He kind of directed the photographer to take that photo. He very strategically made sure to play his ring with the Nation of Islam symbol right smack dab in the frame.
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Malcolm X is somebody that we dedicated a full page to. There's been certain thinkers in hip-hop, and sort of hip-hop adjacent, that really understand the role of hip-hop style as a bigger message. All of that stuff really reflected in the jewelry, and you had to have a certain level of respect and protection if you were going to wear that stuff in the street.
That's why I start the book talking about this bigger cultural significance and what was happening in New York specifically at that time - the height of the drug trade, the ’80s. The jewelry grew as hip-hop grew and changed. You started getting the Mercedes symbol, and then it started to get more and more serious, and it sort of goes in tandem with the way that hip-hop grew as well. You started to see even women like Salt-N-Pepa wearing the big dookie ropes and wearing the big Nefertiti pendants. You started to see Run-DMC, like you said.
Even the early jewelers like Tito Caicedo, who worked at his father's store called Manny’s, their main clientele for jewelry were the hustlers - the street elite, as I like to call them - and then the rappers followed suit because they wanted to be like them.
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