Slick Rick, Museum Consultant
Sarah Larson
“Ice Cold,” the American Museum of Natural History’s hip-hop jewelry show (featuring treasures from artists like Run-DMC and Tyler, the Creator), outdazzles the Met Gala.

In early May, by the entrance of a gallery in the gem-and-mineral halls at the American Museum of Natural History, Ricky Walters, the hip-hop icon known as Slick Rick, stood by a photograph of himself in the new show “Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry,” for which he served as senior curatorial adviser. Walters is fifty-nine and trim, with a shaved head. He wore an elegant black suit and a suède eye patch; diamonds adorned his wedding ring, ear stud, wristwatch, and teeth. “Jewelry adds to your mojo, your finesse, the Monet,” he said. (“I call everything Monet—I like his style of painting. Everything you see got to be beautiful, bring pleasantry, add something to your eyesight.”) “If I’m like this”—he gestured at his outfit—“I’m cool. But, if you throw the jewelry on, it gives a little oomph, a little pop.” In the exhibition photo, taken after the release of his 1988 solo début, “The Great Adventures of Slick Rick,” he wears several gold chains of seafaring heft, eight doubloon-size diamond rings, and an enormous jewelled crown. Looking at his image, Walters admired one chain, a Cuban-link style (“Rakim had one, too”), and said he’d like another. “But bigger—much, much bigger—to make an impression today.”

Walters, who rose to fame in 1985 with Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew (“La Di Da Di,” “The Show”) and became one of hip-hop’s most sampled artists, spent his adolescence in the Bronx, after moving there from southwest London. The royalty motif “came from an English upbringing,” he said. The monarchy, sure, but also “Walt Disney, Cinderella stories, the castle, the Snow Whites, love stories, the Sleeping Beauties, the prince comes with the slipper, Robin Hood, the jesters. It’s all the same.” He’d open shows in a king’s robe, trying to look as though he were “in a castle, sitting on a throne,” and rapped in tones of smoothly languid amusement, calling himself Rick the Ruler. “I used to say, ‘Hark! Who goes yonder?’ ‘It is I, sire! Richard of Nottingham!’ ” He recited the rest of his intro to “The Ruler’s Back,” concluding, “ ‘Rick the Ruler has returned!’ ” He went on, “So that, embedded with the African American culture. You’ve got to have fun, you know?”

“Ice Cold,” curated by Vikki Tobak, the author of a 2022 book of that title, surveys the evolution of jewelry in hip-hop. More than forty artists, including Walters, loaned pieces. Taking in the first items, Walters said, “We come from the era of Mr. T”—multiple “small” gold chains—“and took it to the next level: one big chain.” He examined a spotlighted Run-DMC rope chain with a gold Adidas-sneaker pendant the size of a Twinkie. “They made rope chains famous,” he said. “This was Jam Master Jay’s.” Beneath one of Flavor Flav’s more modest clocks (“That’s from their first album”) was a Biz Markie pendant. “Biz Markie had a really nice ring, pretty advanced for the time,” Walters said—a cursive “BIZ,” in diamonds, nearly the size of his hand. This was the first hip-hop commission for Jacob Arabo, the legendary Jacob the Jeweler; soon, creative medallions flourished. “I got my biggest plates from Canal Street,” Walters said. One, with a Libra design, mesmerized him for two years. “It must have been a drug dealer’s plate he couldn’t come back and get. I’m not even a Libra, but I had to have it.” As “the money began to flow,” over the years, “the jewelry game changed—it went to ice, diamonds. It evolved, it grew, so I had to grow with it.”

The gallery, tucked within a hall full of geodes, meteorites, and such, is dimly lit, for optimal gemological appreciation. “That’s Ghostface’s bracelet,” Walters said: a falconer-size gold arm cuff, with eagle. “Astonishing.” They’d once encountered each other, decked out in big plates—his Libra, and Ghostface’s “huge Versace plate, a bit bigger than mine, and it was iced. I was, like, ‘Jesus, Ghost!’ He’s slick, right? There’s no going back. You gotta go forward.” A “Q.B.” pendant, for Queensbridge Houses, where Nas grew up: “This was Nas’s chain when he first was doing his thing.” (An Amy Winehouse lyric, in a song about Nas: “What kind of fuckery is this? / You made me miss the Slick Rick gig.”) In “Hypnotize” (which riffs on “La Di Da Di”), Biggie Smalls raps about his “Jesus piece”; its artist’s proof was displayed nearby, featuring a startled-looking bejewelled Jesus. “Yeah, that’s Jesus,” Walters said. “This would work once upon a time, but today it would be too small. No disrespect to the history, you know?” He passed a humble display of leather-patch pendants from De La Soul and Public Enemy, and stopped to marvel at Tyler, the Creator’s “bellhop” necklace: a five-inch-tall diamond-and-sapphire figurine carrying suitcases.

