-It's really is dream come true to me
because I never, ever thought, you know, a little boy,
Vietnamese, came from Vietnam, can be sitting here today.
This is the American dream.
♪♪
-Diamond boy! The real diamond boy.
-Welcome to the club.
What do you got to spend over the dub, you heard me?
-Yeah. -And I'm King of the Grill.
-Of course! -Master.
-We got he best grill master right here in Houston.
You know, people come from all over the country,
all over the world, really, to come get a grill from Johnny.
-Bing. Let's go.
-Johnny God-Dang. -Yes, sir!
♪♪
Astro World will be this weekend, this Saturday.
We got Astro World diamond here, baby!
Johnny Dang coming in, King of Bling.
My partner Paul Wall, when I just came here,
I barely speak English,
Paul understand exactly what I'm saying
But another customer didn't understand at all.
-Diamond Boyz, baby! -Yes, sir!
We're here to see my boy, Post Malone.
Dropping off the Flawless Gang!
[ Cellphone ringing ]
Yo. How you doing, man?
-Good. What's popping? -Chilling.
Hold on, I got to say hi real quick to Travis Scott.
-What's up, G?
Hey, you got to come through, man.
We haven't seen you. We haven't seen you --
We haven't seen you at any games, bro.
-Yeah, I know. I'm pulling up to the city.
I'll be there on Wednesday.
-You ready for the weekend, man?
-Y'all coming to the fest this year, right?
-Yes, sir! I got your grill ready, too.
-Yeah, bro. Do your thing, double-G.
-Where the one that I did for you?
You lost it? -Yeah, man, I wore them
when I performed in New York but I hurt my leg,
I took them shits off man.
I think the doctor got them or some shit, I dunno.
-No worry, man. I make another one.
I'm working on it right now.
So for you, they will be done by Friday.
-Alright, bet. Say no more.
-Alright, man, see you.
He lost his grill every day.
Him and Quavo.
Quavo lost a whole baguette grill, cost over $200,000.
He lost it. Most people lose grills
when they take it out to eat,
wrap it up in napkin, leave it on table.
-Half a million dollar grills, I...
I'd have a heart attack, man. Straight up.
-I know. He call me.
He be like, "Man..." But he's so cool.
He's like, "Man, I need another one."
-Ice Tray. -Ice Tray the Gang.
Yeah. -That shit is so funny to me.
-Quavo came up with that though, so when he called me,
Ice Tray the Gang, he say, "Hey, I got a video,
so I thought he'd just want a grill for the video."
-Right. -So I did it, I flew to Atlanta,
and he's like, "Man, I want to put you
in there, like a doctor."
-Ice Tray the Gang. -Ice Tray the Gang.
-Ice Tray the Gang.
-I've always hesitated getting a grill.
I don't know if I can pull it off, man.
-Shit, let me know. You know I'm King of the Grill, man.
-I know, I know.
♪♪
-Yes, sir. Follow me.
Okay, here I'm about to show you around my show room.
Should I wear a grill or no?
♪♪
No. I don't speak well with a grill.
Alright, man, you know, it's just a regular busy day.
Post Malone is in town right now.
Of course he got a grill done by me.
I'm King of Bling, man.
King of the Grill.
He not gonna make to the shop.
I will come to his show today, so dropping off his grill.
My boy, Austin Rivers, he just stopped by,
placed another order for necklace, custom piece.
I try to, I love to set up a trend.
I want something new.
I always create something different
that nobody have it yet.
Even this one.
The style is not new.
It's old-school style.
This called Byzantine necklace,
but nobody will have busted out the whole diamond
on the big necklace like this.
So this is one of the few custom piece
That I have done for our client.
Like, you know, this for my boy Young Dolph.
Which I added in some more diamonds.
You know, make it look nice.
Every custom piece, it takes a lot of diamonds.
Like, this piece take me like 2,600 diamonds.
This all kind of -- look at the whole backpack.
This is for my schoolboy.
He's just getting back to school right now.
He do the backpack.
I sit up like this?
How do I sit? Like this?
-Um, that's pretty good. That was good.
-Should I wear more ice or this good enough?
So, my name is Johnny Dang. I'm Vietnamese.
My original name is Thanh Dang. Now it's, you know...
But I was born and raised in Vietnam
right after the war finished,
and I was grow up in the condition of --
with no power, no electricity in my village.
You talking about nighttime, the whole village dark.
We don't have clean water to drink,
so from really the bottom of the world.
Vietnam is one of the poorest countries in the world.
If people don't know.
So, I came to here,
Houston, Texas, in 1996, when I was 23 years old.
Could not speak English.
I really started from zeros.
I started $500 for like six months.
It was lucky because I started to do jewelry repair
in the flea market,
but it happened in a hip-hop flea market,
you know, with all the black, and you know, African-American.
They call that, right? African-American.
Repair all the broken necklace, change the battery,
fixing bracelets.
We're heading to the Sharpstown Mall.
So, that's where
One of my little shops in the hood,
but that's where I started my business, though.
Diamond Boyz. How you doing?
-One of the best. Everybody go see him.
He gives the best prices.
Best man in Houston, Texas.
He's the best.
-Yeah, it make me feel, you know, very...
-That man, right there. -...cool, feel very special.
I walk back there to the mall, I walk back there to the shop,
around my shop where I used to be,
people say, "Hey, what's up?"
You know, I come by, say hi once in a while.
This one of my very old friends.
