She Liked my NECKLACE and started relaxin’, that’s what the fuck I call a… A lot of my clients are rappers or athletes so they always want to upgrade the diamonds. They don’t use no cheap diamonds, so my piece had to be the same way; it has almost 5,000 BVS diamonds, and 150 carats. If I made this piece for anybody else it would cost them like $170,000 to $180,000—except for my homie Paul Wall of course, it would only cost him like $150,000. Everybody that sees this chain always wants something similar. I was at a video shoot with Fat Joe in Miami and he was like, “Man, I want you to do my cartoon face like that!” So I’m going to make another big piece for Fat Joe. I’m always in the hood, and I always do music video shoots, so I always have
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bviously the design for this piece came from my face; it’s a cartoon look. And I made it out of white gold and different color diamonds: blue, black, white, pink and yellow diamonds. I figured since I make all these nice pieces for other people I should make one for myself, and I never had a big piece of my own.
TV JOHNNY my personal bodyguards with me whenever I wear the piece. I have to have protection because it’s really expensive and it took me a really long time to make it. It took me 2 weeks just to make the mold and almost 6 weeks to finish it completely. This piece was hard to make, but the most difficult jewelry I ever had to make was the big So So Def piece I did for JD. It was too big for my cutting machine. It was a really big chain, but it came out real nice. Every piece I make has a different look and a different meaning. Because I’m the jeweler, every piece I make, whether small or big, is important. A lot of people think if they come to me they gotta spend $50,000 or $70,000. Hell no! I can make a piece for a thousand. I just love to make jewelry, and I don’t have an all time favorite piece, but this is definitely one of them. // www.tvjohnny.net As told to Eric Perrin Photo by D-Ray