Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z or Mr. Beyonce Knowles, has been renowned in the rap world for years as a proudly cocky self-made billionaire with a lot of things to brag about. And now, per a July 9 announcement, he\u2019s got another one: cannabis company Caliva announced their decision to partner with Jay-Z and name him chief brand strategist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The California-based cannabis company trumpeted the news on the homepage of its\u00a0website<\/a>, citing common goals between the rapper and the pot brand, like an initiative to hire formerly incarcerated people and a desire to \u201cshape the conversation surrounding cannabis, foster equality and fairness\u2026 promote awareness for the many uses and benefits of cannabis and empower consumers to feel free to use cannabis how, when, and where they want,\u201d per the press release.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jay-Z offered a comment in a similar vein for the release: \u201cAnything I do, I want to do correctly and at the highest level. With all the potential in the cannabis industry, Caliva\u2019s expertise and ethos makes them the best partner for this endeavor. We want to create something amazing, have fun in the process, do good and bring people along the way.\u201d It\u2019s a quote that brims with the quintessential Jay-Z swagger, and it\u2019s also, frankly, hard to argue with.\u00a0<\/p>\n He\u2019s far from the first celebrity, the first musician or even the first rap icon to make such a move. Count\u00a0Willie Nelson<\/a>, Seth Rogen, Gwenyth Paltrow,\u00a0Snoop Dogg<\/a>\u00a0and Dan Bilzerian among the figures who tasted fame before dipping their toes into legal weed.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Jay-Z\u2019s background, both as a mogul and a dealer from the projects, makes him an especially exciting entry into the cannabis space.\u00a0<\/p>\n Though it remains to be seen how involved Jay-Z will actually be in Caliva\u2019s operations, he\u2019s a logical partner for an up-and-coming cannabis brand. This is\u00a0far<\/em> from his first foray into the business world, as the rapper has no trouble reminding his fans: \u201cI\u2019m not a businessman, I\u2019m a business, man!\u201d he boasts on the remix of Kanye West track \u201cDiamonds from Sierra Leone<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And a quick peek into Jay-Z\u2019s\u00a0myriad ventures<\/a>\u00a0lends an undeniable truth to this statement. The man co-founded his own record company and clothing line, owns a chain of nightclubs, is a co-brand director for Budweiser Select, owns a champagne brand and has held stake in multiple sports teams \u2014 and that\u2019s not even a complete list of his entrepreneurial achievements.\u00a0<\/p>\n But another foundational element from Jay-Z\u2019s past makes him particularly well-suited for today\u2019s cannabis industry: his history selling crack cocaine while growing up in Brooklyn, New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jay-Z has long been outspoken about his illicit market past. It\u2019s a major element of his musical oeuvre (the biggest recurring topic besides his own universal prowess, even) that he refuses to let his critics weaponize against him. He even\u00a0sampled<\/a> Tomi Lahren\u2019s anti-Beyonc\u00e9 rant in a 2016 track with Pusha-T, \u201cDrug Dealers Anonymous<\/a>.\u201d \u201cYour husband was a drug dealer. For 14 years he sold crack cocaine,\u201d Lahren says. \u201cB*tch I been brackin\u2019 since the \u201980s\u2026 14 year drug dealer and still counting,\u201d Jay-Z retorts.\u00a0<\/p>\n The rapper has even cited his drug dealing experience as a formative influence on the way he conducts business. In a 2013\u00a0Vanity Fair profile<\/a>, he talked about how selling drugs prepared him for the budgeting required in the business world. \u201cTo be in a drug deal, you need to know what you can spend, what you need to re-up. Or if you want to start some sort of barbershop or car wash \u2014 those were the businesses back then. Things you can get in easily to get out of [that] life. At some point, you have to have an exit strategy, because your window is very small; you\u2019re going to get locked up or you\u2019re going to die,\u201d he told the magazine.\u00a0<\/p>\n And selling crack, or at least growing up in an environment where selling crack felt central to survival, clearly influenced Jay-Z\u2019s passions for community improvement and racial justice \u2014 conversations that are just beginning to be broached in the mainstream cannabis industry, though activists have long discussed them. \u201cMost kids were in front of their apartment buildings dealing drugs,\u201d Jay-Z said in the same Vanity Fair profile. \u201cMarcy Projects was a danger zone then. So a lot of friends that grew up doing that got killed or went to jail.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n On his most recent musical release, a collaborative album with Beyonc\u00e9 titled \u2018Everything Is Love,\u2019 Jay-Z utters one of his classic self-congratulatory boasts: \u201cWhat would you do, you knew you couldn\u2019t fail\/ I have no fear of anything, do everything well\/ I have no fear of jail, I was born in the trap\/ I have no fear of death, we all born to do that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Though this cockiness may rub his detractors and rivals (although, let\u2019s be honest, does the 2019 Jay-Z really\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0any rivals?) the wrong way, the fact remains that this kind of earned, value-driven confidence is exactly what the fledgling legal cannabis industry needs right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, which celebrity would you like to see enter the cannabis business?<\/p>\n The post Why Jay-Z Is the Perfect Celebrity Cannabis Entrepreneur<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z or Mr. Beyonce Knowles, has been renowned in the rap world for years as a proudly cocky self-made billionaire with a lot of things to brag about. And now, per a July 9 announcement, he\u2019s got another one: cannabis company Caliva announced their decisionContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,6459,1484,11568,119,687],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36819,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36818\/revisions\/36819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Business, Man<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Why Jay-Z Is the Perfect Celebrity Cannabis Entrepreneur<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"