In celebration of 4/20, Austin-raised music producer Lord Haiti, aka Isaac Johnson, launched a new website (omsorganics.com) to make his brand of hemp-based rolling papers, called OMS Organics, widely available online.
Originally, OMS-branded rolling papers and lighters were only promotional tools for his music. Now, with the release of Lord Haiti’s website and new king-sized pre-roll cones, OMS has become its own legitimate business.
“When you ask smokers, lighters are the most commonly misplaced or stolen object they buy,” said 27-year-old Johnson. “I put my name on the opposite side of OMS on the lighter. I felt adding our logo would make it easily identifiable for them to keep track of, and recognizable for me in terms of branding.”
The idea for the brand was hatched back in 2019, when Johnson partnered with Farm Plug to release his first batch of pre-rolled OMS hemp papers for his “On My Soul” music series.
In January 2021, Johnson started selling his hemp wraps and lighters by accepting orders through social media and word of mouth. But as he tried to expand the business, he ran into some roadblocks.
“First, the primary distributor of smoking products to smoke shops in Illinois [were] trying to buy a box of my papers for only $30. I’m selling boxes for $100, [so] I can’t afford to cut prices that low yet,” said Johnson. “Then Facebook and Instagram permanently banned me from advertising on their platform because they said my products violate their user agreement on tobacco products. Paypal locked me out of my account with no ability to appeal because they claimed that I was selling narcotics.”
The TRiiBE caught up with Johnson today — before he headed out to start his 4/20 festivities — to discuss how music merch turned into a full-blown business, how he’s overcoming the challenges he’s faced, and what he’s smoking on.
Lord Haiti: Most artists, when they have music or an album come out, they always have merchandise. One of the things that most people have is t-shirts. I wanted to separate myself from other artists doing cliche stuff. There are millions of entertainers around the world — actors, poets, musical artists [and] dancers. I wanted to separate myself in terms of merch. So what it really started off with was lighters. I’m like, okay, let me do something that I feel like I can not only monetize, but make something useful for people.
Lord Haiti: So I started off with Swishers and White Owls, then I transitioned to Backwoods. I didn’t like the harshness of Backwoods, so I ended up going to Optimos, but they would rip easily. So I ended up transferring over to [Garcia y] Vega. And then I’m like, man, let me just put blunts down.
A close friend of mine, my brother Dre, he was a paper smoker. He taught me how to roll joints and everything. So once I got into rolling joints and experimented with cannabis accessories like bongs, pipes, vaporizers, bowls and everything, I was like, I think I like joints. I like the art in the process of rolling it up, taking that time to perfectly roll it either with or without the filter, and then light it; it was therapeutic and it was more healthy. So from there, I wanted to raise the awareness of healthy smoke.
Lord Haiti: I been smoking this strain, Sour Patch Kids. I really like it cause it’s Sativa. I’m a Sativa guy during the day when I gotta get stuff done. Some others I had recently were Zushi, Gorilla Glue [and] Gelato. My favorites I gotta say are Zushi and Sour Patch Kids so far.
Lord Haiti: So since I can’t buy ads on IG or Facebook, I’m trying to connect with influencers. I’ve delivered boxes of papers straight to this dispensary one of my friends has. [It has] been a struggle because I have people on payroll: a graphic designer [and] a photographer I have a contract with.
Launching the site is going to allow me to be more direct to consumers, and enable me to ship things. Since January, I had been setting up a delivery schedule from the orders I had in my DMs and driving the deliveries to people all over Chicago myself. It’s just a sign that I gotta get it out the mud, I gotta think out of the ordinary. These machines and algorithms we using not gon help.