Styles P is the hardest and hardest working vegan MC we may ever know and his juice business is just scratching the surface of potential empire status. Considered an elder statesman at this point in his rap career, Styles has recorded and performed with a long list of legends in music, scoring hits and classics as lead artist, part of the legendary Lox, or as a featured artist, with songs like “All About the Benjamins,” “Good Times,” “We Gonna Make It,” “Money Power Respect,” “Honey (Bad Boy Remix),” and “Locked Up.” As seen on Uproxx’s Fresh Pair last year, the Ghost has almost a whiplash-inducing 1k credits in his discography.
With nothing to prove in music, Styles P has shifted some of his boundless energy towards the plant-based life he adopted 10 years ago and businesses that help spread that lifestyle to others in his community and beyond. Those businesses include Juice 2 Heal (recently rebranded from Juice For Life) – a juice franchise with several East Coast locations and Farmacy 4 Life – an online store stocked with wellness products and vitamins co-signed by Styles P and his wife Adjua.
We caught up with P over video, and scored a front-row seat to Styles’ home kitchen, as he cooked a meal for himself and went through his pantry of staples and treats. We learned about his favorite plant-based restaurants and snacks, his bond and plans with Michelin-starred chef Daniel Humm, and what’s next for Juice 2 Heal and Farmacy 4 Life – his duo of wellness-based businesses. Styles also candidly shared his feelings on Waffle House and soda, put us onto the Happy Cow app for plant-based folks that travel, and more importantly, where to find the tastiest vegan pizza.
What’s on your rider when it comes to food, snacks, and drinks?
Seaweed, almonds, water, coconut water, popcorn sometimes, fruit plate. Mainly healthy snacks to be honest with you. If it’s in a big city, I request a vegan meal from the local spot.
So when it comes to the water and the fruit and the different snacks, are there specific brands that it needs to be or is it just kind of whatever’s fresh and local?
I take mostly what’s fresh and local. I like Mountain Valley Water the best because it’s just simply water. And I like the coconut water – Harmless Harvest.
I like seaweed snacks. I like kale snacks. I like almonds. Sometimes I get almond butter, and peanut butter. I’m not really too picky because I don’t really like to eat before a show, to be honest with you. I like to snack but not eat and then I’ll take the plate with me after the show or I try to eat early. Bouncing around on stage with a full belly, it gets to you sometimes.
Are you more sweet or salty when it comes to snacking or is it kind of 50/50?
I’m like 50/50, but when you on the road, especially on the road, I like to stay away from sugar as much as possible. I try to not deal with sugar period. A ginger snack is cool.
I like dried fruit too – this is Solely (holds up package). I like a lot of dried fruits, almonds, cashews, and fruits. And a veggie plate, coconut water, and a sparkling water. I like sparkling water as well.
So when you’re traveling for shows, are you bringing your own snacks with you on the plane? What are you getting at the airport to bring on the plane with you?
Same exact thing. I get dried fruits, cashews, almonds. I like to really keep it simple. I like LesserEvil popcorn sometimes. I like chickpea chips also, so I’ll bring them with me. Hippeas. I prefer the tortilla chips more than anything. The Solely joints. If I do pack, it’s things like that. I’ll pack chickpeas, seaweed, dried fruit, almonds, or cashews.
So when you get to your destination, you get to the hotel, you’re already fully stocked or are you going to the local Whole Foods or health food store to get snacks?
I’m usually most likely going to get them, to be honest with you. I don’t like to pack a bunch of things. I like to travel light. I’ve been doing this hip-hop thing for a lot of years, so I do my best to travel as light as possible. But if it’s a road trip and I’m in a Sprinter, it really depends on how busy I am, going into the trip and how busy I am not, going into the trip. I’m pretty much a creature of habit when it comes to snacks.
I stick to the script on the road. One thing you don’t want to do on the road especially, is tamper with your stomach. So I like to make sure I’m eating things that I know is going to make me not fuck with my gut and things that I’m used to eating. So I try to stick to that script.
So you’re not touching the mini bar if there’s a mini bar at the hotel?
Yeah, I do. If it’s cashews there or almonds, I eat it.
I know you’ve been on this vegan journey for a decade now or more. Would you say that it’s gotten increasingly easier for to be vegan on the road?
For sure. 10 years ago it was the roughest that you can imagine. The past, I would say, five years it’s more convenient for a plant-based person, I would say. It depends what town you in too or what city you in.
I also use the HappyCow app a lot. So I’ll get somewhere, hit HappyCow and see what plant-based restaurants are in the area, what they’re serving. I got a certain thing, I look at HappyCow and then I go to Uber Eats, hit the vegan section and see which place has the best ratings and less processed vegan stuff.
