Drank Beverage Drink?! REALLY?!
Today as I cruised the mean streets of H-town, I came across a new drink called…”Drank”. Surprisingly, this isn’t a joke. It’s billed as a “relaxation” drink on the opposite end of the spectrum from the coffees, waters, and energy drinks everyone else is peddling. I’ve never been one to knock anyone else’s hustle, but advertising is some of the most ridiculous collection of garbage I’ve ever seen.
The drink is produced by Innovative Beverage Group who incorporate such messages as “Slow Your Roll with Drank” and even a mock warning label that cautions “This beverage…may cause one to lean”. I initially felt insulted then I recalled a scene from Spike Lee’s Bamboozled where the movie spoofs such drinks with an advertisement from “Da Bomb malt liquor”.
Unfortunately, such questionable concoctions targeted towards the African-American community have been around for years going as far back as Schlitz malt liquor ( a cartoon bull chasing Black folks around a picnic?!) all the way to Lil’ Jon’s Crunk Juice in more recent years. And how could we forget Nate Dogg singing the gospel about St. Ide’s.
I realized that there’s no reason for me to feel embarrassed because I don’t perpetuate or represent these stereotypes. As long as there’s someone to buy it I doubt that these “drinks” will ever go away. If anything, I’m probably doing more to promote “Drank” than detract from it. It speaks to a bigger ill for our whole society that if we put the appropriate makeup on any old pig then the appropriate consumer will buy it. Drink Crunk Juice to get you going, Diet Coke to keep you going, and Drank to calm you down. Maybe Chingy will come out with a new line of pacemakers to help regulate your heartrate after years of taking in liquid uppers and downers.
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Drank is the shit! Fuck energy drinks, those are all bullshit..I drink a pepsi n feel the same as if i drink a redbull..drank actually works n tastes good..i wouldn’t say it makes me lean, but it gives me that feeling as if i just finished my first vodka cran at a bar..just a chill, kick back feeling. This shits gonna be huge if they start sellin it @ 7/11 n at hip hop shows n shit
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I’ve always questioned the long-term effects of all types of energy drinks. I’ve always viewed all of them as legal roofies (mickeys for y’all that are old school). No matter how “natural” it may claim to be anything that tricks your brain into thinking it doesn’t need more rest when it obviously does sounds like trouble if you take it often over a long period of time. Not to absolve coffee; caffeine addiction can get really nasty for some people as well. My dad to this day has hypothalamus problems that they can’t peg and I firmly believe its related to years of shift work combined with tons of liters of coffee.
I guess my big beef with Drank was the blatantly disparaging marketing of their product. “Here young Black folk! Drink this which is going to shorten your lifespan because it’s cool and it is reminiscent of the drug that killed DJ Screw!”
November 18th, 2008 at 4:07 am
It is not the only anti energy drink out there… malava with kava works but has too much sugar and is bad for the kidneys if you drink too much, drank talks too much about drugs and tastes like cough medicine, not the best tasting stuff. the biggest problems is that it has lots of sugar and melatonin which is only good before sleep cause it resets the mind clock. so it will cause insomnia if you drink it during the day. Purple stuff has their own play on words but every flavor is purple out of the can so at least they can say they got an excuse. they also know science… no sugar, L-theanine (active ingredient in green tea and an anti-anxiety amino acid and the drink tastes better than normal sodas. it has vitamins, etc. and classy marketing… it does not patronize. oh the wierd part is purple stuff has blacks working there … and Drank? well they are all white dopeheads… see peter bianchi/ founder ceo and no hip hop guru as he claims
November 18th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Shawn, thanks for all the great information. It sounds like you’ve researched everything with great depth. Educating ourselves of what we put into our bodies is important and I appreciate your comments.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:12 am
man drank iz d sh*t and idont know wat yu trippen on iz not tha real sh*t n plus all it does iz calm u down u dumb f*kers
June 3rd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Thanks Ray! Love the comments.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Holmes you need to get over the Afro-American thing, my man. You are all either Americans from the USA, or you are not. I hate to read, see, or hear about people taking their “race” too seriously, get over it already and move on. These “stereotypes” would never exist if they were never proclaimed.
