Jay-Z invests in Black-owned cannabis speakeasy, Josephine and Billie’s

Jay-Z has invested in his first business with his company The Parent Company (TPCO) a cannabis social equity program. Josephine and Billie’s will be the company’s first investment and the first Black women-owned cannabis speakeasy.

The speakeasy’s founders, CEO Whitney Beatty and Ebony Andersen, COO, name the dispensary after legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker, an actress, dancer, entertainer, civil rights activist, and French Resistance revolutionary.

“Josephine Baker and Billie Holiday are our inspirations. Their lives and careers were negatively affected by the racially tinged prohibition of cannabis and the stigmatization of the plant — so in legalization we immediately felt drawn to honoring them, their legacy and what they were resilient in fighting for,” CEO Whitney Beatty tells Forbes. “They stand for strength in the face of adversity, and more importantly, healing. Cannabis is a plant. That plant offers a pathway to ease muscle tension, anxiety, insomnia, it offers relaxation. It’s healing.”

“Josephine & Billie’s wants to become a thought leader in this space for the 1.3 million women of color in the city of Los Angeles and for the millions more around the world with a multi-prong approach,” Beatty tells Forbes.

Josephine & Billie’s is located in Los Angeles, California and will be a cannabis dispensary that reflects the Prohibition-era jazz lounge back in the day. 

“It is a callback to the Jazz age,” says Beatty, “to the pearls and feathers of Josephine and to the poetry of Billie crooning on a rainy evening.” The storefront is meant to emulate traditional ‘Teapads,’ which were hybrid jazz and smoke lounges found in black communities during alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s.

The store’s cannabis products will be organized by anxiety, insomnia, relaxation, instead of being organized by method. This thoughtful ideology showcases what the company plans with health being in the forefront of the space. 

The space will also be a private club exclusively for BIPOC women of color and allies. In order to gain access to the speakeasy, one must say “Billie sent me.”

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Kiara Desirai

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