Watch Paparazzi

Rapper Timati spotted wearing Richard Mille

Russian rapper and entrepreneur Timati was recently photographed wearing one of the most technically extreme wristwatches produced in the 21st century: the Richard Mille RM27-04, a 50-piece limited edition developed in close collaboration with tennis legend Rafael Nadal. Timati's wrist is a reliable barometer of the upper stratosphere of watch collecting, and this sighting is no exception.

The RM27-04 is built around Richard Mille's signature philosophy of aerospace-grade materials pushed to their functional limits. The case is constructed from Tita-Carbon — a composite material that bonds carbon fiber layers with titanium — delivering exceptional torsional rigidity while keeping weight at a minimum. The manually wound tourbillon movement, caliber RM27-04, is suspended inside the case via a cable tensioning system inspired by the rigging of a sailing vessel. Richard Mille claims the watch can withstand shocks of up to 12,000 g's, a specification validated by actual on-court use during Nadal's match play at Roland Garros.

The RM27-04 debuted in 2019 and represents the fourth dedicated collaboration between Richard Mille and Nadal, a partnership that began in 2010 and fundamentally changed how the industry approached sports-oriented haute horlogerie. Each successive RM27 iteration has pushed the engineering brief further, and the -04 is widely considered the definitive expression of that ongoing project. With just 50 examples produced, the watch entered a rarefied tier of modern collectibles from the moment of its announcement.

Timati — born Timur Yunusov — has built a public profile that extends well beyond Russian hip-hop into fashion, hospitality, and lifestyle branding. His watch choices consistently reflect this cross-cultural fluency, gravitating toward pieces that carry both technical credibility and undeniable visual weight. The RM27-04 delivers both in abundance.

On the market, the Richard Mille RM27-04 carries a list price of approximately $1.05 million USD, already positioning it among the most expensive production watches ever offered. In the secondary market, however, the combination of the 50-piece limitation and Nadal's global profile has pushed values significantly higher, with grey-market transactions now regularly reported in the $2.5 million range — more than doubling the original retail figure.