As far as DRANK is concerned I am excited about companies being creative and trying new things. Will DRANK make you lean, probably not enough to keep you from picking up a 12-pack of Bud to go with it, but you have to love a different spin on an over-saturated vita-drink market.
Holmes you should just buy a can of DRANK, slow your roll, and enjoy being an American, a land of creative thinkers. Well at least some of us are…
June 24th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Brent…
Thanks for your comment.
Of course I love being an American. Check out my other posts. I also LOVE being an African-American. I won’t diminish what my African-American forefathers, brothers, and sisters have done just to make others feel comfortable. Besides, they put it on my birth certificate so I’m going to make sure that we all remember how far our country has and hasn’t come.
To the true topic(not me), DRANK is buffoonery. In my honest opinion, they might as well call it Minstrel Juice and include the imagery for effect. I think it marginalizes the true inspiration of what Houston’s Hip Hop influence has been while also promoting a dangerous drug subculture. That same subculture has already claimed the lives of two of Hip Hop’s icons, ie DJ Screw and Pimp C.
Of course, all that’s my opinion and that’s why this is a blog. You see treasure; I see trash. You see creative; I see derogatory at best. The beauty of it all Brent is that as an African-American member of our American society I can detest everything DRANK represents and they’ll keep selling DRANK at your local corner store. They won’t get a red cent from me but probably just because I’m not creative enough to handle the ride.
August 4th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
i wanna try this, idont know what half u r talkin about black white, pffft.
i wanna see if it gets me semi high, although some government jackass will b like oh no it makes ppl lightheaded, illegalize it, and tax cigarettes and liquor some more in that bill also.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
I can’t think of a better thing to tax.
August 21st, 2009 at 12:10 am
“If anything, I’m probably doing more to promote “Drank” than detract from it.”
LOL. Indeed you have. I was looking through the website stats and this post is number one! If you google “Drank Beverage”, we fall one after the actual company website. I think that calls for a free Drank. I may have to contact them about this.
Check out this Drank review.
http://consumerist.com/5030218/we-review-drank-the-anti+energy-drank
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:10 pm
The review was interesting. I kinda figured that the swag was all marketing. I like that the reviewer took a more analytic approach than my own approach. Two different ways of looking at the same thing but both brought us to the same conclusion; Drank isn’t worth your time.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
We’ll here’s my two bits. I don’t think any drink in a can really has a damn thing to do with one race or another. It’s just a drink, not a “whites only” fountain. I have been saying for YEARS that what I really want is a drink that tastes like an energy drink without getting me all jacked up and keeping me up all night. I’m very excited to try these, because although they aren’t yet the “energy free” energy drink, they are the next best thing. So props to this company for doing it, and why the hell not??
And to rephrase a previous comment, I do feel that the only reason racism is still discussed is because blacks constantly bring it up for no reason.
The overwhelming majority of the white people of the united states have moved on and accept all colors as equal. Unfortunately, the vast majority of blacks have not. Racism is dead, quit beating a dead horse. Should I be whining about wanting payback and how far my people have come because my Irish great grandfather was worked to death on a railroad?? Do I make every one call me Irish-Scottish-German-American because that’s where my relatives came from. I’m American, I’m not opressed by anybody, and you are exactly the same. It’s what your ancestors fought and died for, start acting like it.
August 28th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Jake, thanks for sharing your view. I do plan on responding to your comment in full because you’ve brought up some interesting points that are worth discussing.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
“And to rephrase a previous comment, I do feel that the only reason racism is still discussed is because blacks constantly bring it up for no reason.”
I have to disagree with you on this one. While racism isn’t NEARLY what it used to be, it does still exist. It’s just not as open as it used to be. I try to be pretty strict when it comes to throwing the racism card because in most cases it’s just someone being insensitive or just plain dumb. Stereotypes can easily be construed as someone being racist (although I don’t see it that way). I do think this country has become too PC and that forces people to hold back their true feelings. If I weren’t black, I’d probably feel the same way as you in regards to race. But saying it doesn’t exist when I have no clue what it’s like to live as a black person doesn’t make for a strong arguement. The overwhelming majority of black people don’t care about payback and understand that hard work and determination breeds success. Race will always be an issue because we live in a world of stereotypes. People form opinions based on their previous interactions with the person they are encountering.
