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\u201cFab? Yeah, he used to get weed from Ricky Powell,\u201d Saes says. I smile, struck with a welcome sense of the familiar. I\u2019m talking with legendary New York City weed delivery service pioneer Mike Saes\u2014also known as \u201cEl Saeso\u201d\u2014and I can faintly hear the sounds of Manhattan taxi cabs whizzing by him as I listen intently. I hit up Saes in anticipation of connecting with the one and only Fab 5 Freddy (otherwise known as Fredrick Braithwaite) for some insider info on any downtown history, especially related to graffiti, art, music, weed and the golden eras of NYC culture that might be relevant to my upcoming conversation. The art and culture of Gotham, of course, have been famously championed by Fab in his numerous roles as a producer, curator, presenter, director and all-around dot connector. And Saes is a guy I always trust to bless me with some interesting insider nuggets. The connection between Fred and Ricky Powell resonates.<\/p>\n
For the uninitiated, Ricky Powell<\/a>, sometimes known as the Rickster, was a fixture in lower Manhattan for decades before he passed due to heart failure in 2021. He walked the streets with his handheld radio, a camera around his neck and an uninhibited, vocal perspective on the relative corniness of everything always happening around him. He was considered \u201cthe fourth Beastie Boy\u201d for his ever-present proximity to the group as they catapulted from downtown punks to a top-selling international hip-hop act. He also snapped famously candid pictures of folks such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring<\/a>, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Crawford and Mike Tyson<\/a>, among others. That he also apparently used to hook Fab up with a bag of weed here and there couldn\u2019t be more on point.<\/p>\n I wrap up with Saes and check the clock. It\u2019s time to connect with Fab, so I plug his number into my phone. I\u2019m struck with a rare sense of nervous anticipation. Fab\u2019s wide-ranging credentials and culture-defining pursuits are almost too numerous to list\u2014and right now, they\u2019re scrolling in list form through my head as I get ready to hit \u201ccall.\u201d<\/p>\n The first hip-hop film that Fab and Charlie Ahearn brought to life back in 1983 was Wild Style, which documented hip-hop, graffiti and breakdancing with coherent authenticity. It was an important opening salvo for a cultural movement that, half a century later, still feels undeniably fresh. Fab popped up again just a few years after Wild Style as a presenter on Yo! MTV Raps, bringing hip-hop\u2019s most vital personalities into living rooms around the globe with a cool, unforgettably stylish demeanor. It was yet another watershed moment for both hip-hop and American culture writ large. Of course, that\u2019s all on top of his similarly impactful moves in the Manhattan art world alongside artistic peers Haring, Basquiat and Futura2000, rubbing shoulders with Warhol and bringing graffiti from the streets into the galleries and beyond.<\/p>\n The phone rings. Fab answers. \u201cYo!\u201d I hear him say, or maybe I think I hear him say it, but how else would he greet me? It\u2019s a salutation spoken from coast to coast and globally, much thanks to this man, now 64, who has proven his singular ability to observe and express the essence of culture as it happens. Accordingly, Fab\u2019s penchant for connection has most recently manifested itself in the realm of cannabis, both as director of the Grass Is Greener [2019] documentary on Netflix<\/a>, as well as the co-founder of B NOBLE<\/a>, a social equity cannabis brand inspired by the harrowing story of Bernard Noble.<\/p>\n Fab is flipping the green switch. Noble\u2019s story is a key element of not only the new business he launched in partnership with global cannabis heavyweights Curaleaf<\/a>, but also Fab\u2019s aforementioned film. Noble\u2019s prison sentence of 13 years for two joints worth of weed (2.8g to be exact) is a visceral example of the deep, exploitive injustice of the War on Drugs. It\u2019s also a perfect thesis statement for a nascent cannabis brand looking to shine a light on these wrongs while also bringing great cannabis to stores around the world. Fab has found himself in the spotlight pushing culture forward once again, now in the realm of weed, and it couldn\u2019t be more timely or appropriate.