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If someone would\u2019ve told us that everyone\u2019s favorite rapper lately\u2014and one of the founding members of legendary East Coast hip-hop collective the Wu-Tang Clan\u2014would build an empire entirely separate from his storied music career while maintaining his status as one of the greats of the genre, we would\u2019ve said that they\u2019re crazy. But it\u2019s true. Method Man, the gravelly-voiced MC from New York\u2019s Staten Island\u2014who made a career synonymous with cannabis use or \u201cTICAL\u201d as he has affectionally dubbed it\u2014has reinvented himself as more than just a hip-hop icon. The Renaissance man\u2019s cannabis brand, Tical Offical, is led by three of his closest friends and is rapidly taking the US by storm.<\/p>\n
Cannabis Now<\/em> had the chance to sit with the three co-founders of Tical Official<\/a> (T3 for short), Nathanial \u201cNutta\u201d Vereen, Joshua \u201cRaz\u201d Rassin and Bryan \u201cZ\u201d Zabinski, to discuss the brand, its backstory and what motivates them to keep pushing.<\/p>\n \u201cThis brand, our team, works so well because we\u2019re all close friends who share a common vision for TICAL as a movement,\u201d Vereen says. \u201cWe\u2019re doing the best we can to ensure cannabis is seen as the life-changing medicine that it is.\u201d<\/p>\n Tical Official has a colorful story of becoming a reality. \u201cIn the years of being close friends with Meth, I\u2019ve always wanted more for him and his moniker. No matter where we go, Meth gives 110% of himself and fans love him,\u201d Vereen says. \u201cI knew whatever I ended up building with him needed to be special. Ultimately, after a few failed attempts at getting various projects off the ground, reconnecting with Raz and venturing into cannabis is where things started to go right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve known Nutt and Meth for a hot minute,\u201d Raz says. \u201cWe always rolled in the same circles on tour and Nutt helping get my brand \u201cTree-Shirts\u201d in front of (and subsequently on) Meth. We\u2019ve always shared a connection and kind of knew one day we would eventually work together.\u201d At the time, Raz was also working on the creative side at Under Armour and Nutt thought it could be great to connect them with Method Man for a signature shoe. \u201cI mentioned a shoe, he (Meth) smiled, then I mentioned Under Armour and his excitement kind of changed,\u201d Nutt says. But they didn\u2019t give up there. The idea of creating a cannabis brand felt very natural, but there was some hesitation. \u201cI knew I had one more kick at the can here with Meth, I couldn\u2019t waste it,\u201d Nutt says.<\/p>\n This is when they realized they needed one more person, Zabinski, to help make things a reality. \u201cI\u2019ve known Z for two decades; he has managed or worked with A-list celebrities<\/a> and was, at the time, running Hunt and Fish Club in Times Square,\u201d Raz says. \u201cHe knows the ins and outs of scaling companies.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Zabinski, he and Raz have known each other for more than two decades and bonded over their shared love of cannabis, saying that the two have \u201cmaintained a very strong friendship.\u201d Raz and Nutt approached Zabinski in 2018 with the opportunity to work on Tical Official. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any reality where I would\u2019ve said \u2018no\u2019 to this opportunity,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n And thus, like the snap of Thanos\u2019 fingers, the concept was a go. After a very successful pitch, which included a Lacrosse stick (Easter egg trivia for all you Method Man stans), the decision to move forward was made. Meth gave his blessing to use his moniker and offered to come in as a fourth vote if a tie-break was needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n T3 banded together and decided to self-fund this venture, accepting no financial support from Method Man and only using his name and platform for marketing purposes. \u201cWe literally sold our cars to make this happen,\u201d Nutt says. It didn\u2019t take long for the idea\u2014and the investors\u2014to get going. Within three months, Tical Official had raised $500,000, vetted and chosen a state partner in California. It felt like nothing could stop them.<\/p>\n Then, the COVID global pandemic happened and the money suddenly stopped. All their grandiose plans were postponed and strategy pivoted for a few months to survive on the initial investment. \u201cWe were already flying high (so to speak): we had a great product, killer branding and a state to sell into,\u201d Raz says. \u201cRather than go heavy on marketing, we decided to go with the hand-to-hand approach, choosing four independent, black-owned stores to launch.\u201d And this strategy worked. Soon after the launch in California, Tical Official identified partners in Colorado and Nevada and started selling into states that had already legalized adult-use cannabis. \u201cThings have felt incredibly surreal; we feel blessed to have had so much support so early on,\u201d Zabinski says. <\/p>\n Through trials and tribulations, Tical Official has thrived in a very saturated North American cannabis market. Currently operating in six markets\u2014including Michigan, Arizona, Las Vegas and Arkansas\u2014and expanding to 10 states within the next 90 days, the brand is showing no signs of slowing down\u2014not only in sales but also support from Meth himself, whose frequently spotted wearing the merchandise, doing retail store appearances across the country and video calling with customers. Method Man\u2019s currently on tour, so he took the opportunity to take Tical on the road by wrapping his tour bus.<\/p>\n The core team remains incredibly grounded in spite of the brand\u2019s success. \u201cI\u2019ve been through a lot in my life and want to ensure, through the success of this brand, that I give back in a meaningful way,\u201d Nutt says. \u201cIt\u2019s really great to work with Meth, to meet\u2014and partner with\u2014 licensed producers across the country and get our product out there. But, at the end of the day, if we don\u2019t stay true to the culture and show love, this is all meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n Tical Official made its\u00a0New York debut September 15 and is available at<\/a> Housing Works, Strain Stars, Stage One, Greenery Spot and Flynnstoned.<\/p>\n The post Method Man\u2019s Tical Official Makes New York Debut<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
If someone would\u2019ve told us that everyone\u2019s favorite rapper lately\u2014and one of the founding members of legendary East Coast hip-hop collective the Wu-Tang Clan\u2014would build an empire entirely separate from his storied music career while maintaining his status as one of the greats of the genre, we would\u2019ve said thatContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":68651,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,6459,99,9837,65,13857,6641,208,106,420,17413,17414],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68650"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68652,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68650\/revisions\/68652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tical](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Tical-Official-Logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
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\nRead More: Method Man\u2019s Tical Official Makes New York Debut<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"