Grillz are a popular status symbol representing wealth and symbolizing power has been seen on everyone from Beyonce to Miley Cyrus, Kanye West or Chris Brown. Everybody has been seen wearing gold teeth from Hollywood red carpets, music videos, awards shows and even the Olympics!

Here’s a crazy fact I bet you didn’t know. Deep, deep underwater on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico archaeologists found the remains of ancient Mayans and with their skulls were GRILLZ! So they’ve been around for a really long time.

Fast forward a couple of centuries, the US saw immigrants from the African diaspora with gold fillings— believe it or not, gold is actually the cheapest material to use to for their cavities. Crazy right?! Anyway, by the 80’s the style was co-opted and transformed a symbol of poverty to a symbol of power.

By 1996, gold teeth had been embedded in urban American culture when a Vietnamese jeweler by the name of Johnny Dang changed the game. He started adding fancy jewels like diamonds and using raw materials like platinum that took hip-hop by storm!

Grillz are still a style staple and everyone from the hustler on the street to the career woman going on an international vacation with her girls can be seen wearing the trend.

Meet Syeed, owner of STL Grillzz in St. Louis, MO

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