artist 3D prints gold steel grillz using algorithms generated from hip-hop songs
all images courtesy of roopa vasudevan

 

 

 

within hip-hop culture, grillz have become an emblem of the wearer’s assumed over-the-top, ostentatious wealth. as an investigation into the stylistic and linguistic choices used in mainstream hip-hop songs, new york based artist and developer roopa vasudevan has created a series of 3D printed polished gold steel ‘grillz’, whose composition and arrangement has been formed from the algorithmic analysis of individual lyrics, with particular attention paid to mentions of money and income.

artist 3D printed grillz using algorithms generated from hip-hop songs
‘juicy’ by B.I.G is rendered as a 3D printed set of grillz

 

 

 

references to poverty and struggle — such as mentions of the projects, drug dealing, prostitution — as well as to wealth — indicated by cars, cash, jewelry — have been scored according to their relative distance from words of the opposite polarity. the resulting landscape is extruded into a 3-dimensional shape and printed as wearable jewelry designed to fit over one’s teeth. the language was processed using the pygenius python library, and the models were created in processing, with the assistance of the geomerative and modelbuilder libraries.

artist 3D printed grillz using algorithms generated from hip-hop songs
songs from hip-hop artists fat joe and puff daddy are analyzed and turned into grillz

artist 3D printed grillz using algorithms generated from hip-hop songs
a visitor to the exhibition of grillz listens to the songs that have given shape to the wearables

3d printed grillz are generated from hip-hop songs
nearby headphones allow a visitor to closely listen to the lyrics that have provided the shape of the mouth jewelry

3d printed grillz are generated from hip-hop songs
installation view of the series

artist 3D prints grillz using algorithms generated from hip-hop songs
from top right to bottom left: ‘juicy’ by the notorious B.I.G; ‘make it rain’ by fat joe feat. lil wayne; ‘hustlin’ by rick ross; ‘jard knock life’ by jay-z

 

 

[h/t] animal new york