Lightning in a bottle: How Jay-Z and Diddy became this century’s greatest booze barons

On the 18th February 2018, a waitress at a Manhattan nightclub posted a photo of a credit card receipt on her Snapchat feed. The bill in question was the last dispatch from a night of revelry between a few close friends and colleagues — an impulsive, celebratory jaunt that had seen them zig-zag across Manhattan, shuttling between hyper-fashionable sharing plate joints, Midtown power restaurants and fashion set Mezcalerias in a motorcade of blacked out saloons. $13,000 at Zuma. $9,000 at Made in Mexico. And finally, at Playroom — a neon-lit hip hop club uptown on 10th Avenue — a casual $91,135.00 (tip included).

The picture went viral. Not because of the exorbitant sum, however — but because of the man who paid it. The bill had been signed off, it soon emerged, by Jay-Z, who was out that evening celebrating his friend and business confidante Juan ‘OG’ Perez’s 50th birthday (Perez is the president of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports company). But more interesting than the lavish spending, or the half-century milestone, or the rapper’s identity, were the itemised contents of the bill — 40 bottles of something called Ace of Spades Gold, bought at a price of $1,200 a pop. If you want to know how the alcohol market operates at its highest reaches in 2020, this little document should furnish you with some answers.

The message that evening was clear. Champagne, for centuries the preserve of the dauphin and the banker, had now officially become the plaything of the self-made hustler. But as the sole owner of the brand behind the bottles on his lengthy tab, Jay-Z wasn’t simply flaunting his wealth — he was inflating it. As the leaked bill spread around the world, the rap mogul once again flexed the ingenious mechanism that had come to characterise his business success: invest in a distinctive brand, give it free publicity in your songs and music videos, integrate it seamlessly into your everyday life (perhaps by buying it back from yourself and sharing it around an Uptown Manhattan club) — and then sit back and watch as everyone else does the same. In that moment, popping bottles had stopped becoming simply good fun — it was now good business, too.

P Diddy’s Ciroc laid the blueprint, in many ways, for Jay-Z’s later successe

Jay-Z has never been afraid of flashing his wealth. The rapper, business man and cultural titan has rightly celebrated his journey from the Marcy projects to CEO at every rung of the ladder. Each bauble of success gets a shout out in good time — Jay Z’s lyric sheets are punctuated with Audemars Piguet watches, Tom Ford suits and Rothko paintings. On 2013 track Picasso, Baby, in fact, the rapper sketches his plans for world-domination via the artwork on his walls:

Oh what a feeling, f**k it I want a billion, Jeff Koons balloons, I just wanna blow up, Condos in my condos, I wanna row of, Christie’s with my missy, live at the MoMA

Six years later, at the age of 49, Jay-Z achieved his dream, officially becoming a bona fide billionaire last year. He is the first hip hop artist to do so, and, perhaps more significantly, only the fifth black billionaire in the US. With 14 number one albums, 22 Grammy awards, real estate from Los Angeles to Tribeca, stakes in everything from Uber to D’Ussé cognac, and ownership of record label Roc Nation and streaming service Tidal, it’s long been clear that rap music forms just one aspect of Sean Carter’s portfolio.

But perhaps one of his most savvy investments is Armand de Brignac — the champagne brand of which Jay-Z became a 100% owner in 2014 and which, provided you don’t buy it in Uptown Manhattan nightspots, usually sells for about $300 a bottle. Dubbed ‘Ace of Spades’ after its distinctive bottle design, Jay-Z claimed on Meek Mill’s song What’s Free that the company was worth half a billion dollars. Forbes, on the other hand, estimated the champagne’s worth at $310 million — still making it the rapper’s most significant asset. (“Cash and investments” makes up the second largest slice at $220 million.)

"Champagne, for centuries the preserve of the dauphin and the banker, had officially become the plaything of the self-made hustler."

What’s better than one billionaire? Two, of course. The race to become hip hop’s first billionaire has long been tightly contested between Jay-Z, P-Diddy and Dr Dre. And while we’d never want to forget about Dre — with his N.W.A legacy, stake in Beats headphones and producing career driving his fortunes — Diddy looks next in line to join Jay-Z on the throne.

