“Fast food has been for such a long time,” Styles says. The most outspoken musician who advocates for the vegan lifestyle is probably Morrissey, who’s so crazy and misanthropic that Cure frontman Robert Smith once said, “If Morrissey says not to eat meat, I’m going to eat meat, that’s how much I hate Morrissey.” (And, lest we forget, Morrissey’s veganism also resulted in the worst Smiths song ever written.) The challenge of getting people to care about physical well-being has rarely been addressed in any kind of music, and the type of “self-care” espoused in popular culture is either in the interest of stress management or mental health. Why is there nothing changing? Because people don't care enough.” “Even in poor neighborhoods where there’s white kids in the schools, what are you feeding them? You and I aren't the only people who notice that where poor people are, there’s none of these things and there's nothing changing. Green’s, you see a Trader Joe’s,” Styles explains.

“You go into a neighborhood that has money, you see a Whole Foods, you see a Mrs. “Me and my other partner Leo, we used to frequent there a lot, and it was a very small clientele but we believed in it,” says Styles, who saw the juice bar concept as a way to invest in his people while circumventing the uncomfortable specter of gentrification. I was more relaxed, felt better about myself after workouts, before workouts, days I didn't work out.”īefore Juices for Life, Rollocks was operating a juice bar called Fruits For Life in Harlem.

And yet, he found he was eating as if he were still struggling in Yonkers, “in a three room apartment and we all on the floor,” to quote a particularly reflective verse on the LOX’s “U Told Me.” At the recommendation of his wife Adjua, Styles switched to a plant-based lifestyle around 2003: “I lost a lot of weight and my temperament got cooler by the day. Styles was one of the grimiest rappers to go platinum during hip-hop’s Shiny Suit Era, a time of seemingly endless economic abundance. “I was just running around with pizza slices, chicken, burgers, candy, cupcakes, nahmean? I needed more natural things in my life.”

“When I was out on the road and living fast, I wasn't eating good at all,” Styles explains over the phone. But now at 43, Styles recognizes that a different set of larger-than-life living characters like Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders were just as much to blame for his foul attitude as much as Puff’s legendary mendacity. He exposed the misdeeds of cops and rival rappers, discussed the entrenched hopelessness of poverty, and for a long time, warned listeners about the two-timing ways of Puff Daddy (er, Love), who signed The LOX to Bad Boy back in 1995 to a presumably less-than-ideal contract. Later on, he continues to subvert the song’s title with gruff, affectless bars like, “If you see things like I see things, I’mma die in the hood” and, “I get high when bullets hit faces after words exchange.” Shortly after the release of “Good Times” and the subsequent, gold-selling A Gangster and a Gentleman, the rapper born David Styles served an eight-month bid that year for stabbing a man in the ass.Īs both a solo artist and a member of The LOX alongside his Yonkers compatriots Jadakiss and Sheek Louch, Styles P excelled at airing out his frustrations in his lyrics. “I’d rather roll something up / ’cause if I’m sober, dog/I just might flip, grab my guns and hold something up,” raps Styles P on “Good Times,” his biggest solo hit, which also happens to be the most depressing song ever written about the benefits of smoking weed.

The lox breathe easy