Today we live in a world where having an iced out mouth piece is super-ridiculously fascinating to some individuals. In the music & entertainment industry it just adds as an accessory to your everyday lifestyle attire. I recently got the opportunity to catch up with the two guys that I noticed were killing the competition & doing it in style, as far as the custom jewelry game goes and also making some waves in the clothing business as well. Grill God Miguel & Grill God Zo are partners at two companies they own, Grilladvised & Illadvised where they both run a custom jewelry company and clothing line. As everyone in the music game should know having an authentic gold grill is deemed valid and when your grills cloudy you gotta meet a new jeweler kid. Im personally endorsing my two guys right here as they have delivered some of the best designs in the game to some known and upcoming entities in the music and art world. They also just happened to be the ones who recently laced me up with a custom new set of top gold grills. With prices that no customer should have nerve to complain about you are absolutely getting more than your monies worth when shopping with these “Grill Gods”.
Who are you and where do you reside?
Miguel: Miguel Enrique or Grill God Miguel …. I represent Illadvised Clothing Co. And Grilladvised Gold Grillz from Newport News VA.
Zo: Zo cool the coldest or grill God Zo from Bad Newz Va.
Can you explain exactly what you guys do? Besides make the coldest custom fronts in the game.?
Miguel: Well I started out designing clothes 3 years ago for a brand Illadvised Clothing Co. With my partners Zo, Hank, and Ace and the last year and a half me and Zo started A sub jewelry brand Grilladvised.
Zo: At the risk of sounding cocky we make waves , aside from designing clothes for Illadvised clothing co and making custom jewelry.. We make waves.
What influenced you to start doing what you do?
Miguel: It’s crazy because we actually thought about it in like ’06 right after high school. But didn’t know how to do it or even if we could but everything is possible lol. Man honestly being from VA my biggest influence was seeing Pharrell man. Since forever this nigga been pulling up in the hottest Streetwear the crazy ass grillz… Like wild shit. My first grill I ever got was some crazy shit in high school. Man the fresh Bape the crazy grill… Niggas wanted to be like Pharrell foreal man… And he still in the game killing it. Some other people that influence me or I look up to work wise is my mentor Marc and Ben Baller. Man I watch his YouTube series and interviews all day long. There isn’t too many jewelers who are real people.. Not robots that just want to beat you in the head for a sale and not too many people that can back up the talk with the work. I put my mentors skills on the highest level… If I ever get a pic of some work from him it’s usually “damn this shit is crazy” and a pic from bens gram lol.
Zo: These are things we love, aside from the money being decent this is a part of the culture me and Miguel grew up in.
Why was this the path that you choose as a career?
Miguel: I don’t really think I chose this … As Zo would say the diamonds chose us lmao. I owe it to my mentor man. The jewelry game is something you don’t really hop into. It’s usually family run or whatever. I don’t know what our mentor saw in us. He took the time to sit us down and teach. And still teaches… Everyday I learn something new from him and if we have any issues he is always there to help us out. He always used to say “all my friends are 60 year old ass foreign angry jewelers” lmao I guess he just wanted some youth around him and saw we were serious and willing to learn.
Zo: It basically chose us, we got the opportunity to learn from a master at the craft and we capitalized.
Just to name a few, who are some influential characters in the now that you have done work for? And how did you meet them or decide you were going to do work with them?
Miguel: To me it would be Distortedd and The Sremmlife family. Distortedd is so dope at what she does man… she just creates… no explanation she just wakes up and creates… That’s a true artist. I was on Twitter and seen some dbz art she made… shit blew my mind… So I hit her and was like hey let’s exchange goods. She had an event at A3C, we delivered her bottoms and she gave us some signed artwork. That was my first art show attending and the whole experience was amazing. The vibes were amazing. She good people.
What does it take to be a custom grill designer? Any pointers for interested viewers?
Miguel: Nothing is easy it’s just like anything else you do. Work wise you need to be open minded and take the time to learn. Educate yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or have people teach you. Learn your role as a student and just know it’s ok not to know everything. It’s ok to fuck shit up. The process is dirty but the outcome is clean.
Zo: It takes a whole lot of knowledge but the information is out there, craftsmanship first then get your promo up. As far as pointers, find a new hustle Grilladvised got this grill thing on lock. We can wholesale to you tho.
The process of getting grills seems simple for the buyer but on the other end whats it like making & styling grills?
Miguel: It’s pretty simple for the buyer. For us it’s a little hectic. It’s not glorious at all, it’s tough man. And then since we are easily accessible, you got people calling in, texting, emailing. But we do it for the people. I’m just glad we had the clothing running because that taught me a lot on how to deal with people and proper customer service. Without clients what do you have? Like what are we really doing with no customers? Lmao not shit. So I make sure throughout all the sweat and dirt the customer is always taken care of.
Zo: Extremely hectic, emails and dms all day dealing with hagglers and trying to meet deadlines for happily paying clients, and that’s just taking the orders but honestly I wouldn’t want to imagine life another way, thank god the ? chose us.
Whats your favorite piece that you’ve done and how did your very first grill come out?
Miguel: My favorite piece is the Distortedd piece. We had full creative control. And something about that rose heart on the white gold it came out crazy!
Zo: Favorite piece would have to be Distortedd’s followed by Charlie heats set, just based off of creativity alone the ideas came together beautifully that breath of fresh air shit, art in your mouth type shit.
What big names from the industry have you met & maybe got to do work with?
Miguel: Besides who we talked about we have been bumping shoulders with a lot of people. Ball players, models, musicians. I just don’t like to speak on things until they happen. I believe in jinxing myself and I don’t wanna do that. But don’t get it twisted. We not out here chasing celebrities we are for everybody. I want everybody to feel comfortable coming to us. We are always down to answer any questions or concerns. I know bigger names have official jewelers already and we not trying to take anyone’s spot. I respect our spot as up and coming and just want the chance to work. But three people I would really like to work with is Pusha T, Pharrell and Iverson. Because that’s Va right there, Real Virginia.
Zo: Aside from the ones my partner mentioned, We have chopped game with too many to name, and talks with quite a few but I’ll save the name dropping for happy clients.
Where do you see yourself and your companies in 5 years?
Miguel: Hopefully more orders…. new faces. Just want to be on the list of “go to guys”.
Zo: Aw man , simply put “UP”. Definitely more companies or sub divisions as well as expanding on what we currently do.
Well since you have a taste for hip hop/rap, who are you listening to now and who do you think is “up next”?
Miguel: Maxo Kream, Twenty Duce, The whole sauce factory, Novel bandana, G.U.N, ASAP mob, Monsta Millie, Rae Sremm… Man it’s too much to name. My musical taste runs everywhere with a lot of new young niggas in the mix.
Zo: I listen to a little of everything, from Alex Wiley to Sauce Twinz, to Kendrick and J cole, anything that makes me think or just gives me that feel. As far as up next my guy G.U.N is definitely on track to be a household name. Also Phillie Doja out of Louisiana has some ?.