In fact, until recently, Forbes touted Diddy as the most likely to hit the milestone first, citing his ownership of clothing lines Sean John and Enyce, marketing firm Blue Flame and record label Bad Boy. Like Jay-Z, however, Diddy’s most valuable assets by far lie in alcohol, in his case Cîroc vodka — a company now valued at almost a billion dollars itself. Should Diddy sell his shares in the spirit, he’d comfortably join the exulted Three Comma Club. Unexpected set-backs aside, his profits from the vodka brand should soon see him up his reported $820 million worth.

So, is Dre (estimated to be worth $800 million) just missing a drinks brand to cement his own claim to billionaire status? And what, exactly, is it about their liquid assets that has changed the fortunes of Jay-Z and Diddy so dramatically?

In Three Kings, journalist Zack O’Malley traces hip-hop’s relationship with alcohol back to the early 1990s and malt liquor St. Ides, which employed rappers such as Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and the Wu-Tang Clan to record commercials for the brand. “Given hip-hop’s success marketing soft drinks like Sprite, alcoholic beverages were a logical next step,” writes O’Malley.

Rap’s love affair with alcohol intensified and developed throughout the decade. The early obsession with malt liquor soon gave way for a love of cognac, most notably Hennessy (which remains, as it happens, the second most mentioned alcohol brand in all of music, after Jack Daniels). But as the arms race of spending and sophistication escalated in the “shiny suits” era of the mid nineties, it was champagne that came to be the true status symbol of the genre. “The real guys got champagne,” rapper Anthony ‘AZ’n Cruz told First We Feast magazine in 2014. Hip hop producer Killer Mike agrees: “The champagne aesthetic has always been a players’ aesthetic,” he says. “The highest thing you could possibly be 25 years ago was a player.”

Dom Perignon was the early favourite in the game, with its distinctive bottle shape, black foil top and golden crest label (not to mention its hefty price point). But DP soon gave way to Moët & Chandon, thanks to the vocal advocacy of perhaps the two biggest names of the era: Nas and the Notorious B.I.G. When champagne references in rap music peaked in 1999, it was Moët that sat comfortably at the top of the chart, according to an aggregation of rap lyrics by MIT. But the brand’s keenest advocates were still, at this point, little more than consumers name-checking an aloof and ancient institution to which they had no official affiliation — let alone a chance of reaping the benefits of their publicity. They were vocal fans, not boardroom insiders.

"The champagne aesthetic has always been a players’ aesthetic. The highest thing you could possibly be 25 years ago was a player."

Jay-Z was the first to change that dynamic. The rapper acquired the US distribution rights for a Scotland-based vodka called Armadale back in 2002, and began promoting the drink in the most obvious way available to him — a few name checks in his songs. But, by 2003, the relationship was done and dusted. Three years later, in the 2006 video for Show Me What You Got, Jay-Z is seen, for the first time, brandishing a bottle of Armand de Brignac – a brand produced by a French company called Champagne Cattier. With his involvement in the brand likely developing behind closed doors, Jay-Z made it official in 2014 when he announced he had bought out the importer’s interest in Armand de Brignac. Headlines immediately announced that the rapper was so wealthy that had bought his favourite champagne — the ultimate endorsement, and a boon of free publicity.

The partnership was also evidence of a new marketing philosophy for the rapper — the power of the esoteric over the mainstream. As O’Malley Greenburg puts it: “I’m so rich that you’ve never even heard of the products I consume”. Richard Mille name-dropped instead of Rolex; Pagani Zonda over Rolls-Royce. Armand de Brignac not Moët & Chandon.

The brand soon became popular with critics, too. In 2010, Armand de Brignac beat Cristal and Dom Pérignon in a blind tasting by Fine Champagne magazine. Ace of Spades now had the winemaking rigour, apparently, to match its eye-grabbing aesthetics.