-Very, very old. -Very old friend.
Tell them how long we know each other.
-Oh, almost 20 years,
more than 20 years, 25 years.
-He used to give me a lot of job, right?
I'm the jeweler, so I went to him,
got a diamond set, cut and prepare.
He the one who feed me and my family.
-Started very small and now big.
♪♪
-You know, the crazy thing when I came here, right?
I walk in a flea market, this exactly spot here.
They do a lot of... You see they do jewelry repair.
So I started by saying, "Man, I need a job.
Can you hire me?"
The manager said, "Hell, no.
You don't have any experience. I'm not hiring you."
I went straight up there and ran a spot and compete with him.
He mad.
He was so mad because I took a lot of, you know,
customers around here.
It funny.
♪♪
Diamond Boyz.
After flea market, I have a crazy story.
So this is one of my beginning shop,
I think it opened in 1997.
Hello, sir.
[ Speaking Vietnamese ]
♪♪
So this a real close spot.
I'm right next door,
and then I open bigger.
This is right, this exactly the corner
where I started.
And now I buy the supply from her.
So this is like, the whole thing
like 450 square feet.
You know, it very small.
But when it was here, let me tell you a story.
Man, it crazy how it is.
When I had my shop upstairs, right,
small shop... and the first big celebrity
I brought to the shop was Master P.
He's like, "Johnny, I want a grill."
I say, "Can you stop by the shop?
I work in Sharpstown Mall."
He thinking I had a big-ass shop.
And he walked in my shop and looked.
"This is your shop? That small corner?"
It crazy.
And people would surround my shop.
so packed.
Honestly, man, I did not really plan to be like,
"I will build my career with the rappers."
I started at jewelry repair, deal with local artists
like Paul Wall, Mike Jones, Slim Thug --
That's how we started.
So I kept doing since then.
They notice about...
Of course there are so many jewelers in the world,
you know, but they noticed to me, as a Johnny Dang & Co.
because I put a diamond on the gold teeth.
So, you know the gold teeth have been in the market
for so many years.
And back then, most people
just get solid gold teeth,
you know, and not a diamond.
So when I started to put a diamond in there,
they get attraction from the customer, a different look.
So when you look at one artist, you can see all eyes down.
So that's how I get into the hip-hop world.
Paul Wall is my partner on the grill
because when I started -- it's crazy weird.
I come communicate well with Paul.
Even I speak broken English, he understand me.
So he helped me to communicate with different artists,
and then the grill got blow up so big.
When Nelly came out with a grill song
featuring Paul Wall, Jermaine Dupri,
and a couple more artists worked on the song.
Yeah, yeah, I was in that video with Nelly.
Big shout-out to Nelly.
So that song
really put more gas to blow it up bigger.
There are so many rap songs that they rap about me,
mention about my name
honestly, I could not even count.
Artists like Trippie Redd,
DaBaby, my boy, you know, Rick Ross.
They mention my name on the song.
I feel very blessed, you know, and thankful.
So, you know what I'm saying, I've been working so hard
to build my name strong enough like a brand name.
So, if you look at this one.
This is the actual grill.
the molds from celebrities like Snoop Dogg.
This is one of, you know...
Snoop Dogg's teeth.
I got everyone's mold.
I got Dre's grill, did Kanye's grill for so long,
Lil Pump be one of my favorite guy.
Even Jeff Goldblum.
Even him got a grill. Look at his thing.
Here we go.
Jeff Goldblum grill.
He has a special grill.
All he do is just, like, gold
solid, like, nice.
So you see, I collect all the mold,
just in case they want a second set of the grill,
and I just pull it out, get it done,
so I don't have to redo the mold, you know.
♪♪
Alright, we're going to meet the rapping
you know the Post Malone.
Post Malone, one of my favorite artists.
Love him for long times.
And I did a mold for him a while back,
but we never got the chance to get together
so I could drop it off.
Tonight, he got a show in Houston, so that perfect time.
So we're heading there right now,
dropping off a grill for him.
And hopefully it's good.
That's a new member for the Flawless Gang.
♪♪
[ Music playing in background ]
You know what I'm saying?
Look. Yeah!
-Wow, Johnny!
-Hey! -Wow.
-This $100,000-some right here, you know what I'm saying?
-Wow! -Yeah!
-Wow. -Try it on.
Make sure it -- -Yeah, try 'em on!
-Give me the glove.
-They should just snap in.
-Yeah. -That's the top.
-Oh! -They fit?
-Ooh! -Do I look cute?
-Yeah! -Wow!
-Yes, sir!
Yes, sir! -Yes, sir.
-Of course, I always feel thankful for hip-hop artists,
for hip-hop worlds.
-Your turn to shoot.
Donny, Johnny. -Watch, watch.
-I got you. -Come on, Johnny.
-Watch. I've been doing real well,
taking care of them, so they show you love.
I got a chance to hang out with a lot of good people
so I feel very blessed.
♪♪
I do a lot of interviews,
so I always mention that if you work hard,
keep working on what you like to do, you will be successful.
I look at myself, I look at my life like...
you know, I started from that low bottom, up to now.
So if I can make it,
you have no reason why you cannot make it.
♪♪
Yeah, dude, just like regular day.
Today, I have me and my brother's man, Z-Ro,
we're on our way to see Snoop.
Snoop and I are real good friends,
and we've been doing a grill a lot with him.
So that's what me and Z-Ro are on the way there now,
drop it off for him, you know.
♪♪