As the headline suggests, Miguel Castillo of the Wall Street Journal analyzes the effects of the recession.

“‘A lot of these rappers simply don’t have the money for real stuff anymore,’ says Jason Arasheben, who crafts custom jewelry for wealthy clientele, including Saudi royals and Hollywood movie stars, at his California boutique called Jason of Beverly Hills. ‘It’s to the point where they are wearing imitation jewelry, and that’s ridiculous.’

Mr. Arasheben designed the colossus of hip-hop jewels three years ago for rapper Lil Jon: an enormous gold necklace that spells out “CRUNK AIN’T DEAD” with 3,756 round-cut white diamonds (Crunk is a southern rap subgenre that Lil Jon — real name, Jonathan Mortimer Smith — has struggled to keep alive).”

Ha!

Spotted: SRD