Ben Baller S1, Ep. 1 of 6: Pusha T's Benz Chain

BEN BALLER: My name is Ben Baller, and you'd probably recognize me pushing fancy whips, stunting in nightclubs, or sitting courtside at Laker games. But the rest of the world knows me as the jeweler to the stars, Ben Baller. So we're going to see my boy Pusha T right now. One half of the Clipse, over a decade in the game, brought in by Pharrell, Star Trak. I don't know what he wants to do now. We just did this crazy, crazy, crazy piece, fully encrusted diamond keys. One of his biggest lines is, keys open doors. Everyone's talking about it. Blogs went [BLEEP] crazy. Push! PUSHA T: Yo. What's up? BEN BALLER: What's up, dog? PUSHA T: How you doing? Have a seat. BEN BALLER: Got your little Hollywood [INAUDIBLE] going over here. PUSHA T: LA treating me nice. What you got? BEN BALLER: Let's not worry about this right now. [LAUGHTER] So what's good, man? PUSHA T: Everything, in man. BEN BALLER: Every time I sit down with you, I know we're going to make some groundbreaking ***, for sure. This right here? This ***? PUSHA T: Man, I'm just into jewelry that means something. This is really my mother's house key. This is really my house key. This is really a safe key. I love these classier pieces. But I'm also in my vintage kick right now. You know, paying homage to the Slick Ricks and to the Rakims. Like, I need the Mercedes Benz symbol. Rope chain, not too big. BEN BALLER: And you want to ice out the top? PUSHA T: The top, the back, the sides. BEN BALLER: Stop it, man! PUSHA T: All angles. I don't want you to be able to see. [LAUGHTER] You know how it goes. BEN BALLER: Listen, say no more. PUSHA T: You know, I trust you. BEN BALLER: So $20,000 for the Mercedes Benz logo iced out solid. PUSHA T: You know, we don't haggle. BEN BALLER: That's what I love about you! PUSHA T: We don't go back and forth. I trust you. You're going to give me the right price. BEN BALLER: All right, so I've got about two weeks. I gotta get this started, so. Yesterday I met with my boy Pusha T. We're gonna make an old school chain, dookie rope. We'll go inside and knock this out real quick. JEFF: Yo. BEN BALLER: What's up, man? OK, so-- JEFF: Why so tense, man? [INAUDIBLE] BEN BALLER: I met up with Pusha T yesterday. Fool wants to go old school. He wants to go OG, like, you know what I'm saying? Like primo-- JEFF: Dookie chains? BEN BALLER: Dookie chain. He wants to do a Mercedes Benz logo, ice out the three sides. He said he ain't haggling on prices, I figured out. But I'm thinking it's probably going to be around $20,000. Not crazy big, just the perfect size, you know? JEFF: Like the original on the car? BEN BALLER: Yeah. JEFF: So you want to do a Jaguar for you? BEN BALLER: Yeah, let's do that. So I want to do it short, because back in the day, no one was wearing long chains. He said he was in kind of a rush. JEFF: We have so many orders here. BEN BALLER: No, I know, that's what I'm saying. Pusha's [INAUDIBLE] jewelry from Jacob. JEFF: That takes a month. BEN BALLER: Jacob [INAUDIBLE]. And then we get this going, like I said, we'll get the baby Jesus. JEFF: All right, let's do it. BEN BALLER: All right. The process of making Pusha T's piece, I ideally wanted to go get a Mercedes Benz hood ornament, but that wasn't gonna work. So we pulled a perfect file off the internet, I give the file to Jimmy, then Jimmy cuts the wax. With this wax in particular, Jimmy has to be a little bit more precise with each edge. Once he's finished cutting the wax, I send it to casting. When the casting is finished and it's in its raw gold format, we give it to Chucky. Then from there, Chucky's gonna pave set the diamonds all around each edge. Now like I said, there are triangular parts on this, so he has to do this carefully. Once he's finished with that, give it a high polish, throw some yellow gold rhodium on it, and we're ready for delivery. I'm gonna check out the final inspection on Pusha T's piece. It just got finished maybe about 20 minutes ago, so it's fresh. I saw the process, so it looks good. We'll see what happens. JEFF: Oh, here it is. I like it. BEN BALLER: Do you think you like it better when it had no diamonds, or do you like it better with the [INAUDIBLE]? That's good, man. Good size, too. JEFF: No [BLEEP] the money. BEN BALLER: Looks good. Let me wrap it up, man. Basically he wanted a nice rope chain, kind of short, like 28 inches, pay homage to the old school. Everything came out the way he wanted. So I have to go see Pusha T real quick to drop off this piece. He's actually at a video shoot right now for "The Dream." See what happens [INAUDIBLE]. Ha, [INAUDIBLE]. PUSHA T: Yo. OK BEN BALLER: I'm just glad you're in town. PUSHA T: Let's see it. Come on. Don't wanna waste no time. BEN BALLER: So just so people know it's a tribute to the old school. PUSHA T: This is so dough boy fresh. Put on a black sweatshirt, stiff Levis and Converse, and I'm going around like Ice T all day. Told you, man. I love the piece, man. The piece is just like vintage, dough boy fresh. It's always easy working with Ben. It's always good. There's no haggling. He's just like, yo, this is what it's gonna be, wire the money over from my accountant, and that's it. BEN BALLER: One good thing about Pusha T was that he appreciates my work. The amount of tedious work that goes into Michael paveing, and just the whole nine. You know what I mean? People get excited over the stupidest ***. They'll see some deaf person cross the street. And they're like, oh, wow, look. He crossed the street! He's deaf! Show me a guy who has no arms, no legs, and is [BLEEP] riding a bicycle down a hill. That's [BLEEP] oh, wow. Then I say that. So that's what I compare my work to. Just giving you guys one of my little Ben Baller examples. Have a blessed day.