\u00a0<\/p>\n To date, B NOBLE has donated $400k to support the restoration of communities impacted by the War on Drugs. Noble also recently opened a food truck in Kansas City, Missouri called \u201cB & A Cajuns New Orleans.\u201d In this mobile kitchen, Noble shows off his cooking skills and serves up eats inspired by his Louisiana roots.\u00a0<\/p>\n When asked about the seeds of his relationship to the plant, Fab paints a picture of an upbringing where the essence and importance of cannabis was celebrated, not marginalized. \u201cI grew up in a cannabis household,\u201d he says. \u201cMy dad was a jazz head and intellectual. Max Roach is my godfather, a pivotal jazz pioneer. The fact that people were fighting to legalize pot was information that came through my dad and his friends. They also smoked weed every day, but it was hush hush.\u201d<\/p>\n Fab\u2019s informed upbringing influenced his moves as a young artist, too. He seamlessly brought together burgeoning art and music scenes from uptown in the Bronx to downtown Manhattan and back without skipping a beat. \u201cI\u2019m just mad curious and these things worked out beyond expectations,\u201d he says. \u201cI had good hunches.\u201d And thanks to his hunches, a matrix of creative relationships he forged became a pop culture blueprint in the decades that followed.<\/p>\n But what about the cannabis nuances of Big Apple culture when he was coming up on the scene? \u201cChris Stein from Blondie always had that really good weed,\u201d Fab says. \u201cI\u2019d be like, \u2018Wait a minute. What the fuck? What\u2019s happening here?\u2019\u201d And in the art world, he notes that Futura always knew how to roll a fat joint with precision, but that wasn\u2019t a trait shared by all his peers. \u201cJean-Michel Basquiat\u2019s joint rolling was bananas, he didn\u2019t give a fuck,\u201d Fab says. \u201cHe always had a big sack with him, and he was just rolling big messy joints. It was just so crazy incredible. You could roll a normal size joint out of a roach that Jean left.\u201d [Laughs]<\/p>\n As much as things change, they also stay the same, it seems. When it comes to The Empire State weed messes, much like Basquiat\u2019s joints, New York\u2019s stop and start rollout of adult-use cannabis has made many observers wonder how things got so off track.<\/p>\n But not Fab. His patient long view informs a deep optimism in the process.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been rough going, but I\u2019m confident that the intent is to get it right,\u201d Fab says. \u201cI\u2019m still encouraged by the efforts in the market, and the momentum throughout 2024 especially.\u201d His confidence in what\u2019s possible is evident in his perspective on B NOBLE\u2019s future. \u201cWe\u2019ve recently joined the European market through the acquisition of German-based CanPharma, giving us access to distribute medical cannabis in both the UK and EU. And we\u2019ve brought on Mario Guzman of Sherbinski<\/a> as head of genetics for B NOBLE EU and Canada,\u201d the legend says. \u201cWe\u2019re doing big things. Coming soon we\u2019ll be making an announcement about our exciting plans in Africa as we are truly, B NOBLE Global!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n If the past is any indicator of what\u2019s to come, there\u2019s a very good chance that Fab 5 Freddy\u2019s latest hunches are right on the money. Again.<\/p>\n This story was originally published in issue 50 of the\u00a0print edition<\/a>\u00a0of Cannabis Now.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Fab 5 Freddy: This Joint Is Jumpin\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\u201cFab? Yeah, he used to get weed from Ricky Powell,\u201d Saes says. I smile, struck with a welcome sense of the familiar. I\u2019m talking with legendary New York City weed delivery service pioneer Mike Saes\u2014also known as \u201cEl Saeso\u201d\u2014and I can faintly hear the sounds of Manhattan taxi cabs whizzingContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":76251,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[148,50,5833,9835,85,65,4166,97],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76250"}],"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=76250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76252,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76250\/revisions\/76252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/bernard-noble-fab-5-freddy.jpg\")
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\nRead More: Fab 5 Freddy: This Joint Is Jumpin\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"