In a way, there's nothing more intimate than a piece of jewelry. A painting is hung on somebody's wall. You put a piece of furniture in your home. But jewelry is worn by a person, so there is a fascination with the history of a piece.

I think imitation is always the greatest form of flattery.

I fell into hip-hop right from the beginning. I was a teenager in the '60s, so I was putting all my pocket money into buying LPs. I followed the ascent of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Stevie Wonder. I followed popular music very closely, and I've never stopped.

What I feel with the best of hip-hop music and with the best of what has been produced by hip-hop culture is that it's going to be timeless, and it's going to last.

I think there is going to be a whole market and we'll start to see hip-hop jewelry regularly in jewelry auctions around the world. Therefore, anybody who gets on the train early can only do well financially in the long run.

There has always been a correlation between money and art.

I think it's a tribute to the artistic importance of hip-hop culture and what hip-hop has brought into music and fashion and jewelry that it is being adapted or imitated or is inspiring variations or new types of art or new types of music.

Provenance is something very important in jewelry. You want to know who has worn a piece of jewelry and who it has belonged to - it's part of its history, part of its aura.

If you speak to young kids anywhere in the world, hip-hop is the music that they like to listen to more than any other type, so the influence simply cannot be underestimated.

While we do not need art to live, I couldn't imagine a life without it.

All-around 21st-century artist the great Kanye West at Design Miami/ Basel