's infatuated with them right now," Plein says.

And it's not just hip-hop heads. M. Shadows, the frontman for the heavy-metal band Avenged Sevenfold, got a custom grill from Eddie's Gold Teeth, telling MTV News: "You gotta look like Flavor Flav if you're gonna be Axl Rose." Or, you have to look like . . . Johnny Depp! The actor wore gold teeth, though not a full set of fronts, for months after production wrapped on "Pirates of the Caribbean.

That was fine for Hollywood. Not so much for Birmingham, Ala., and Augusta, Ga., where school boards have banned such decorative dentistry from the classroom.

Also not so hot where dentists are concerned. And they are concerned.

Matthew Messina, consumer adviser for the American Dental Association, says bacteria tends to get trapped under a grill, which can result in cavities, gum disease and even bone loss.

"The longer it's in place, the more the risk escalates," Messina says. "If you put it on for a couple hours a day once a week, you're probably not going to have long-term effects. But I've heard of people who keep them in all the time, except when they're sleeping. That's bad."

Messina insists he's not against the aesthetics of grills.

"It's not what looks good or what looks bad or whatever," he says. "They're just cleaning nightmares."

Just something to chew on.