Since they first launched in 1994, Rap Snacks have been giving nods to today’s biggest hip-hop artists on their chip bags. Rappers like Rick Ross, Cardi B, Migos, and Lil Yachty have their own flavors, but now, Rap Snacks is expanding their enterprise. For a new line of beverages, Rap Snacks tapped Lil Baby to be the face of their product.
Rap Snacks unveiled their line of Lil Baby Oowee Lemonade products Monday. The drink comes in five flavors: Fruit Punch, Strawberry Watermelon, Mango Pineapple, Blueberry, and Sweet Tea. Along with featuring Lil Baby on the wrapper, a portion of the proceeds from Oowee Lemonade will be donated to the organizations Atlanta Children’s Center and Covenant House in Atlanta.
Lil Baby’s Rap Snacks beverage line “Oowee Lemonade” will be in stores soon. Which flavor are you trying first? pic.twitter.com/qkYhFAw5jp
About his endeavor, Lil Baby called the Rap Snacks partnership “life-changing.” “I know my fans are going to love this line of Oowee Lemonades,” he said. “Rap Snacks are about hip-hop culture, I’m about the culture, and I’m excited that proceeds from every purchase are a ‘give back’ to help our communities. It’s exciting to be a part of something that will lift people from my hometown and nationally through the BossUp Foundation. It’s life-changing—I’ve never been a part of anything like this before.”
Echoing the rapper’s statement, CEO of Rap Snacks James Lindsay said: “We’re so excited to make this announcement after Lil Baby’s show stopping appearance at the Grammys. This extension of his partnership with us will connect with his growing fanbase the world over. We are the only company to feature hip-hop icons in association with our products. Our lemonade is a great-tasting product. We’ve combined flavors that haven’t been done before, and we’re expanding our market.”
It’s been nearly a year since Snoop Dogg first unveiled his years-in-the-making partnership with Australian winemakers 19 Crimes. He released his Snoop Cali Red bottle last summer, a wildly successful blend that Uproxx named “impeccably smooth.” Now, Snoop returned to announce he has another wine in the works.
The rapper once again teamed up with 19 Crimes wine, this time to create a fruity rosé. Named Snoop Cali Rosé, the new wine has tasting notes of fresh raspberry, strawberry and red cherry, and blends together Zinfandel, Grenache and Pinot Noir.
Speaking about the new bottle, Snoop said:
“We did it big with 19 Crimes Cali Red, so you know we had to do it again – and this time, I was thinking pink. I can’t wait for everyone to sip on my Snoop Cali Rosé and bring those fresh feels from spring into summer and beyond. I hope when you open a bottle of this wine you take a little mind trip to my Cali home. This is how we Rosé the Snoop Dogg way!”
Echoing Snoops statement, Treasury Wine Estates marketing vice president John Wardley said: “Snoop has been a dream collaborator that has taken 19 Crimes Snoop Cali Red to the top of the charts as the no. 1 Wine Innovation of 2020. We can’t wait for this second release to hit our loyal 19 Crimes fan base and see how they Rosé with Snoop Cali Rosé. This is 19 Crimes’ first California rosé and we are already seeing high demand from our retail partners to get it in store as soon as we possibly can.”
Snoop Cali Rosé is available now in the US. Get it here.
Streaming video is the best thing that’s ever happened to documentaries. People who would never have paid for a ticket to a theatrical nonfiction film are now, thanks to Netflix’s robust selection, scarfing down the stuff by the barrel. But where to start among the masses? Here are 25 of the best documentaries on Netflix right now to get you going, covering a variety of themes and real stories.
Even if you’ve already witnessed the madness of this real-life horror story over on Hulu, you should see it again on Netflix. Hulu’s Fyre Fraud feels like more of a thinkpiece directed at the millennials who were suckered into buying tickets to a luxurious music fest on a secluded island in the Bahamas. Netflix’s Fyre does a better job of placing you in the action, giving you a real feel for the chaos and an understanding of how so many people could’ve been roped into this doomed venture.
Beyoncé’s history-making Coachella performance was enough to temporarily rename the music festival Beychella last year, and now fans who couldn’t afford to see Queen Bee perform live get a backstage pass to the show with this doc. Are there killer performances, musical mash-ups, and dance routines? Sure. But what really makes this music doc stand-out besides the talent of its star is the intimate look fans are given into Beyoncé’s personal life, from her surprise pregnancy to her struggle to get in shape before the event and all the in-between madness and heartbreak.
