This is really too stupid a question to put in GQ, but where did that idiotic “bling bling” thing start?
“Herro?”
Hip hop stars and their penchant for expensive looking jewelry. According to The Bling King:
Eve!
That’s hysterical.
Curse you, Eve! I spent five minutes waitung for this page to load so I could post that. 
Dr. Lao, I think he’s asking what is the origin of the term.
Eve, I am sure I speak for all the Asians here when I say, “Could you possibly have been more fucking offensive??”
JESUS. What, do we live in the 18th century here, folks?
Tooootally fucking you with you there, Eve.
Heh. -Tibs.
B.G. /Hot Boys. ca. 1993. in song.
This according to my 12 year old, one of the blackest white boys you ever want to meet. He IMed me that. He, at 12, could have bad memory.
As many rap threads on the boards have expressed, just because a phrase appears in a song in 1993, for example, it could have been common in Black English 10-15 years or more before that. Much of it comes from the California school of rap.
Before I knew what “Bling-Bling” really was, it made me think of all the high pitched bell sounds throughout a typical rap piece and especially in the intro. Like,
“Yeeeeeeee-ahhhhhh” <bling, bling, bling-bling-bling>
“Wassup” <bling,bling,bling> (insert gated snare improv, cue to verse)
There’s a specific song I’m thinking of called (I think) “Shut the Fu*k Up” that has a bunch of these sounds that, when translated into onomatopoeia, could be written as “Bling bling.”
I found my definition from The Rap Dictionary
Great link, Anthracite–thanks!
I gave naming rights to some of my backyard-pond Koi to my teenage daughter.
Yep. The silver one is named Bling Bling.
Yeah, Euty, I’m suprised that a bad-ass mo-fo like you, mah bruthah, wasn’t hip to the bling-bling, check it out.
I wish the Rap Dictionary provided some etymology though. I still don’t know from who or when or where the words “bling bling” were first used to describe jewelry.
Ha! Dave, my main reason for clicking on this thread was because it seemed so unusual to see a thread entitled “Bling Bling” authored by Eutychus.
No offense, of course. Just not what you’d expect.
Word.
Actually I’m happy with the idea that it’s hip hop slang. I just thought it might have been an internet thing like “All your base” or sumpin’.
You dissin’ my son? Read my post.
You want a cite from the 1980’s, talk to some urban rappers in California.
(grin) Didn’t mean any offense samclem.
I did read your post, and should’ve mentioned that fact (I keep forgetting that not everyone reads the prior posts before posting their own response to the OP).
I was just suggesting that perhaps a cite from an authoritative source would be good confirmation of your son’s attribution.
Now, if I were really creative, I’d have said all the above in rap fashion… unfortunately I’m not that creative.