Walters beheld the show’s centerpiece: a Slick Rick-dominated vitrine featuring a diamond-covered eye patch and a diamond-esque crown, floating ghostlike in midair. The eye patch is forty-two carats. “The crown isn’t real,” Walters said. He smiled. “My wife threw it in there for Monet.” ♦
“Ice Cold,” the American Museum of Natural History’s hip-hop jewelry show (featuring treasures from artists like Run-DMC and Tyler, the Creator), outdazzles the Met Gala.
In early May, by the entrance of a gallery in the gem-and-mineral halls at the American Museum of Natural History, Ricky Walters, the hip-hop icon known as Slick Rick, stood by a photograph of himself in the new show “Ice Cold: An Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry,” for which he served as senior curatorial adviser. Walters is fifty-nine and trim, with a shaved head. He wore an elegant black suit and a suède eye patch; diamonds adorned his wedding ring, ear stud, wristwatch, and teeth. “Jewelry adds to your mojo, your finesse, the Monet,” he said. (“I call everything Monet—I like his style of painting. Everything you see got to be beautiful, bring pleasantry, add something to your eyesight.”) “If I’m like this”—he gestured at his outfit—“I’m cool. But, if you throw the jewelry on, it gives a little oomph, a little pop.” In the exhibition photo, taken after the release of his 1988 solo début, “The Great Adventures of Slick Rick,” he wears several gold chains of seafaring heft, eight doubloon-size diamond rings, and an enormous jewelled crown. Looking at his image, Walters admired one chain, a Cuban-link style (“Rakim had one, too”), and said he’d like another. “But bigger—much, much bigger—to make an impression today.” Walters, who rose to fame in 1985 with Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew (“La Di Da Di,” “The Show”) and became one of hip-hop’s most sampled artists, spent his adolescence in the Bronx, after moving there from southwest London. The royalty motif “came from an English upbringing,” he said. The monarchy, sure, but also “Walt Disney, Cinderella stories, the castle, the Snow Whites, love stories, the Sleeping Beauties, the prince comes with the slipper, Robin Hood, the jesters. It’s all the same.” He’d open shows in a king’s robe, trying to look as though he were “in a castle, sitting on a throne,” and rapped in tones of smoothly languid amusement, calling himself Rick the Ruler. “I used to say, ‘Hark! Who goes yonder?’ ‘It is I, sire! Richard of Nottingham!’ ” He recited the rest of his intro to “The Ruler’s Back,” concluding, “ ‘Rick the Ruler has returned!’ ” He went on, “So that, embedded with the African American culture. You’ve got to have fun, you know?” “Ice Cold,” curated by Vikki Tobak, the author of a 2022 book of that title, surveys the evolution of jewelry in hip-hop. More than forty artists, including Walters, loaned pieces. Taking in the first items, Walters said, “We come from the era of Mr. T”—multiple “small” gold chains—“and took it to the next level: one big chain.” He examined a spotlighted Run-DMC rope chain with a gold Adidas-sneaker pendant the size of a Twinkie. “They made rope chains famous,” he said. “This was Jam Master Jay’s.” Beneath one of Flavor Flav’s more modest clocks (“That’s from their first album”) was a Biz Markie pendant. “Biz Markie had a really nice ring, pretty advanced for the time,” Walters said—a cursive “BIZ,” in diamonds, nearly the size of his hand. This was the first hip-hop commission for Jacob Arabo, the legendary Jacob the Jeweler; soon, creative medallions flourished. “I got my biggest plates from Canal Street,” Walters said. One, with a Libra design, mesmerized him for two years. “It must have been a drug dealer’s plate he couldn’t come back and get. I’m not even a Libra, but I had to have it.” As “the money began to flow,” over the years, “the jewelry game changed—it went to ice, diamonds. It evolved, it grew, so I had to grow with it.” The gallery, tucked within a hall full of geodes, meteorites, and such, is dimly lit, for optimal gemological appreciation. “That’s Ghostface’s bracelet,” Walters said: a falconer-size gold arm cuff, with eagle. “Astonishing.” They’d once encountered each other, decked out in big plates—his Libra, and Ghostface’s “huge Versace plate, a bit bigger than mine, and it was iced. I was, like, ‘Jesus, Ghost!’ He’s slick, right? There’s no going back. You gotta go forward.” A “Q.B.” pendant, for Queensbridge Houses, where Nas grew up: “This was Nas’s chain when he first was doing his thing.” (An Amy Winehouse lyric, in a song about Nas: “What kind of fuckery is this? / You made me miss the Slick Rick gig.”) In “Hypnotize” (which riffs on “La Di Da Di”), Biggie Smalls raps about his “Jesus piece”; its artist’s proof was displayed nearby, featuring a startled-looking bejewelled Jesus. “Yeah, that’s Jesus,” Walters said. “This would work once upon a time, but today it would be too small. No disrespect to the history, you know?” He passed a humble display of leather-patch pendants from De La Soul and Public Enemy, and stopped to marvel at Tyler, the Creator’s “bellhop” necklace: a five-inch-tall diamond-and-sapphire figurine carrying suitcases. Walters beheld the show’s centerpiece: a Slick Rick-dominated vitrine featuring a diamond-covered eye patch and a diamond-esque crown, floating ghostlike in midair. The eye patch is forty-two carats. “The crown isn’t real,” Walters said. He smiled. “My wife threw it in there for Monet.” ♦