A Smile for Your Haters: Grillz
Photographer: Andrew Brobst
by Joshua Baltodano
January 19, 2025
I’m a poverty scholar/ my momma’s houseless daughter/ I’m a poverty scholar/ all those people they’d rather not see/ look away from we/ what you gonna do Frisco?/ Arrest we?/ We’re in your city/ your settler colonial stolen city/ that created capitalism so that we could die and be just a statistic/ and be looked away from by your privileged eyes. – Tiny Garcia aka Poverty Scholar
Home to more billionaires than any other city in the world, San Francisco has one of the largest levels of income inequality. Several dozen homeless encampments set up on one side of the street or under a bridge. A million dollar house right across the way. And passing alongside Dolores Street, you see all the lavish wealth Tech has created by tearing down Frisco’s traditional Victorian homes in order to create massive, modern edifices.
There’s a real class war going on, as the privileged (and those who seek assimilation into Amerikkkan culture) police how you act, speak, and dress. And having a grill in your mouth usually has people associating you with being grimey, street, and ghetto.
But grillz are a form of expressing identity, like being able to grow your hair out naturally, or having tattoos on your neck, face, or hands despite stigma in the workplace. The quote by Tiny Garcia pays homage to those who are outcast for not being acceptable looking. Rather than conforming to standards, people are rocking their grillz with much more pride.
History of Grillz
In the late 19th century, gold was used for fillings and dental crowns due to its durability and resistance to corrosion. Some of the first indigenous groups to use gold as tooth embellishments were the Mayans in Guatemala. To them, it expressed spiritual connection, status, and wealth. In fact, a report from the Journal of Massachusetts Dental Society in 2012 stated more than 65 percent of Guatamalans still wear gold teeth embellishments.
Photographer: Juan Brenner
In the United States, up until the 1970s and early 1980s, dentists primarily used gold for fillings until “white” composite resin fillings were more affordable. So more low-income folks wore gold in their mouth.
Folks who wanted gold teeth for the look would have had to replace each tooth entirely. It was a more strenuous process as every mold had to align perfectly with the rest of their teeth, plus additional upkeep. Gold caps were not popularized in the United States until the early 1980s, when New York’s owner of Eddie’s Gold Teeth fitted Flava Flav, Big Daddy Kane, and Kool G.
Then fast forward to 2005, Jermaine Dupri produced the song Grillz with Nelly and Paul Wall and Ali & Gipp. The song really put wearing gold and diamond filled teeth on the map. Its music video featured more than 70 up-close pictures of grillz.
Source: Grillz Youtube Music Video
Grillz Today
Within the past 30 years, more and more people have been making appointments to replace gold teeth with resin teeth. Immigrants from Central America call them “American crowns” or “white teeth” as they try to assimilate. If they really have the capital, some people even opt for veneers. But many still rock their grillz to pay homage to how it was originally done.
Most recently, Christian Smalls was seen sporting a gold grill speaking before the US Senate in 2022 on behalf of his workers as the local chapter President of the Staten Island Amazon Labor Union. He had been fired during the pandemic, but organized a walkout the same day to protest with the workers over safety conditions.
The picture of Christian Smalls rocking a snapback and a gold grill before the US Senate truly highlights how respectability politics is a complete joke, worldwide.
Conclusion
Source: Christian Small’s X Account – January 20, 2024
In closing, I share this picture that Christian Smalls posted on his personal X account last year for Martin Luther King Day, 2024. While we all know MLK was photoshopped with a gold grill, it leaves one to imagine what is possible. Just as the intellectual minds like James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and MLK had a cigarette and a glass of whiskey as they discussed politics, now folks are rocking grills and sharing blunts as they too talk about what’s really going on.