To understand the enigma that was the Trump campaign, one must first understand the man behind the historic presidential run. Roger Stone is a well-connected lobbyist, a Republican political trickster responsible for the campaigns of former presidents like Richard Nixon and Ronal Reagan. He’s well-versed in navigating morally-murky waters to help his horse win the race, and we see him do just that in this doc, which follows the mogul over a five-year period as he crafts Trump’s winning-campaign.
One of the strangest, most tragic sports stories in history is that of professional wrestler Dave Schulz and his friend, John du Pont. Du Pont was heir to the multi-million dollar Du Pont family fortune and used his inheritance to fund a professional wrestling team with the hopes of competing in the Olympics and other prestigious sports events. Mark Schulz was a wrestler struggling to get out of the shadow of his older brother’s more promising career. The two were roped into du Pont’s scheme, training wrestlers for him, but the partnership quickly soured and led to du Pont murdering Dave Schultz before barricading himself in his family compound to avoid arrest. It’s chilling, bizarre, and all the more riveting because of it.
Another sports doc, this one about a rag-tag group of baseball players in Oregon, feels decidedly more fun than its wrestling counterpart. The doc follows the Portland Mavericks, a defunct minor league baseball owned by actor Bing Russell that played for five seasons in the Class A-Short Season Northwest League. Kurt Russell, Bing’s son, also played on the team and served as its vice president. The film charts the Maverick’s origins, from underdogs to anti-establishment heroes.
Compiled from rare home videos from Christopher “Biggie” Wallace’s best friend, Damion “D-Roc” Butler, this revealing doc gives fans a different look at the iconic rapper. Sean “Diddy” Combs and Biggie’s mom also give interviews, detailing parts of Biggie’s life we didn’t know about, but the most compelling footage comes from D-Roc’s amateur videos. These clips give us an unfiltered look at a man who would become a legend.
This 2016 documentary from Ava DuVernay won an Emmy and was nominated for an Oscar during awards season two years ago. The film chronicles the justice system’s abuses against black people, making a case for institutionalized racism being a problem in America that’s only emboldened by the prison cycle. DuVernay boldly explores how prisons and detention centers are making a profit off of free prison labor, most of it done by black men which begs the question, is slavery really dead?
Let’s be honest, Taylor Swift could’ve delivered a glossy, stylized, superficial doc about her life to promote her latest album, and her rabid fanbase would’ve eaten it up. Instead, the pop star took a risk and gave filmmakers no-holds-barred access to her personal and professional life, offering up intimate interviews with herself and her family, detailing difficult struggles with body dysmorphia and eating disorders, allowing cameras inside her sexual assault trial, revealing her mother’s cancer diagnosis, and unearthing home video footage of her youth to create a fuller picture of herself. It’s a film that reveals the human underneath the icon. It’s bold, brutally honest, and some of Swift’s best work yet.
Few environmental warrior films do more for the cause than Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Coral. The doc rounds up a team of scientists, photographers, and divers from around the world to draw attention to an environmental crisis we’ve never seen before — the vanishing of the world’s coral reefs. It works on two levels: By giving us an underwater adventure that attempts to shed light on the mysteries of the deep and highlighting a problem we can see with our own eyes. There’s no denying this one, no looking away, and Orlowski’s crew takes full advantage of that.
’90s crime nostalgia is alive and well in this pseudo-doc from director Kitty Green. Everyone knows how tiny pageant queen JonBenet Ramsey died — bludgeoned to death in the basement of her family home — so Green is less interested in rehashing the investigation into the little girl’s death and more interested in reenacting her life and final moments. To do this, she enlists actors from the area where the family lived, all hoping to play JonBenet or her parents in an upcoming production. Over the course of the film, these thespians are forced to confront the reality of the Ramsey family’s situation which in turn helps viewers to take a look under the surface of this tabloid trauma.
This timely doc gives us a look at the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal that rocked the world of gymnastics just two years ago from the point of view of reporters at the Indianapolis Star in charge of exposing it. A cover-up spanning two decades and involving higher-ups at both US Gymnastics and Michigan State where Nassar served as a physician and professor, this revealing investigation into a sinister culture that’s hidden behind the success of its top female athletes makes you rethink everything you thought about the Olympic dream.
