TURK: I don’t remember how the word “bling bling” came up. Everytime he would talk about jewelry, he would just say “bling bling.” I met him in maybe ‘96 at the radio station and he would always just say it in his every day terminology. UPTOWN ANGELA (New Orleans Q93 personality and programmer): The first time I heard “bling bling” being said as a phrase was from Bryan Williams. Every time they talked about their jewelry, their ad libs would be “bling! bling!” in the background. I don’t know exactly which song, but I know his line was, “Tell me what kinda nigga/ Got diamonds that’ll bling, bling ya.” That was like, damn, that bling word could be something.ĭINO DELVAILLE (Universal A&R): It was either Wayne or Juvie or one of the Hot Boys who. MANNIE FRESH (Cash Money producer): Wayne had already used the word “bling” in a song prior to that but the word had already stuck to me. LIL WAYNE (Cash Money artist): “Bling bling, I know/ And did you know I’m the creator of the term?” - “Hollywood Divorce,” Outkast feat. He’d be like, “Y’all, come to the studio.” Man, we’d drink, we’d eat chicken, we’d shoot dice, and we’d gamble. He always was in the studio, like every day. Me and Wayne used to always be together, and he’d just give us songs and tell us to write and we used to just write every day. He’d come with a list of songs or something. We’d get these titles and concepts from Baby - we called him Baby ‘cause back then he wasn’t Birdman yet. TURK (Cash Money artist): Back then, we were recording like it was a job. Which is to say: a once-in-a-generation megastar whose very words shape our cultures and our lives.Īs part of FADER’s Lil Wayne Week, we present: the oral history of “Bling Bling.” But the truth is, “Bling Bling” - and what was, for a time, its all-pervading presence - is elemental to a proper understanding of Wayne. Thanks to his manifold latter-day successes, “Bling Bling” can at times feel like a footnote in Lil Wayne’s career. On both the track and the indelible video, we got a massive, preposterous, joyous chunk of stunting - a level of stunting we may never see again. Officially credited to B.G., but widely associated with the entire illustrious Cash Money crew, it both defines an era, and represents its possible high-water mark. Indeed, we long ago murdered “bling bling.” But since its death, our fondness for its source material - the 1999 radio hit of the same name - has only grown. Pointing at her new earrings, the woman chirps: “Bling bling!”
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In the early 2000s, an animated MTV spot cheekily illustrated the strange life of “bling bling.” First we see some anonymous rappers on stage, chanting the infamous, irreplaceable phrase then we see the term wind its way through pro locker rooms and TV interviews and high school hallways until, finally, it shows up at the tea-time table of a white suburban woman and her matronly mother.