"Don't drink 8 Ball, cause St. Ides' is givin ends" (c) Ice Cube

This sounds weird, but one of the things I remember most about my childhood in the early 1990s is St. Ides Malt Liquor. The reason for this is not because I was drinking the stuff (I was only 11-13 years old), it is because of the commercials they used to advertise.


St. Ides created some of greatest commercials ever. In this day-and-age, you might get a rapper to promote some products, but they are usually from a high-end brand. Or if it is alcohol, it is usually a high-end vodka or something.

But in the early '90s, St Ides got DJ Pooh as a producer, and then got emcees such as King Tee, Ice Cube, EPMD, Rakim, MC Eiht, Geto Boys, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Warren G, Nate Dogg, The Notorious B.I.G., Wu Tang Clan, and a few others to do commercials.

There is not a brand around today that could get that many top named rappers to not only promote a liquor but also do 1 minute commercials.

The thing that makes these commercials so memorable is that they could be dope as their own tracks instead of just commercials. Some of them were actually versions of the rapper's own tracks. The Geto Boys had one called "My Malts Playin Tricks On Me." And MC Eiht had one called "The Brews Taking Me Under." Both of these used the original beats, but the rappers flipped lyrics to talk about St. Ides.

Snoop actually did my favorite commercial called "St. Ides In The LBC." He took one of his verses from the song "21 Jumpstreet" from the Murder Was The Case Soundtrack, and put it over a smooth laid back beat, which could have been a dope 4 minute single. These commercials were fun, even though they were about a product that was/is horrible.

I have a mixtape with a majority of these commercials on it, and truthfully I still enjoy listening to them 15-16 years after they originally came out.

It is amazing how a few commercials can be so memorable.