« The bro RK told us to go crazy. 14K white gold & VS1 diamonds custom pendant, mission completed ✅». That’s what the famous french jewelry brand Global Ice Paris wrote on their Instagram post for the release of this stunning piece purchased by the rapper. From his side, the young star RK claimed « Take off your fake chains. We raise the level #VS1diamonds » in caption of a crazy lifestyle video made for the event. The marketing move from the rapper and his favorite jewelers was a master stroke.
RK custom pendant definitely made a boom in french rap game. This piece features brillantly his logo, iced out with wonderful shiny diamonds. More than a charm, this piece represents a trophy for his incredible begining of career.
If you don’t know him, RK is a big name of the french rap scene. More than 250 000 albums sold, millions of streams, the youngest french artist to become Gold and Platinum at 19 years old, 1.5M followers on Instagram, this boy wonder let the numbers speak for him. He became famous at only 17 with a serie of freestyles entitled #B1 #B3 #B5 and #B7, and his first album Insolent, released in 2018, became platinum in less than 6 months with key titles such as 24 Carats or Bae.
Then, Ryad by his stage name, confirmed that he was not only a fad or a ephemeral artist but a real top-class artist by making many featurings with biggest french artists (we can name his good friend Koba LaD, but also Sofiane, Maes and many others) and by releasing two other albums that has both been certified Gold.
He also collaborated a lot with French jewelers Global Ice Paris since middle of 2019 where he purchased couple chains and bracelets. He participated for sure in the popularity of the brand by posting them really often on his social media, the jewelry brand admitted. They became good friends, and you can see Global Ice on many of RK events such as video-clip or music studio sessions.
Global Ice Paris claim themselves as the number one french jewelers. And facts speak for themselves too since they collaborated with almost all the french rap game. From Niska, Koba LaD, Maes to Ninho, Zola, Vegedream as well as PLK, Dadju or Gradur. A lot of big names that has made this brand be famous in France. But the jewelers also take part in the brand image of artists by bringing them the best jewelry : « French rappers wanted to shine like US rappers. So we brought them the shine. » one of Global Ice Paris jewelers declared. « We never claim it, but we made the “ice” be popular in France. Before us, there was nothing. It is hard work and a lot of good marketing moves ».
Global Ice Paris is specialized in luxury watches (Audemars Piguet, Rolex, Cartier, Patek Philippe …) plain and iced out, and in custom made jewelry (custom pendants, chains, rings…). They work with a lot of football players too, since they love to shine.
And when it comes to marketing moves, “GIP” know what they talk about. This custom pendant wasn’t banal, it was a real master stroke. « RK wanted to make a custom pendant, so he naturally called us » the jewelers reminded. « We always see things big, we want to make the best pieces and the best communication ». And they did it. The piece is made of 14k white gold and 1400 VS1 diamonds (which is one of the best diamond clarity in jewelry) selected one by one. Such an expensive piece made with an incredible craftmanship.
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Now that we know their philoshophy, we understand why they wanted to make a big communication for such a big piece and a big artist. « We already had for idea to make a lifestyle video for the pendant delivery that shows the piece in details as well as RK’s lifestyle. All this with a good dose of flexing ! ». « Everybody likes this type of mini-video clips. We discussed about it with RK, he was conquered » they explained. « And this type of video has never been done by any rapper or jeweler in France, we were the first to do it ». Few months after this video, other competitors made the same format. Trendsetters.
RK wished to post the video on his Instagram page, which we know, is such a big thing for a rapper with 1.5M followers and a lot of contracts. « Its the family ! It’s more than business » Global Ice Paris insisted. « I remember we were really excited when we were going to drop the video. We were on our whatsapp group with Ryad congratulating ourselves, showing love » they laughed. « We knew we made something big ».
Video was posted on September 9th 2020, at 8 pm on RK’s page, and made 150k likes in 2 days. The jewelers posted a detailled video of the pendant, always accompanied with a good US rap song, which made almost 20k views (with the new Instagram algorithms, which are stricter than before), and dropped the lifestyle video the next day.
« This video, and in general this pendant was a real success. People were going crazy in DMs, on the comments and we received a lot of love and support, even from artists and important people in the industry. » the jewelers explained. « Not even 2 days after we started to work on Koba LaD’s custom pendant. He was all in! ».
This piece and the marketing that follows was a real collaboration between two big names in the rap industry. They made something that never has been made, even by american jewelers. And what a succes for the culture, we definitely need more events like this.
