If you’ve ever caught yourself staring at the mind-bending bling hanging from your favorite rapper’s neck, chances are, to paraphrase the words of A$AP Ferg, Ben Baller did the chain. Throughout his career, Baller has created some of the most outlandish pieces of jewelry this world has ever seen. In doing so he carved out a space within the often-stuffy jewelry world for hip-hop and wild originality. We were able to persuade the celebrity jeweler to take a minute from working on his latest obsession, his golf game, to speak with Dominic Ciambrone about his K-town roots, how he got into making jewelry and his most beloved pairs of sneakers.
Let’s start out with telling me your name and where you’re from. My name is Ben Baller, I’ve had that moniker since the spring of 1992. I got it from my assistant basketball coach in college—a lot of people don’t know that I used to play college ball. Back in the day, when you played sports you were just called a baller, it wasn’t about any kind of money. I was broke back then. I was born and raised in Koreatown, Los Angeles—but I’ve been everywhere, though.
I always liked jewelry as a kid. I’ve been messing around in hip-hop since the eighties and seeing guys like Slick Rick wearing these big chains, I always thought it was so cool. I had a
