“It’s your boy ‘Kiss, you know I’m still a liquor and a weed child / Still got Branson on the speed dial” - Jadakiss, “Letter to B.I.G.” (2009)īranson Belchie-better known as Branson B.-may not be a household name like some of the New York emcees he ran with over the years, but any discussion of champagne and rap eventually winds its way back to the Harlem native and early graffiti pioneer. The Story of Branson B., Hip-Hop’s First Champagne Influencer Like many great hip-hop sagas, this one takes us back to Harlem, but spreads out to the backyards and clubs of Decatur, GA Los Angeles and beyond. From the breaking-dancing competitions of Wild Style to Jay Z’s gold-bottle coup, this is the story of champagne in hip-hop. Along the way, those glistening bottles became a symbol of the genre’s rapid ascent from fringe subculture to boardroom juggernaut-from up-and-coming emcees copying the Moët-sipping hustlers on the corner, to global superstars inking deals to own the same brands they made famous through their rhymes. To cast this affinity as mere bling-era excess misses far too much of the real story of how champagne found itself at the heart of hip-hop’s triumphs (and insecurities) for more than three decades. Please enable Javascript to watch this video The French are the O.G. influencers when it comes to champers (the centuries-old sparkling wine was originally designated for coronations in the Reims Cathedral), but many of us today learned about the drink through Illmatic cassettes and Yo! MTV Raps videos. Puff Daddy and Biggie taught us about Moët, Jay Z and Dame Dash showed us Cristal, and countless pop-culture tropes-including slang like popping bottles and sipping Cris’-were born out of the rap’s fascination with bubbly.
It’s a fitting coda to hip-hop’s long, indelible relationship with champagne-one that has evolved from aspirational, to self-consciously showy, to business-savvy.
Recently, Jay Z provided yet another when he purchased Armand de Brignac-better known as “Ace of Spades”-to become the first rapper to own a champagne label outright. The past decade has given us an endless stream of “you never thought that hip-hop would take it this far” moments-from winning Oscars to getting shout outs from the president, today’s emcees have a platform that pioneers like Melle Mel and Kurtis Blow never would have fathomed.
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