TBT by BECRI - GRILLZ (TEETH)

For this TBT, I was about to write down the history of a legendary device used in HipHop... Then, as I received another trap song in my mailbox, and as I was listening to some Bun B's shit, Something happened and I realize something disappeared (but coming back now) from Hihpop culture... !





 Why am i talking about trap and Bun B ? Well, dirty south fans must have got it, they just understood what this « something » is... The fukin grillz man ! They just vanished suddenly as the metrosexual fashion and the hispters were invading our wonderful universe... So what happened ? Really man, at some point, everybody had kilos of metal in their mouth, which was not making comfortable a simple conversation, was quite exepensive (otherwise you were putting some suspicious stuff in your mouth... and well, you could buy it for 50$ -even less if you were going to the right dirty place – to thousands of euros – even more if you have Jay-Z's bank account), and I'm pretty sure : it was not helping to get birdz. However, it was the hype at some point, during the golden area of dirty south (Im talking about a commercial point of view, not necessary about quality). So, as it was the hype at the same time as people like Ying Yang Twins, Lil John, Paul Wall, and many others were just making NY rappers sad to be born in the Mecca of Hip-Hop ; the mass thought it was a new creation from southern rappers, and it's understandable. But once again, the starters were... In NYC !

KAARIS ( Rick Ross' French Brother)

You doubt about it ? Check out for Slick Rick, Kool G Rap or even some Wu-tang's members ! Nop, Nelly wasn't the first one... But we can respect the fact he did a good track on such a topic ! So yeah, it started in NY as many Hip-Hop things did... But who ? Who the eff had the idea someday to put metal stuff on top of his mouth ?! And why ?! For which purpose ?! We'll probably never know why... But we know who ! His name is Eddie Plein (Who created Eddie Gold teeth, the company), well, at least he's supposed to be the first one, there is not any proper proof as you can imagine.

FAMOUS JAY-Z' PICTURE

The legend says, (and this explains that) that eddie moved to the south, and started to work on his business even more. He had cool friends, such as Outkast or Ludacris, and so, the rise of grillz started. So it started at the same time as rappers from the south (where grillz were popular, we do not know why tho) started to make NY rappers copying their style. This is why most of us thought grillz were created in the south. They are from NY, but rised in the South ! As i was doing this TBT, i just remembered the question I was always having in my mind at the time : How did they put this on their teeth ?! Old school way (and you know, old school is always real hardcore, back in the dayz men were lions) : reshape the tooth to the grill. Yep. I really hope it helped them to get birdz... New school way (you know, when men can wear skirts in public) : custom dental molds. To be honnest, I'm not a fan of new school in general, but I have to admit the evolution is not always that bad.

NO COMMENT

Of course, as you can imagine (especially for those who put their grillz old school way), apart from the fact that it's hard to make a girl wanting to put her tongue in a wolf trap, grillz are not recommended by doctors. It sounds a bit crazy to highlight it, but you have to know that having metal thangs in your mouth for days or years, well, it can bring you quite a few diseases... You can even lose teeth (this point seems logical, but quite a few people did not realize it). It can bring to you other things than single life and hard diseases : tuff dudes. Real gangstaz, seeing the your grillz in your mouth as this message « i'm a tuff dude, fuck you ». I swear, some people can interpret that. Yep, world is tough, you're not free to do what you want. Moreover, employers are not fan of it. As a trend, it has no proper sense, it will make you blush in 10 years when people will show up photos of you wearing grillz, and the ultimate goal was to make money. To get back to Nelly, we all know he made quite a few stacks thanks to his song. But people like Lil Wayne, DJ Drama, and other, clearly sold records because they had « grillz » in their album name. So, where the grillz at ??? Seriously, it seems like it just disappeared from earth. We still have some purists having some, like Stitches who reminds me the blessed years of Dirty South (no irony, this guy is nice)



- BECRI