side-hustles-7-ridiculous-hip-hop-product-endorsements

Side Hustles: 7 of Hip Hop’s Most Ridiculous Product Endorsements & Part-time Gigs

Written by Tyler Hakes. Published: Wednesday, November 24, 2010.

3. Lupe Fiasco & His Clothing

Lupe Fiasco is a well-known rapper and producer. He released his own line of clothing via his website, with prices that are both astounding and insane. $60 for a plain, white t-shirt? Na, Lupe, I'll pass, brother.Now a lot of you may be wondering why I would feature Lupe’s clothing line as a side hustle; plenty of rappers sell clothes as a good way to supplement their rap careers, right? Correct. However, how many of those rappers charge $60 for a white t-shirt? Yeah, that’s no typo, amongst the other cheap things on the site is a $365 cardigan sweater, and a $225 book bag.

C’mon Lupe, unless the clothes are plated with gold and somehow wash themselves — or, better yet, never get dirty, NO sweater is worth $400. In fact, if you are thinking of buying something from his clothing line, I’m going to open up a Lupe Fiasco clothing fund where you can give me the money you were going to spend on his site. Because I am pretty sure I can think of a 100 ways to spend that money better than you can.

2. Busta Rhymes and Courvoisier

Busta Rhymes is a famous rapper. He made a song endorsing the top-shelf cognac, Courvoisier. Rumors have cirulated that his endorsement of said product was actually savvy marketing more than a true affinity for the liquor.Yeah, MCs endorsing their favorite liquor isn’t all that ridiculous. In fact, it’s pretty much mainstay in today’s business-driven world, but Busta’s 2001 track, “Pass the Courvoisier”, has some interesting history. First of all, the official word is that this track was just an independent decision — Busta loves this specific brand of cognac and decided to write a song about his homies throwing him the bottle.

But, there are some questionable footnotes to the tale. For one, immediately after dropping the song, the company that makes Courvoisier saw a massive, double-digit uptick in U.S. sales. Secondly, they rushed in to sign a public deal for Busta to further-promote the brand right after the sales started pouring in.Third, and most interesting, Def Jam-owner, Russell Simmons’ promotion company, dRush, inked a deal with the alcohol brand to expand their presence into urban markets just a few months before the track hit the airwaves.

Savvy behind-the-scenes marketing? Or, just a thoughtful ode to one rapper’s most-endeared alcoholic beverage? We may never know for sure.

1. Snoop Dogg & Everything

Snoop Dogg is a legendary west-coast rapper. Snoop D-O-Double-G wins the crown for the most ridiculous product endorsement. He's used his place atop hip hop to hock anything and everything he can get his hands on, including a brand of actual HOT DOGS that bare his namesake.If there were some type of reward for having the most RIDICULOUS types of side hustles, Snoop Dogg would wear the crown. From heavily promoting the Chrysler 300 to extending his hand to Rihanna and Chris Brown for some therapy (I know, I know…) and endorsing a Snoop Dogg masks to making his own remix to Snoopy, the Charlie Brown dog, this has to be his most ridiculous side hustle yet.

Snoop signed a contract with Platinum One Media to launch a line of wieners (that is, actual hot dogs) with help from business partners, Franco Petrucci and Jeff Earp. When asked why Snoop chose hot dogs (seriously, out of all the products to endorse) he replied, “There aren’t any celebrity hot dogs out there. Who’s the competition? Ball Park?”

Smart thinking, Snoop. The hot dog industry isn’t going to know what hit them.

Now what can you expect from these hot dogs? Snoop’s brother went on to describe them “Imagine a long, skinny hot dog just like Snoop.” Yeah, this product keeps sounding better and better.

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