Jimi DevineNew Jersey’s finest Soundcloud sensation turned platinum recording artist, Russell “Russ” Vitale, announced today he’s jumping into the cannabis industry.
To those who already have their eyes rolled back at this last celebrity cannabis announcement of the month, fear not. He’ll be working with the team at Wonderbrett on his new CHOMP lineup that shares a name with one of his popular musical efforts from last year.
We jumped on a call with Russ and the Wonderbrett team to hear the vision for what they’ll be putting on shelves this week. Russ kicked it off by speaking to the surprise of it all.
“I know some people might be like, ‘I didn’t even know Russ was into cannabis,’” Russ told the assembled music industry press and two pot critics. “Just from a business opportunity, the cannabis industry has been something that has always been in the periphery as something that’s an interesting opportunity. We just wanted to wait until the right partners fell into place and Wonderbrett obviously is creme de la creme.”
Russ went on to clarify that he almost exclusively smoked cannabis as part of his recording process. So with that in mind, he knew off the bat whatever the collaboration with Wonderbrett came up with, it had to be something that provided a functional creativity aspect to it.
“This was about something that’s not going to hinder the creative process and something that’s not going to slow down my thoughts that are just running crazy in the studio,” explained Russ. “It’s hard to turn off the outside noise as you get bigger and there’s more visibility.”
Wonderbrett used its famed OZK and a pheno of Cookies and Cream they got from friends to create CHOMP. According to the cultivators, a lot of what’s going on in the CHOMP comes from the Cookies and Cream side of its lineage, but the Zkittelz in the OZK that was originally bred in the heart of the Emerald Triangle by 3rd Gen Family brings out some extra exciting flavor notes.
The boxed edition eighths of CHOMP will run $60 MSRP, the $45 edition mylar bags will feature eights of smalls for 25% off essentially, and the CHOMP prerolls will run $15. From our familiarity with the general quality of work coming out of the Wonderbrett lineup, all those numbers certainly seemed fair. 
Working with artists is par for the course for Wonderbrett. Founder Brett Feldman considers the whole project one giant art vessel. From the quality of the flower down to the packaging, it’s all part of it.
“Our brand is really built on flavor in a cannabis experience, and a curated art that goes with it too, from the packaging to the art that goes into creating the product,” Feldman said. “People talk about lifestyle. They overuse that word too much. But in this case, really what Cam and I curate for our brand, how we live, the clothing, the music, the logos, the imagery – that’s just really how we live in our lives.”
In the end, it’s about getting every part of that creative process out there.
“We just want to share that with everybody,” Feldman said. “And to have somebody like Russ come in and do that with us – expand, create this experience – it’s life changing. This is just the dopest thing in my life right now.”
Feldman went on to explain the parents of the CHOMP in detail at our request. He said a while back, at the beginning of that brand, they were gifted a Cookies and Cream female from a friend and the OZK Male came from the seed packs they found the B-Real collab in. They used one of the males on the Cookies and Cream female. That project gave them about 10 different varieties.
“From there, we presented a few of them and then we worked with Russ on about four to six of them. Two of them really stood out, and then from the two, we left it up to Russ to really choose which one really fit good,” Feldman said. “And actually, what he chose was the number four phenotype of it and we’re on the same kick. We like that one as well.”
Russ and Wonderbrett fans can find CHOMP first at STIIIZY DTLA. More dispensaries are going to be added daily and it will eventually be sold in Wonderbrett’s soon-to-open flagship dispensary on North La Brea in Fairfax.
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