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How about a little wholesome content to cap off the holidays?
Legendary emcee Jadakiss, of The Lox, is in his entrepreneurial bag and he has joined forces with his own father and son to launch his new product—Kiss Café, a new coffee brand. Kiss, whose real name is Jason Phillips, isn’t just showing us that Hip-Hop is far from his only money-maker, he’s giving us a crash course in Black men building generational wealth and keeping it all in the family.
From Insider:
It’s made up of the rap icon, his son Jaewon Phillips and his father, Bob Phillips. The venture is an extension of all three men, respectively, who all have grown a passion for coffee throughout their lives.
Packaged in a sleek matte-black exterior Kiss Café’s “Beijo” blend, available online, is sourced from South and Central America, said Bob, 69, who has been in the coffee business for more than 40 years.
And in the spirit of hip-hop bravado, Bob claims those places have the “best coffee in the world.”
“We want to share the love,” Bob told Insider. “There’s a lot of love and a lot of hard work that went into developing this blend.”
While Kiss is apparently a coffee connoisseur, he says his product isn’t for people who think coffee is only coffee if the gourmet gods of caffeine christened it so they can drink it from their Gucci mugs with their pinkies sticking out. (OK, he didn’t say all that, but y’all know how some coffee drinkers are about their little bougie blends.)
“It is not for the coffee snobs, as my dad likes to say,” Jadakiss said. “It’s for the everyday coffee drinkers.”
Kiss also noted that he’s not out here making designer coffee for people with plenty of disposable income to spend on their daily caffeine needs. The 12-ounce bag costs only $14.99 so even people on a tight budget aren’t breaking their wallets to get their hands on it.
“We could have put it in Bergdorf Goodman and Saks and Neiman’s, but we wanted it to be in a price range where the average working person can afford it,” he said.
“Everybody needs a cup of Joe in the morning. It’s a good fat burner. It’s a good price,” Jaewon added. “It’s for the family. It’s for the love of coffee.”
It’s also worth mentioning that Kiss’ father isn’t new to the coffee business.
More from Insider:
The patriarch’s experience in the coffee business traces back four decades, he said, and has been vital in supporting his family since before Jadakiss was born.
Bob has also been chief of Caturra Corp, an importing and trading firm specializing in green coffee, since the late 1990s. Kiss Café is the natural progression of his hard work and exemplifies him “passing the torch” to help his offspring build generational wealth.
“We’re talking about generational knowledge here. [Kiss Café] is a way of passing on the knowledge that I have and the passion that I have for the product,” he said. “I think it’s every parent’s dream to have their kids follow them.”
So, Bob represents experience and the backbone of the new family venture and Kiss represents the current face of the business, but the family said it will be Kiss’ son who represents the company’s future. The 26-year-old Clark Atlanta University alumn says he started working with his grandfather’s coffee company in 2018 and that the experience he gained there helped him to elevate Kiss Café through his knowledge of the industry, branding and social media. And since the new company launched earlier this year, orders for the new coffee product have been pouring in. (Pun absolutely intended.)
“The first week, we were getting hundreds daily,” Jaewon recalled. “It was a lot, a little overwhelming, but once we got it under control and got a system going, it was perfectly fine.”
And hopefully, the family continues to see success and serve as an example of Black families building and maintaining generational wealth. You love to see it.
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