his marks the first documentary to come from Netflix’s high-profile producing deal with Barack and Michelle Obama. The film takes a hard look at what happened to a General Motors plant in Ohio when it was closed down during the 2008 financial crisis, causing 2,000 workers to lose their jobs and destroying the small town of Moraine, Ohio. Things only get more complicated when a Chinese billionaire comes to town to transform the plant into a glass-making facility, promising thousands of new jobs before cultural divides threaten to derail the whole thing. It’s a fascinating view of consumerism, the American workforce, culture clashes, and how people can connect with each other despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
In 1992, Sandi Tan, along with her friends, made Singapore’s first indie film. She wrote and starred in it, a project called Shirkers, her two girlfriends produced and edited it, and a man named George Cardona directed. Cardona vanished one day, taking all the film materials with him, and propelling Tan on a decades-long journey to find the truth. It’s an engrossing study in betrayal and the dangers of collaboration, and it works mostly because Tan approaches it from a true-crime mystery angle, stripping it of any nostalgia that might tint her lense.
This gripping documentary confronts some hard truths about religion: its power to unite and its power to divide. Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady follow three members of New York’s notoriously insular Hasidic community as they try to break free from their religion while holding onto their families and sense of belonging.
Bryan Fogel’s Academy Award-winning documentary Icarus wasn’t supposed to involve Russians and doping scandal and cover-ups. Fortunately for Fogel, when the filmmaker decided to test his mettle by competing in one of the toughest cycling competitions in the world and chose to dope to help his chances, he ended up meeting Russian scientist, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of Russia’s national anti-doping laboratory. The result is this nearly 90-minute film that chronicles Russia’s extensive history with doping and Rodchenkov’s fight for his life after he blows the whistle on the country’s bad practices.
It seems as though we’re all now more aware than ever of how utterly screwed any of us can be in an instant if the system places us in its crosshairs for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and not behaving in a way perceived to be “normal” in the immediate aftermath. Recent true crime documentaries like The Staircase, Making a Murderer and Serial have certainly played a part in illuminating this frightening and unfortunate slice of reality. We can now add Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn’s Amanda Knox to that list. Prepare to be terrified and infuriated as the filmmakers detail how an overzealous Italian prosecutor and a global tabloid press thirsty for a sensational story joined forces to wreck a young woman’s life, largely for their own benefit. As Daily Mail journalist Nick Pisa freely admits on camera — without any trace of remorse or shame — about his work covering the case, “A murder always gets people going… And we have here this beautiful, picturesque hilltop town in the middle of Italy. It was a particularly gruesome murder; throat slit, semi-naked, blood everywhere. I mean, what more do you want in a story?”
Netflix delivers another worthy installment in the true crime series with this truly bizarre tale of a naive, church-going family and the man who preyed upon them. The Brobergs lived in a small town in Idaho with their three young daughters when they met Robert Berchtold, a seemingly-nice family man who doted on the girls, in particular, a 12-year-old Jan Broberg. Over time, Berchtold began grooming Jan and manipulating her parents, engaging in sexual acts with both her father and mother to cause a rift in the family before kidnapping her and brainwashing her into compliance. This saga went on for years and as strange as it sounds, nothing can prepare you for hearing the first-hand account of how this sociopath destroyed this loving family.
This documentary features never-before-seen footage of Jim Carrey in character as Andy Kaufman on the set of his 1999 film Man on the Moon. Directed by Chris Smith, the film shows Carrey, who was a celebrated comedic actor at the time, going method for his dramatic role as the brilliant on-stage comedian. There’s plenty of behind-the-scenes drama on this one, including Carrey’s backstage antics while shooting the movie, but what’s really interesting about the film is watching the actor’s thorough process and how he’s approached his colorful careers.
We live in a world connected with most of our interactions happening online. It’s great but, as this doc shows, it’s also terrifying. Terrifying because the way our data changes hands so quickly and indiscriminately — as long as companies shell out the cash for it — skirts all kinds of privacy laws and moral boundaries. This doc, told from the perspective of a journalist attempting to get his search data, the enormous fight with big tech to do it, and how his journey connects to the Cambridge Analytica scandal that may have influenced multiple elections in the States and abroad, is full of fascinating information and shocking tell-alls that could bring this whole internet empire down if people finally decide to start listening.
This political doc made its way from Sundance to Netflix and we couldn’t think of a better time to watch it than leading up to the 2020 election. It follows the grassroots campaign of the right’s favorite punching bag, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, showcasing her charisma and approachability while also diving into more intimate parts of her life, like her relationship with her late father. It’s a feel-good story from Capitol Hill and really, we need more of that.