Plant-based isn’t healthy as it was years ago due to the fact that it is so much more popular now and big companies are taking advantage of the fact that most people don’t know not to eat a bunch of processed foods. So with that being said, it gets a little fuzzy sometimes when it comes to even plant-based restaurants when you’re out of town.
I know it’s usually late a lot of times after hip-hop shows. Are you still going to the diner and the Waffle House spots or are you getting delivery at the hotel or room service or what’s your move?
Hell no. I’m not going to the diner and I’m not going to Waffle House. No way! Hopefully, I get the good food off the rider. If I’m in a certain place, I also like to make sure I got a smoothie or some fresh juices. I’m not going to no diners or no Waffle House. I actually, especially even at home if possible, I don’t like to go to restaurants where they even serve regular food to be honest with you.
It’s two things. If regular food’s there, there’s a likely chance that somebody was touching your food, touched the regular food, that’s a high chance. For me personally, plant-based is not just about the health aspect of it – it’s about the energy that you’re getting out of the food and putting in the food. So sometimes a person who doesn’t care about a plant-based meal or care that you’re plant-based and they’re not plant-based, they don’t really care. When I used to eat at certain places, I used to go and tell them I had allergies.
I used to say, “I’m allergic to this. If I eat it, I may die,” just to make sure that it is not a certain way. Because certain people don’t understand the whole meaning of plant-based and they’ll tell you something is safe for you to eat when it’s actually not. So I think that’s something you have to be diligent and be very careful with when you are on the road, even if you’re not plant-based.
Are there any cities or markets that you’re excited to get to because they have a plant-based spot that you really love that you’re ready to get back to?
I love the West Coast for their plant-based food. I believe West Coast was innovative as far as plant-based food many, many years before pretty much all the states. So whether it’s Los Angeles, the Bay, you know you’re going to get something really, really good to eat. Atlanta actually has good vegan restaurants now.
A lot of places actually have a few good vegan restaurants that you just have to do the homework and find out where they are, what they are, and then look up what people have actually said about them. I think that’s kind of important and people forget to do that a lot.
I’m not looking to get a fake burger or a fake hot dog. I’d rather get mushrooms, greens, kale, things of that nature where I know I’m going to be okay eating them.
Are there any spots across the country where you could be like, “When you’re in this place, you got to go to this place,” or anything like that?
I go to all of the Planta’s, wherever they at. So if I’m in LA I go to Planta. I mean, if I’m in Miami, I go to Planta, wherever there’s the Planta. The one restaurant I do eat at that’s not plant-based, but they always seem to accommodate me is Jean Georges. Jean Georges usually has nice plant-based options you can get.
What are you ordering at Planta’s? What’s your favorite dish there?
I get the mushrooms. I get greens. I get the salad. I get the cauliflower tots. I get the veggie dumplings.
What is Jean Georges cooking up for you?
Oh, I get the guac. I get the pea soup. I get the strawberry cucumber tomato salad. I get the chickpea guac. I get the sweet pea soup. I get the mushrooms. They’re pretty good with the mushrooms. So that’s my usual typical go-to when I’m at Jean Georges.
So as far as being into healthy snacks, I know sometimes not everybody’s on that level. Are there any things that you eat quite often that people give you the side eye about or think like, “Oh, how do you eat that?”
Seaweed I would say the most. Most people think seaweed’s crazy to eat. People don’t love seaweed. But most of the other snacks I eat are pretty typical and pretty normal. But I would say seaweed and then the chickpea chips.
Are there any snacks that are really popular right now, whether that’s kind of plant-based or otherwise that you see people eating, you’re like, “Oh, that’s gross. Why are people eating that?” It doesn’t have to be plant-based. It could be anything.
I don’t say gross, but it’s more so my health radar goes off when I see what people eat. I know for a fact soda is very horrible for you. A soda with a candy bar is even worse. A soda bar. Yeah, horrible. Now look how many grams of sugar that has.
Look at how many grams of sugar that has. Right? And then one day go get yourself a scale and look and put that many grams of sugar on the scale and think about your intake of sugar for the day. So I would say, not that I look at things like it’s nasty because I don’t. Before I was plant-based, I was what you would consider a foodie. I’ve been to most of the high-end restaurants across the world. I think I look more so at things from a health standpoint. Hot dogs I believe are totally horrible. Cheese I believe is totally, totally horrible. Anything with a bunch of sugar in it is totally horrible
If you look at a lot of our snacks in America, if you take time to look and then you take that same exact snack and you said you go look at it in Europe or somewhere else, the ingredients are so different. We have so many more ingredients and where are these ingredients coming from and what are they meant to do? Even when you look at what you’re drinking right now, why is there so many fucking ingredients? That scares the shit out of me, to be honest with you.
If you could be an ambassador for any existing food brand or snack brand or drink brand, and I know you have your own stuff going on, is there any that you would like, I would love to be the face or the spokesperson for x”?
