{"id":498247,"date":"2026-06-18T01:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T01:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/498247\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T01:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T01:38:11","slug":"she-sells-bling-to-aap-rocky-and-drake-meet-aap-eva-macau-born-jeweller-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/498247\/","title":{"rendered":"She sells bling to A$AP Rocky and Drake: meet A$AP Eva, Macau-born jeweller in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New York City is a paradox in that it is ethnically diverse but defined by its distinct enclaves. Within that global melting pot, communities gravitate towards the familiar, as evidenced by <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/chinese-culture\/article\/3307583\/new-yorks-many-chinatowns-3-stand-out-how-immigration-shaped-them-over-decades?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">its three Chinatowns<\/a> in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">But culture has a habit of breaching these invisible borders in some surprising ways.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Eva Sam Chiok-va, for instance, became an honorary member of influential rap collective A$AP Mob from Harlem after she connected with black musicians 20 years her junior.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Over the past 38 years, Sam has turned her goldsmith shop, Popular Jewelry, in Manhattan\u2019s Chinatown, into an unassuming hip-hop mecca. When she opened the business in October 1988 with funds borrowed from her family, she intentionally broke away from the rigid business models of her male relatives.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThey catered exclusively to Chinese people,\u201d Sam, now 64, says.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Born and raised in Macau, Sam had reluctantly migrated to New York City in 1982, at age 21, to join her family. She spent her first six months working at a garment factory, then worked for six years as an employee at her older brother\u2019s Chinatown gold jewellery shop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City is a paradox in that it is ethnically diverse but defined by its distinct enclaves.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[229299,229302,229307,27228,39066,35518,229305,229304,95921,1637,146,229306,31157,79914,85,46,71347,229303,229300,229301,229298],"class_list":["post-498247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-aap-eva","tag-aap-ferg","tag-aap-mob","tag-aap-rocky","tag-aap","tag-adam-sandler","tag-cappadonna","tag-charlie-wong","tag-chinatown","tag-drake","tag-entertainment","tag-eva-sam-chiok-va","tag-fka-twigs","tag-harlem","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jaden-smith","tag-joji","tag-josh-and-benny-safdie","tag-popular-jewelry","tag-popular-jewelry-new-york-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}