The film that turned the tide of public opinion on Sea World and convinced Pixar to change the ending of Finding Dory, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s animal rights muckraker is more than just 83 minutes of theme=park shaming. In telling the story of Tillikum, the psychologically damaged orca who spent his life in captivity and was involved in the deaths of three people, the movie is an elegy for the freedoms that marine creatures like him were once able to enjoy. Is there an ethical way to view creatures like Tillikum up close and personal, and if so, should we trust a private company to deliver it to us?
Clocking in at 24 minutes, the Oscar-nominated Extremis really would only work as a short, as its subject matter is almost unbearably heavy. Following terminal patients, their families, and their doctors, the tearjerker zeros in on the decision that many people are forced to make: whether to end a life or keep struggling to hold on. Netflix’s first foray into short documentary, it’s raw insight that can be rough for anyone who has been in similar shoes or spent any time facing dire choices in a hospital.
The alternately revolutionary and dispiriting saga of a combative, unapologetic and astoundingly gifted soul singer, Liz Garbus’s doc is a powerful rendering of the struggles Nina Simone faced throughout her career: the ways she became trapped in downward spirals, first of spousal abuse and then of bipolar disorder; and of her desperate, all-consuming urge to affect change on the country during the Civil Rights era. What happened? Watch for yourself.
We’re not sure why watching human beings dangling thousands of feet in the air with no safety net or cable cord to tether them to Earth is so irresistible, but it is, and this doc about free climber Tommy Caldwell and climbing partner Kevin Jorgeson might be Netflix’s most bingeable adventure flick. The two men attempt to scale the impossible 3000ft Dawn Wall of El Capitan, the Everest for free climbers, and if you can stomach over an hour of near-fatal slips, trips, and falls, this is the doc for you.
Warning: Netflix’s The Bleeding Edge will seriously piss you off. It might also make you swear off doctors for the rest of your life. The film is a deep dive into the medical device industry and the dangers that lurk there for unassuming patients. Like the pharmaceutical industry, there are few laws regulating the creation and implementation of medical devices — think everything from birth control to orthopedic instruments — and the doc shows how this is negatively affecting millions of Americans every year from the women unknowingly sterilized by an IUD device to a doctor whose own ortho-device slowly poisoned him. It’s a frustrating watch, but a necessary one.
Kanye West himself once joked about his tendency to blow up when he doesn’t receive the recognition he deserves. On his Late Registration song “Diamonds,” he humblebragged that he “complains about what he is owed / And throws a tantrum like he is three years old,” but concluded, “You gotta love it though — somebody still speaks from his soul.”
That tendency — though largely derided and meme-d into the ground by social media — is a big part of why he’s still around. Long after his records stopped reaching No. 1 on the Billboard charts and he alienated many of his top collaborators (not to mention, a significant chunk of his fan base), his refusal to accept “no” for an answer ensured that he remains at the forefront of pop culture.
However, with only a handful of musical releases in the last few years, it isn’t his beats or his rhymes keeping him there. Instead, it’s another thing a segment of social media mocked him for — his fashion and sneaker designs. His versatility has proved to be the key to his longevity, and now, he’s the one laughing all the way to the bank.
All the way back in 2004, when The College Dropout took radio and MTV by storm, Kanye’s interest in fashion was both evident and adamant. He insisted that he’d be one of the top designers in fashion, making style choices that were considered risqué at the time. When jerseys were big, he wore pink polos and blazers with jeans. When hip-hop buttoned up, he went full-on luxury, and then, retro.
I used to love Kanye, I used to love Kanye. I even had the pink Polo, I thought I was Kanye… pic.twitter.com/N9E0PdjoMp
Every time he made one of these dramatic, sartorial left turns, hip-hop followed him, usually pretty quickly and enthusiastically. So, it makes sense he believed he could take these trendsetting proclivities and carve out a second career for himself in the design world. After all, at the time, it was also something of a rap rite of passage to drop a clothing line; 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, Eminem, Eve, Jay-Z, Nelly, Pharrell, and T.I. had all done so.
However, Kanye’s inborn stubbornness wouldn’t let him just do a clothing line — although he did try one, Pastelle, that never quite got off the ground. Instead, he insisted on applying to internships at Louis Vuitton and Raf Simons, working his way up from the bottom, and earning his credentials in that world.
Although he was mostly rejected early on, that roiling intellectual curiosity pushed him to also try his hand in sneaker design. Partnering with Nike in 2009 for the Nike Air Yeezy, he released one of the most coveted shoes in the history of sneakers, Nike’s first non-athlete signature, and a turning point in hypebeast culture. However, in typical Kanye fashion — pun 100 percent intended — he wanted more creative control and moved on after a second iteration that was possibly even more popular than the first.
