The Secret History of Grillz | Explorer

Deep in an underwater cave on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, a team of archaeologists made a groundbreaking discovery: the skulls of ancient Maya, who ruled over a 4,000-year-old civilization. Perhaps most surprising was that these skulls reveal the ancient history of grills, a little-known story that modern-day fans are mostly unaware of.

When grills are in your mouth, you get a sense of power and dignity. What people don't know is that grills have an unexpected history, one that goes back literally thousands of years. These grills want to demonstrate status; it’s like saying, "I am successful in life, that I can just show my teeth now I have money, so look at my teeth." It doesn't sound so different than what grills stand for today.

So why do they get such mixed reactions? When grills first emerged in the U.S. in the early eighties, it was through immigrants from the African Diaspora who were going through tough economic times. Ironically, gold is one of the cheapest ways to fill cavities, so many Black neighborhoods in Brooklyn suddenly had all these people with gold teeth. Native New Yorkers started to get gold teeth as a fashion statement, and the rise of hip-hop in the eighties led to a reclaiming of what they could represent, turning a sign of poverty into proof of empowerment.

Grills gained mainstream attention around 1996 when Vietnamese immigrant Johnny Dang began making his own blinged-out version of them.

"My name is Johnny Dang; they call me the king of bling, a.k.a. the grill master. I will say that a lot of people out there have a misconception of grills. It's been a big part of our culture. Okay, so I remember being very small and seeing my grandma with gold caps right here in my mouth. I have no felony criminal history. Just because somebody chooses to show them by putting them in their mouth makes them no different from the person that has eight cars but is cheap. So you got to be a hard worker to get something like this, you know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, not cleaning the grill can cause bad breath, so make sure you still brush your teeth two to three times a day. Keep it polished, keep shining, keep smiling." [Music]