That’s a great question. Never really thought about that. I like Harmless Harvest, the coconut water. I think they’re dope. I like Solely, the dried fruit snacks. I think everything I told you earlier is stuff I really like. I would say also Elmhurst Oat Milk. I believe their product is super fire, super dope. They make milk without a bunch of sugar in it. The unsweetened one is pretty cool. LesserEvil, I like their snacks too, and I like the name of the brand.
And then you growing up in Queens, are there any places today that you can say are great restaurants to check out, whether that’s vegan or otherwise?
Yeah, I like Seasoned Vegan a lot. Of course, Eleven Madison Park is super, super fire. Seasoned Vegan, Eleven Madison Park.
What are you ordering at those two places? Or what’s the one thing that people have to get?
Eleven Madison Park’s basically a Michelin star plant-based restaurant. When you get there, it’s kind of like anywhere from, I want to say 10 to fucking 16 courses. So you’re just sitting there getting served a bunch of great food. I feel that that’s more of an experience. It’s really a dining experience because it’s high-end. It’s cool. Chef Humm is really cool, really cares about his craft.
At Seasoned Vegan I get the burdock root. It’s imitating crawfish, but it’s actually burdock root and it’s really slamming.
Since you’re a New Yorker, what is the best vegan or tomato pie or best place to get pizza for somebody that’s on a plant-based diet?
Screamer’s Pizzeria – that’s another great plant-based spot. McLaren from Cuts & Slices makes a damn good vegan pie.
What was eating like growing up in your household, and what was one of the favorite things that your Mom would make?
Eating in my household growing up was pretty cool. It wasn’t plant-based of course, but everything. I think when I was coming up it was days of the week for certain meals. So steak, fried chicken, fried fish, spaghetti, mashed potatoes, all the regular shit that everybody else had. It was pretty cool. Coming up, I did make sure I ate vegetables a lot.
I’m 49, so in my era coming up, you always heard a apple a day keeps the doctor away, eat the veggies off your plate. But then getting into hip-hop and moving around a lot, you start eating a lot of fast food and you’re on the road a lot and you’re just consuming so much fast food that I remembered I had to incorporate fruits and veggies back in my lifestyle just to feel good about myself, to be honest with you.
You mentioned Chef Humm and Eleven Madison, what’s the story behind that relationship? Did you all meet just from you dining there and then it developed into creating products together? How did that all come about?
Just dining there, meeting with them and just having pretty much shared the same sort of vibe, same sort of principles and beliefs when it comes to eating and helping people. It’s just a vibe. I think a lot of people underestimate the common denominator that plant-based life brings. Plant-based lifestyle goes hand in hand with potheads. Like if you’re a pothead and you love weed, you see things out the box. So I’ve been cool with white boys, Latinos, Asians, the Africans, Haitians, Jamaicans, you can fucking be an alien and be a pothead, you’re going to get along.
You put a bunch of potheads together facts, the common denominator is they love pot and they get along. I believe that same common denominator happens with plant-based lifestyle. The plant connects you. So when you see somebody and they live the same lifestyle you live or they’re promoting what you promote, you’re kind of just connected on a different level, your energy is in line with each other.
Fair enough, but how did it come to, “All right, we’re going to make PB&J”? And then do you and Chef Humm have plans to make other products or have anything in development that’s going to be on the shelf?
Yeah, definitely so. That was a limited run with the PBJ and Eleven Madison Park. And that was just us as friends getting together saying, “How do we bring a plant-based product that people who live a high-end lifestyle would eat and then people who don’t live a high-end lifestyle would eat? What’s the common denominator? Plant-based food.” And PBJ was it. So I believe yes, in the future we’ll do something again or I will definitely be in line of making some plant-based products for sure.
What can we expect in the next year or couple years from what you’re doing in the juice brand and store lane? You’ve been running your juice brand for a while with success. Are you planning to expand more or what can you share about your future plans?
Well, definitely so. We’re also looking to get Just Juices in more households and move worldwide and be able to provide different juice cleanses, different detoxes for people and just for a way for people to be able to order from us. Or even when they walk in the store, to be able to leave with more juice than they would typically leave with. So that’s definitely our plan. There’s actually five Juices for Life locations.
We switched one to Juice 2 Heal and we may keep going with the others, but more so I’m just interested in having a juice brand where I could get cleanses and detoxes and have an online presence. So that’s what Juice 2 Heal is for is specifically for cleanses, the detox, and to have an online presence with people.
Farmacy for Life is another brand that you have. Are you planning to add more food and snack products to that offering or is it mainly just going to vitamins and supplements?
That’ll stay with vitamins and things of that nature, but I believe eventually with our Juice 2 Heal brand we will add other items or we’ll extend out and make something where we can have products for people to eat.
