Bling-bling jewelry
(or simply
bling) is a
slang term popularized in
hip hop culture, referring to flashy or elaborate
jewelry and ornamented accessories that are carried, worn, or installed, such as
cell phones or
tooth caps. The concept is often associated with either the working and
lower middle classes or the newly wealthy, implying that the concept of riches and shiny items is something new to them. Used in this sense, it can be derogatory, suggesting lack of good taste.
Origins and popularization of the term
In
linguistic terms,
bling is an
ideophone intended to evoke the "sound" of light hitting silver, platinum, or diamonds. It is not
onomatopoeia, because the act of jewelry shining does not make a sound. The form
bling-bling is a case of
reduplication. The origins of the term are disputed and claimed by various artists. Physicist
Richard Feynman used the term in his collection of short stories "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" when describing the relation of a poem to physics: "...the theoretical
bling-bling with the so-and-so".
Coinage of the term
bling, which came into use in the late 1990s, is often attributed to
rap artists
Lil Wayne and
Cash Money Millionaires. It was used in a song title by
Cash Money Records rapper B.G., and in 1998 by fellow Cash Money artist
Lil Wayne on the track "Millionaire Dream". ("I got ten around my neck, and baguettes on my wrist, Bling!"), which appeared on the
Big Tymers album
How Ya Luv That. "Bling Bling", a track from the 1999 B.G. album
Chopper City in the Ghetto, further popularized the term. On
OutKast's song "
Hollywood Divorce",
Lil Wayne states, "Bling bling, I know and did you know I'm the creator of the term." On the song "Money Ain't a Thang" by Jermaine Dupri, Dupri uses the term
gleam gleam in a similar fashion as
bling bling.
The use of the phrase became popular, as seen in the
skywriting advertisement over this
New York summer resort destination of
Southampton in 2006.
Though B.G. and other hip hop artists are often given credit for creating the term, television commercials for dental products and chewing gum as early as the 1970s accentuated the cleanliness of teeth with a "bling" or "pling" sound, accompanied by an imaginary starburst or ray of light emanating from an actor's mouth. During the early 1980s, toothpaste maker
Ultra Brite ran a series of commercials stating, "Ultrabrite gives your mouth...[pling]...sex appeal!" Before the words "sex appeal", a bell sound was heard as a young man smiled while kisses were blown at him.
In many video games, notably the
Super Mario Bros nintendo game, gold coins make a
bling sound when collected.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, comedians such as
Martin Lawrence parodied the "Ultrabrite smile" by vocalizing the sound effect as "bling". The term was used in this way to describe a gaudy piece of jewelry, for example the otherwise rotten gold-toothed smile and stereotypical pimp jewelry of the character "Jerome" on the television series
Martin.
While the specific term
bling was first popularized in the hip hop community, it has spread beyond
hip hop culture and into mass culture. It was added to the
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in 2002 and to the
Merriam Webster dictionary in 2006. Companies such as Sprint and Cadillac have used the word
bling in their advertisements. During a 2008
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade in
Jacksonville, Florida, Republican presidential candidate
Mitt Romney admired a baby decked in dress attire with gold jewelry and said, "Oh, you've got some bling-bling here." In 2004,
MTV released a satirical cartoon showing the term being used first by a rapper and then by several progressively less "streetwise" characters, concluding with a middle-aged white woman describing her earrings to her elderly mother. It ended with the statement, "
RIP bling-bling 1997-2003." In 2005, the rapper B.G. remarked that he "just wished that he'd trademarked it" so that he could have profited from its use.
Like many cases of once-exclusive vernacular that becomes mainstream, the views of the originators towards the term have changed significantly over the years. On
VH1's
Why You Love Hip-Hop, rapper
Fat Joe stated, "rappers don't call jewelry 'bling' anymore, we just call em 'diamonds'."
In other languages
The term has also spread to Spanish: rappers use the term in Latin hip-hop and in
reggaeton from
Puerto Rico and
Panama, although it is usually written and pronounced "blink-blink". The Spanish word
blinblineo is also used to refer to bling-bling style. "Everytime I come around your city, bling-bling" - Lil Wayne
The term is used in French traditionally to describe
nouveau riche attitudes; such as "wearing expensive suits, stylish sunglasses and conspicuously large wristwatches" or anything that is ostensible and can be considered of "poor taste".
Criticism
The short film
Bling: Consequences and Repercussions, shot by
Kareem Adouard and narrated by
Public Enemy frontman
Chuck D, explains how diamonds (a staple of bling fashion) occasionally originate as
conflict diamonds, fueling wars, poverty, slavery and killings in Africa.
Bling: A Planet Rock (2007) documents the flashy world of commercial hip-hop jewelry against the significant role diamonds play in the ten-year civil war in
Sierra Leone, West Africa. The movie follows three hip-hop celebrities:
Raekwon (Wu-Tang Clan),
Paul Wall (maker of diamond grills), and
Reggaetón king
Tego Calderón as they visit the capital of
Freetown to meet the community and survey the devastation caused by the diamond mines.
Several hip hop insiders, such as the members of Public Enemy and the Puerto Rican reggaeton star Tego Calderon, have made the deliberate choice not to don expensive jewelry as a statement against bling culture.
[Keyes, p. 172.] Missy Elliott stated in the aforementioned interview that hip hop artists should act as
role models in this respect and encourage young people to invest responsibly and sensibly in stable, long-term
assets.
Even more controversial is the value of bling bling in South African hip hop (
kwaito) aesthetics. Pre-, during, and post-
apartheid, black South Africans have long been exploited for their land's precious gems ("
blood diamonds") and metals. Gavin Steingo has stated, "It truly is tragic that many young South Africans have embraced the Western gold fetish: a fetish which prizes gold as nothing more than a label of ostentatious wealth." Kwaito continues to show the conspicuous consumption that originated in Black American Hip Hop, despite its relations to blood diamonds.
See also
