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rapperSpotted December 2022

Rapper Jay-Z spotted wearing a Richard Mille

rapper Jay-Z spotted wearing a Richard Mille RM 47
Who & what: TZP Black Ceramic Richard Mille RM 47 Manual Winding Tourbillon – Jay-Z Spotted Courtside

Courtside seats at a Brooklyn Nets game are already rarified territory, but Jay-Z elevated the dress code considerably when he showed up to watch the Nets take on the Washington Wizards wearing one of Richard Mille's most exclusive and culturally layered timepieces — the RM 47 Tourbillon in TZP black ceramic.

The Richard Mille RM 47 is a manual-winding tourbillon built around a deeply considered thematic concept: Bushido, the ancient Japanese samurai code of ethics governing honor, discipline, and moral conduct. Richard Mille translated these values into the watch's architecture and aesthetic language, incorporating Japanese craft traditions into every detail. The case is constructed from TZP — tetragonal zirconia polycrystal — an extraordinarily hard and dense ceramic that offers superior scratch resistance and a deep, near-matte black finish that distinguishes it immediately from more conventional case materials. The skeletonized dial reveals the manually wound movement and its precision tourbillon, beating visibly beneath the sapphire crystal.

Production of the RM 47 was capped at just 75 pieces globally, a number that puts it firmly in grail territory even by Richard Mille's already restrictive standards. The brand has built its collector reputation on limited runs, avant-garde materials, and movements that push the boundaries of what independent watchmaking can achieve at the highest tier. The RM 47 checks every box: a complication of the first order, a case material used by almost no one else at this level, and a cultural narrative that gives the piece genuine intellectual weight beyond its technical spec sheet.

Jay-Z has long been one of the most watched — in every sense — figures in celebrity horology. His wrist has carried everything from rare Pateks to Audemars Piguet Royal Oaks, and his alignment with Richard Mille feels entirely consistent with his positioning as both a cultural tastemaker and a serious collector. Wearing a $1 million tourbillon to a basketball game is, for Hov, simply on-brand.

With an official list price of approximately £850,000 — roughly $1 million at current exchange — and a production run of 75 units, the grey market for the Richard Mille RM 47 TZP Black Ceramic operates on a different plane entirely. Pieces rarely surface publicly, and when they do, expect significant premiums over retail.

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