Karim Butler, Founder and CEO of Gumbo Brands- Interview Series

“We give because we have, we have because we give. Therefore we will never lack because we give.” 

Karim Butler

Up to 70% of business startups fail within the first five years, the cannabis industry is not exempted from this grim statistic. For entrepreneurs from minority communities, making waves in the cannabis industry is even much harder. While the opportunity to succeed in the industry exists, historical injustices and inequalities in the system are bound to discourage black/ brown entrepreneurship. For example, the application process for a license in most states is bureaucratized and complex. It requires one to be business savvy to navigate. At the same time, most states will not give licenses to anyone with a prior conviction related to cannabis, even when it is a misdemeanor. Running a legal cannabis business is probably more technical than running mainstream businesses because of fluid laws and numerous and stringent regulations. Throw in the money problem. Cannabis is a capital intensive business to set up and accessing capital  from mainstream lenders is a sisyphean task especially for a startup without generational wealth to fall back on.  Hence a black person with no college education beating all these odds to set up a successful and legal cannabis business is a rarity and not the norm. This is the story of the founder and CEO Gumbo Brands, one of the most successful cannabis retail brands in the East Coast- Karim Butler aka Luka Brazi.

In this interview with My Cannabis, Luka narrates his debut into the cannabis industry, what keeps him going, and what Gumbo Brands is doing to give back to the black community. 

Tell us a bit about your growing up and how that contributed to you becoming a cannabis entrepreneur

My grandmother and grandfather were vendors in Harlem, the famous 125th street where you can set up a table and sell your merchandise. My grandmother sold dashiki and other merchandise that she hand-made at home. I used to go and help her set up every morning and this taught me how to work for myself and make my own. That instilled in me the desire to be a boss.

I always smoked growing up as a teenager so it was easy to merge the two passions.

Briefly introduce Gumbo brands and how the idea was conceived.

I wanted to educate people on the positives of cannabis and not the negatives of it. I have a friend who is paralyzed and is in constant severe pain. When he uses Gumbo products he is able to have a better day. I wanted to have my own cannabis company so I could teach my community how to use cannabis positively and the culture around cannabis. I also wanted to help young people get off opioids and use something natural which is cannabis. 

You have succeeded  at getting Gumbo to where it is today without having a college-level education, something that most have not been able to achieve. What made you the exception and not the norm?

I must admit that for me it has been about God, I’m not afraid to credit God for every success that we have achieved so far. I am a model and mentor for my community because I have succeeded even without having a high school diploma. 

Many blacks are being held back because they don’t believe in what they are doing. Along the way many people told me that I wasn’t going to be anything. But for me that was fuel to the fire. Many people I asked for help didn’t believe in me until they saw the brand take off and they were wanting to circle back.

You recently got into a partnership with Cookies, what has this meant for your brand? Is that the “biggest deal” that you have been able to bag so far?

The partnership with Cookies was significant for us because it put us right in the face of our consumers. Bruno, owner of Cookies, came to me and my wife and wanted us to be a part of the Cookie brand. We were so elated. This partnership was like magic for us and now we are in about 13 different stores.  Cookies gave us visibility in the legal and legitimate  market, and we’re thankful for that. 

About being the “biggest deal,” that’s not true, not in a million years. 

You know before I got into cannabis I was a furrier. I sold fur coats to all these celebs; Chris Brown, 50 Cents, Rihanna, Floyd Mayweather, Lil Wayne, all these big entertainers. It was all organic and I didn’t need to pay to get their attention because I had what they wanted. 

The biggest thing for us so far is our new potato chips called rap snacks which is going into Walmart (WMT ), Target, BJs, making our brand a household name. This has nothing to do with cannabis. Many people don’t do cannabis, but everyone eats potato chips. We also have our own radio station, one of the biggest in the world because it has 4 million listeners. It just gets bigger and better every single day. We thank Brunno for the opportunity he gave us nonetheless.

You are planning the biggest ever 420 event. Tell us more about this.

Yes, Gumbo Brands is planning a mega 420 concert and pop-up event in New York City. 

We will be having the legendary American rapper Moneybagg Yo in the house together with many other celebs such as Lola Brooke, Rich the Kid, Rakkim, and Jadakiss among others. We will not be selling flower at this event. All we want is to give back to the community and to create awareness about our brand by bringing all these celebs under one roof and letting the people know that this is happening courtesy of Gumbo Brands. We will be giving merchandise for awareness. It’s almost like a free concert. This is not about making money. 

You are easily identified as “the black power couple.” Why is this significant?

Alexis and I have been working together every single day for the last five years. All these black/ brown/ Latino kids can look up to us working together to build a big brand and they can know that it is possible to do this. On Christmas day we rented out a school in Harlem, 135th street, and gave out 2M worth of toys to children. We’ve been giving back to our community for the last 10 years. 

We give because we have, we have because we give. Therefore we will never lack because we give. 

What’s next for Karim and Gumbo Brands?

Gumbo Global.

We are taking our brand to Dubai and other parts of the world. 

We also want to help others like us to build businesses that are bigger than Gumbo. 

It was a great honor to have this conversation with Karim Butler, founder and CEO of Gumbo Brands.  If you are in NYC you can check out the upcoming 4/20 pop-up concert by Gumbo Brands.