All Natural
Photo is Brendan Kennedy, CEO, Privateer Holdings, your major Canadian (medical) marijuana supplier
“My
father was the first entrepreneur in the family,” Rohan Marley, the sixth of
Bob Marley’s eleven children, said the other day. “He started his own record
label, his own restaurant. He knew that, in order to give something back to the
people, he had to create. You can’t be no philanthropist, no Warren Buffett,
unless you make something first.”
Rohan,
who is forty-two, is also an entrepreneur. He has a leadership role in several
of his family’s businesses, including House of Marley (headphones, speakers),
Zion Rootswear (T-shirts, onesies), and Marley Coffee. The family’s newest
venture, which will launch next year, is called Marley Natural. “It’s a particular
plant,” Rohan said, of the company’s inventory. “One that grows naturally next
to the mango tree, the mint, the paprika. The Hindu sages speak of it. The
rabbis speak of it.” It is marijuana.
Marley
Natural is a partnership between the Marley estate and Privateer Holdings, “a private equity firm shaping the future of the
legal cannabis industry.” (Privateer owns one of the largest providers of
medical marijuana in Canada.) In a video on MarleyNatural.com, a camera
rushes toward verdant mountains. “He advocates for the positive power of the
herb,” a voice-over says. Bob Marley, in archival footage, flips his
dreadlocks. The logo is a Lion of Judah between two green leaves.
Rohan,
who recently shaved his dreadlocks, wore a ruffled white shirt and a porkpie
hat. He sat in the company’s new office, on the Bowery. Around the table were
Brendan Kennedy, the C.E.O. of Privateer, and James Estime, Marley’s valet.
“Three Little Birds” played on a House of Marley stereo. “James, turn the music
down,” Rohan said. Estime, a burly man wearing a winter vest, picked up
Marley’s iPhone and lowered the volume.
Marley
grew up in Jamaica, and moved to the U.S. at the age of twelve. He was a star
linebacker at the University of Miami, even though he was shorter than most of
his teammates, who included Ray Lewis and Dwayne (the Rock) Johnson. (“Bob’s
boys, we’re not scared of tall mountains,” Marley said.) Later, he toured with
the Melody Makers, his siblings’ reggae band. “I was practicing to become a
drummer,” Marley said. “Unfortunately, at that time I was with a woman who
thought my drumming was shit. She killed my spirit to be a musician.” Her name
is Lauryn Hill. They are no longer together. In 1999, he bought a coffee
plantation in Jamaica.
Meanwhile, Kennedy got an M.B.A.
from Yale and worked for an affiliate of Silicon Valley Bank. “My job was to
study niche industries,” Kennedy said. “One day, I heard a pitch from a company
in the medical-cannabis space, and I went, ‘This is a forty-billion-dollar
market, and no one’s taking it seriously.’ ” He left the bank and started
Privateer.
“We’d
been approached by one million people about selling Bob Marley pipes, lighters,
you name it,” Marley said. The Marleys turned them all down, until Creative
Artists Agency, which represents the family, set up a meeting with Privateer.
“When I met this guy”—he gestured toward Kennedy—“I knew: This is the man.”
Kennedy shrugged appreciatively.
“We’re
looking at four to six botanical strains, at first,” Kennedy said.
“The
quality of the herb is very important to us,” Marley said. Marley Natural plans
to sell smokable cannabis in countries where it is legal—the Netherlands,
Uruguay—and, perhaps, in Colorado, Washington State, Oregon, and Alaska. “We’ll
also offer a line of topical creams,” Kennedy said.
A
Privateer employee interrupted with a bit of news: the Oxford English
Dictionary had just named “vape” the word of the year. A plan was formed: a
trip to a nearby vaping lounge, where e-cigarettes are sold and sampled. Marley
Natural plans to carry smoking accessories, and Kennedy believes in market
research.
“You guys
go,” Marley said. “It’s too cold for that shit.” Eventually, he was persuaded.
Estime helped him with his coat.
At the
Henley Vaporium, in Nolita, Marley sat at the “e-cig bar” and browsed a menu of
flavors—Psychotherapy, Stop and Frisk, Cereal Killa. Justin Haber, the
“vapologist” on duty, took apart an e-cigarette to show how it worked.
“Can you
smoke anything you want out of that?” Kennedy asked.
Haber
stiffened. “Hypothetically, if you had the proper—why are you asking?”
“Don’t
worry, brother,” Marley said. “We’re starting a company, selling the herb
aboveboard. Called Marley Natural. I’m one of Bob’s boys, you understand?”
Haber
arched his brows. “All legal?”
“Hundred
per cent,” Marley said.
“In that
case, fuck yeah,” Haber said. “A couple drops of hash oil in the tank, you’re
good to go. Just be careful—that shit hits you like a Mack truck to the face.”
Marley laughed. “Let me try that American Pie
flavor, brother,” he said.
