“I don’t do anything without smoking weed. For sure if I’m about to write, or listen to beats, I always like to get in that extra creative mode. It sets the tone,” Chad Watson told us during a recent meetup in LA.
The up-and-coming LA-based rapper has been showing up everywhere in recent years, developing his style and honing himself as an artist.
In the past six months, Watson has dropped eight self-produced singles. He’s now working on a full-length album, something he says takes a lot more time and thought than the one-off jams he’s put out so far.
Watson regularly appears at cannabis-related events and has sponsor relationships with weed brands THC Design and Zeki Genetics, both based in Los Angeles.
He calls the two companies “my two families in the cannabis scene right now.”
Watson has been close with Zeki Genetics for a while, a company that’s currently behind Yung LB’s new Ice Kream dispensary. Zeki has strong connections to the legacy culture.
He plans to be at the Ice Kream dispensary opening event on June 18th, where he previously shot part of the video for his song “Bone.”
Bob Marley had it right 25 years ago. We just had to go through all that legally. Weed and music always went hand in hand.
Chad Watson
“They were the earliest people to really jump on board and support me,” Watson said. “I like what they’re doing.”
Watson’s relationship with the boutique brand THC Design might seem less obvious, but Watson says he found them to be on the same page.
“They’re new school and I like that they’re very hands on in their approach. They’re choosy about how they want to deal with dispensaries and relationships. And that’s how I am too,” Watson said.
“Once you find likeminded brands like that it makes it all easy.”
As sponsors, the brands send Watson to events to perform and keep him supplied with weed. He’s an OG smoker, into the heavy indicas that LA is known for, and finds a favorite in THC Design’s Crescendo strain.
He says he’s interested in eventually forming his own strand (ie., strain + brand) and is exploring options.
A trained musician since his youth, Watson is on the come up as an area rapper.
He says that weed and music complement each other.
“Kind of like music and fashion. You can’t really have one without the other,” Watson said.
He said that he started smoking in college, after having to shake off the stigma that was taught to him growing up. Now, weed is a part of his image. Being a musician, he says, it makes sense.
“Music, that culture, is about having a good time. And that’s usually the ultimate way to have a good time, sparking up,” Watson said.
“Bob Marley had it right 25 years ago. We just had to go through all that legally,” he said. “Weed and music always went hand in hand.”