A crucial development in Jay-Z’s ascension to billionaire status was his and Beyonce’s support of presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2012. During the campaign the pair threw their weight behind the candidate, including hosting a fundraising dinner featuring a centrepiece made out of 350 bottles of Armand de Brignac. Obama returned the favour, referencing Jay-Z’s Dirt Off Your Shoulder in perhaps the coolest campaign appearance ever. With Obama taking his place in the White House, Jay-Z began not only rubbing shoulders with the president, but a whole roster of billionaires who would share their knowledge and inspire him to promote his vision.

Diddy, too, was a key supporter of Obama, launching his own blog and, crucially, dubbing himself ‘Cîroc Obama’, a move which tied his burgeoning interest in the vodka brand to the powerful political movement sweeping the USA. At that point a struggling brand with few big-name ambassadors, neither Cîroc nor Diddy had anything to lose in the partnership, with Diddy securing a 50% profit agreement. To ensure his dividends were worth bragging about, Diddy included bottles of Cîroc on his Instagram feed, which regularly showed him travelling by private jet, hanging out with models, and driving sports cars. He even christened Ciroc the “official vodka of New Year’s Eve”. In short, he sold Cîroc as part of — and perhaps even the secret to — this next level lifestyle.

“His lifestyle translated into compelling wealth porn in the visually driven social media world — and he made Cîroc an integral part of his image,” explains O’Malley.

“The excitement in consuming these beverages is that for the consumer, one is not simply buying or drinking some alcohol, they are borrowing a bit of the rappers’ world,” adds Stephanie Melodia, marketing guru and director of London-based Bloom. “Jay-Z and P Diddy are at the top of their game, seemingly successful in every aspect of their lives — financially, romantically, culturally — and not afraid to show it. We can’t all party on a yacht off the south of France surrounded by glamorous people and dripping in diamonds, but we can buy into a bit of that life.”

"One is not simply buying or drinking some alcohol, they are borrowing a bit of the rappers’ world."

The strategy paid off. In its first year with Diddy on board, Cîroc moved 250,000 cases, a 150% increase over the previous year. Diddy took an active drive in the brand too, pushing for more flavoured varieties — a decision that saw the brand’s sales double to 800,000 cases in 2010. Another genius move was in stressing the perceived provenance by the brand. Ciroc had long been made from traditional wine-making grapes rather than the usual potatoes or grain — a fact Diddy was keen to bring to the fore. And while these base material had no real effect on the quality or taste of the liquid, the promotion of the vodka’s vinous roots did lend an air of artisan craft to the liquor. By 2014, Ciroc had become Diddy’s largest income stream.

“[In both cases] the product almost immediately became part of their identity, rather than an extension of it,” opines Richard Michie, CEO of Leeds-based marketing strategists The Marketing Optimist. As the brands became synonymous with Diddy and Jay-Z, Michie argues that both brands were able not only to capitalise on the rappers’ audiences to see an immediate boost in sales, but could also skip the now-traditional stage of paying external influencers to promote the product.

But simply lending your name to a spirit rarely equals sales. In Jay-Z and Diddy’s case, the rappers helped build the brand personally and with the alacrity of all vested interests (Diddy even reportedly going so far as to petition bartenders in trendy New York bars to display bottles of Cîroc higher up on the shelves). Jay-Z and Diddy’s success was met with a whole wave of copycat endeavours, including Ludacris’ Conjure cognac in 2010, Pharrell partnering with Qream in 2011, and Timbaland releasing sparkling spirit LeSUTRA in 2012. Seven years later, only LeSUTRA still exists, and its association with its hip-hop figurehead has long since dissipated.

The reason why the stars aligned for Jay-Z and Diddy and not other artists is likely due to loyal fanbases, the perfect positioning of their drinks as lifestyle necessities, and both men taking an active and committed role in the development of their products over a period of years. With two of the biggest names in hip-hop culture — and business — attached, each drink seems retrospectively destined to succeed. “After all, who’s really going to compete with Jay-Z or P-Diddy?” asks Michie.

Jay-Z’s investment nous has put him in good company

The support of other hip-hop artists cannot be underestimated in either case. In his 2012 ode to extravagance, Goldie, Harlem rapper A$AP Rocky and the late A$AP Yams are seen flashing bottles of Armand de Brignac. That rappers choose to shout out certain brands, financial incentives aside, is evidence that owning a drinks brand — like owning your own record label or your own sports team — has become one of the principle exemplifiers of business success.

