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I've seen a lot of ads for hip hop jewelry. What is hip hop jewelry? Is it big bulky, fake jewelry? Is it an aesthetic feel, an urbanizing of jewelry? Or is it just random cheap knock-offs started by Run-DMCs fat gold chains?

Jewelry is jewelry. Or maybe not. But I think we've seen jewelry used as the highest indicator of value. Or in other cases, for instance, with glass beads or costume jewelry it's used to simply accessorize an outfit.

But hip hop jewelry, unlike costume jewelry (a traditionally middle America suburban affair) comes from an urban setting where it challenges instead of merely accessorizing.

Hip hop fashion, as is its jewelry, is over sized, baggy, and confrontational. It requires the wearer to not only be accepting of his personal statement but to be ready to defend it. Costume jeweled ladies of the suburbs might where a large necklace, so large that it clinks the bottom of their martini glass but it wouldn't compromise an already challenged wardrobe.

So what is hip hop jewelry? Well it is definitely an expression of these times, post modern, 21st century when money, for a time at least was available to all economic groups. And jewelry stemmed from an eruption of music, fashion and culture that rivaled even the 60's generation.

Look for hip hop jewelry to find it's place in the annuals of accessories but this writer thinks you will find it next to the tie-die shirt and the hemp headband and not the princess cut diamond or briolette necklace.
(image courtesy of http://hotstuffstore.net)