We’re going to read into this post differently because of our different life experiences. It wouldn’t be smart marketing to say it’s for a certain group of people. But if you look at the marketing around the product, most of it does seem to have a “hip-hop-like” theme. Words like drank, lean, syrup, purple stuff make me think hip-hop. And most of those words I’m pretty sure have some from the black side of H-Town. But that’s just my opinion (http://www.prohiphop.com/2009/01/drank-inventor.html).
Jake, thanks for commenting though. It definitely adds to the purpose of the blog.
August 30th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Jake, I can appreciate your comments but you don’t live in a world that is realistic. We’ve discussed almost to the point of nausea how pervasive “racism” is today and how it always has been in many ways. If you decide to support Drank then that is your prerogative. I find it racially insulting if not offensive and that’s my view. I will likely find it a way to live through that.
As far as racism itself, Theo hit the nail on the head. I can’t and likely won’t ever understand the frustration and issues you feel living your life as a “Irish-Scottish-German-American”. In the same way, you can’t tell me that I do not and have not dealt with real, hardcore, institutionalized RACISM in my childhood, youth, and adult lives. That’s because you don’t live in the same America I live in. I nor you can not change the impulse thoughts and feelings we all have through the experiences we all go through in our individual lives. When we act upon those prejudices and use them to deprive, limit, bias, demean, or deny opportunities of equal practice against people of color THAT is racism. When we do so in a government or corporate setting THAT is institutional racism.
Couple all those factors with the fact that peoples of color are more than just ethnic minorities but also suffer the “double punch” of having visual markers that accentuate their ethnicity. To the point you raised, our people continue to fight in a respect though that fight is not in the marches or on the street. My mother is only 59 and she’s lived through “separate but equal”, the March on Washington, the Voting Rights Act, etc. Even though those pictures and photos are black and white many of those events were only 40 to 50 years ago. Forty years isn’t long enough to wipe out over 500 years of a mindset of inferiority towards people of color.
If all this makes you feel uncomfortable, try having a truly open talk with some of your Black friends and ask them to be truly open to you or share in the discussion here.
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:50 am
Wow, odd that i’vefound this website and topic being i just finished a semi-related essay for english class. The topic of the essay was has Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream become a reality?
The short version of my answer was no, and looking a simple statistics on hate crimes which can be found on the FBI website as well as discrimination charges published by the EEOC it obvious that not only has the dream not come true, it mayhave gotten worse due to the homosexual fights going on. I tried to make a point that what has been forgotten about Dr. King’s speechs, writings, and teachings was he was preaching equality for ALL. Not just black or white, man or woman, gay or straight, everyone.
I also agree with your point that to many people pretend it doesnt exist and do more posturing about how open minded and progressive they are when the first time someone of the opposite race disparges them, they are screaming racial slurs. We as a people need to realize we cannot legislate tolerance for anyone. However i find it somewhat encouraging withthe rise in profile of inter-racial relationships as i feel this shows the ultimate expression Dr. King was trying to get to, love. When one doesnt notice a skin color and only the person underneath that is where the dream has come true.
I see im only helping in completely derail the topic from DRANK.
Well i found DRANK in a little store in Baton Rouge (i was looking for True Blood) and found it funny but also bought a can as i do have sleeping/relaxation problems and do not have health insurance or do any sort of drugs. I most certainly cant drink myself to sleep every night because that is really not healthy. Any way it tasted like purple ass and theres half a can of it making its way down my drain right now. Worst of all i am still awake aren’t I? I havent seen much of the marketing behind it aside from the can itself but i kind of agree with how its pandering to the lowest common denominator. Speaking of marketing have you noticed, for instance, the two different sets of AT&T commercials. One is a “regular” commercial with a mix of people populatingit. THe other has a low key hip-hop beat to it and stars nothing but black people. Its subtle but it aired within minutes of each other while i was flipping channels. Do you see this as part of the problem as I do? Its a bit extreme but its like we’ve gone from seperate water fountains to seperate marketing segments.
September 6th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Sean,
Thanks for your post and I hope you visit the site more in the future. I don’t know if I’d quote this site for any of your future papers. We’re just a buncha hacks that are gonna get you an “F” if we’re referenced!