The impact extends much further than the United States, too. Hyphen is a British-Asian rapper who celebrates Jay-Z’s rags to riches story. “In a country with so many issues with race-based inequality, it’s remarkable that these two could embody the ‘American dream’ that wasn’t designed for them.”

Apex Zero is a West-London rapper, and an editor of I am Hip Hop Magazine, the UK’s biggest independent hip-hop publication. He agrees that Jay-Z’s billionaire status (and Diddy’s soon-to-be-confirmed status) is not only a success within the capitalist system, but a success for black culture across the globe:

“It means there are two more black billionaires in the world. From a socio-economic standpoint it represents a degree of ‘progress’. The impact that Jay-Z especially has made on young entrepreneurs around the world is unquestionable… that hustler mentality brought to the boardroom, that now has hip-hop entrepreneurs around the world in greater control of their art, assets, careers, lives and direction… [Jay-Z] represents a role model and goal to strive towards for all those born in a similar situation.”

"It’s remarkable that these two could embody the ‘American dream’ that wasn’t designed for them.”

Swizz Beatz, the producer behind some of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s biggest hits, offers a philosophical take on Jay-Z’s success. Speaking to Forbes, he explained that Jay-Z’s billionaire status is “Bigger than hip-hop… It’s the blueprint for our culture. A guy that looks like us, sounds like us, loves us, made it to something that we always felt that was above us.”

Jay-Z and Diddy’s success has transcended hip-hop, too, and begun to influence the very drinks industry the rappers fought so hard to become part of. With his emphasis on Ciroc’s vinous origins, Diddy changed the conversation around vodka significantly — less parties, more provenance. It’s a huge part of the reason that, in 2013, competitors Grey Goose launched a platform to focus on the artisanal use of Gensac spring water and Picardy winter wheat in its vodka, and why, in 2017, Polish vodka Belvedere launched a range of single-estate vodkas focusing on terroir.

In his promotion of Armand de Brignac, meanwhile, Jay-Z anticipated a trend in product design that has come to dominate the lifestyle sector in recent years — Instragrammability. Ace of Spades’ glitzy, social-friendly gold packaging made it a perfect competitor in this new economy of envy. You can spot a bottle of Aces even as you scroll briskly past it in an endless feed. The same can’t be said for Bollinger and Moet & Chandon, for example, who have stuck to heritage-inspired motifs in their packaging. Each has an appeal, of course, but Armand de Brignac chimes perfectly with its lucrative target audience — the kind of people, in fact, who will happily spend $1,200 on a bottle in a Manhattan club for a 50th birthday, so long as they feel the world might be watching.

"It’s the blueprint for our culture. A guy that looks like us, sounds like us, loves us, made it to something that we always felt that was above us."

Having reached billionaire status, Jay-Z would be forgiven for winding things down a little. But of course he won’t. Instead, he’s just taken an official interest in California-based marijuana company Caliva, stepping foot into a trillion dollar industry with huge potential for growth, especially considering it is in the process of being legalised across several US states.

Jay-Z will never stop investing for the same reason he didn’t stop making music after Reasonable Doubt. Or The Black Album. Or The Blueprint. Like Diddy, he has more to offer, more to strive towards, more to explore. And, like Diddy, it’s the enthusiasm Jay-Z displays for each endeavour that often (Tidal aside) wins over customers. There’s very little sense of a cash-grab where either artist is involved, but instead a genuine passion for the products they back, which translates into an unmatchable level of trust between them and their consumers.

From a marketing perspective, Stephanie Melodia believes that, while Jay-Z and Diddy’s success in the drinks sphere is sensational, the key in both cases comes down to each rapper having the courage to believe in their vision. “These guys haven’t broken the mould,” Melodia says. “What they have done differently is unashamedly be themselves. Proud of who they are, their stories, their success and their values – boldly standing up for what they believe in.”

Looking for something more affordable? These are the best own-label champagnes…

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