Just a few years later, he took the creative experience he’d acquired at Nike and switched to Adidas, where he released the Yeezy Boost line. He also partnered with Louis Vuitton, where he “learned to design woman’s shoes for 2 years” by apparently sneaking into the Giuseppe Zanotti factory.
He eventually did get that internship, as well, putting in a few months at Fendi and deciding that, well, it really wasn’t for him. That’s okay though — despite his interest in high fashion, he was flexible about his opportunities. The footwear deals also served as his “in” for the ready-to-wear game as well, with each “Season” of his Yeezy brand bringing another wave of hype for stripped-down, luxury garments — garments that eventually helped usher in today’s athleisure dominance.
Eventually, all this versatility led to a ten-year deal with Gap last year, where he’ll have his own clothing line, Yeezy Gap, and offer “modern, elevated basics for men, women, and kids at accessible price points.” The deal will allow Ye the flexibility of selling both high and low, while his Yeezy deal makes him one of the most recognizable names in footwear — and one of the most lucrative, with Bloomberg reporting a $3 billion valuation for Yeezy last year.
Kanye’s versatility has always been the number-one attribute driving his success. When he could have maxed out as a producer, he became a rapper. When his tastes changed, he went bigger with the sound, then brought in collaborators from all over the music world. Rather than being content with his musical stardom, he pursued even more of his passions — fashion, sneakers, design — to ensure that his brand could never be limited to just one thing or subject to the ever-changing tastes of just one kind of art.
You can’t be all things to all people — something Ye hopefully learned from his disastrous political attempt last year — but you can always make sure to expand your interests so you never get stuck in one box. Ye refuses to let himself become stagnant, and that’s why — hate him or love him — he’s probably here to stay.
An awesome side effect of being successful and popular is that once you reach a certain level of fame, you can leverage your social media following for serious income opportunities. For example, it was reported in 2019 that Kim Kardashian earned $1 million per branded Instagram post, while the same year, Kylie Jenner was apparently raking in $1.2 million per post. That seems like an easy way to make a ton of money, and today, it appears Lil Wayne shared a sponsored post of his own while putting in as lil effort as possible.
This morning, at 8 a.m. PT on the dot, Wayne tweeted, “Sourdough @BurgerKing #AD.”
And here’s a screenshot of the tweet in case this work of art gets taken down:
@LilTunechi/Twitter
Back in 2018, Burger King introduced the Sourdough King sandwich, which was only available for a limited time. Today, it was reported that the sandwich is making a return in a variety of iterations, but just until April 19. Wayne conveyed none of this information, which is presumably what his ad was meant to be about. Based on his tweet and without that context, one could infer that the rapper was trying to start a conversation about bread with the burger chain and Anthony Davis, or perhaps he was demanding that BK “ad” sourdough bread to their menu.
Criticism aside, while Wayne’s ability to get his point across could be questioned here, we probably wouldn’t be talking about Burger King right now if Wayne had tweeted a more conventional ad. It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, so congrats to Wayne for being a genius marketer.
Jay-Z has sold half his Armand de Brignac champagne brand — aka Ace Of Spades — to LVMH’s Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, according to The Wall Street Journal. LVMH bought a 50% stake in the emerging brand to help grow Armand de Brignac with the help of LVMH’s global distribution network but no specific figures were given in the report.
Jay told The Wall Street Journal that his end of the move was motivated by the growth of his brand past the expectations and expertise it already had. “We were working really hard to maintain a brand that was growing faster than the staff we had and bigger than some of the expertise we had,” he said. “We’d been in this 15 years, not a hundred.”
He also noted that while global champagne sales are experiencing a downturn due to the pandemic, the timing is better now that luxury brands have become more comfortable working with artists whose roots are in hip-hop. The story specifically cites Rihanna’s Fenty brands with LVMH, which has plans to expand her Savage X Fenty line despite closing their joint luxury fashion house, and Gucci Mane, who recently worked with his namesake brand. As Jay said, “People have come to accept that these two worlds are a natural fit. In the beginning, it wasn’t a natural fit.”
Jay invested in Armand de Brignac in 2006 after an executive at Cristal’s parent company wondered whether the brand was being harmed by constant name-checking in hip-hop. It didn’t take long for hip-hop to turn on Cristal, and Jay eventually bought out his partners in 2014. Now, LVMH hopes that the association with hip-hop will provide a cool factor that’ll bring new consumers to the market and grow the segment as the market recovers.
pic.twitter.com/qkYhFAw5jp
(@RapAllStars) March 15, 2021
