Jay-Z's Roc Nation Chooses Vegan Donuts for Reasonable Doubt Celebration
On June 25, the exact 30th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt, Roc Nation turned New York City into a month-long monument to Jay-Z’s debut album. At the centerpiece Manhattan activation, inside a decommissioned subway stop on the Lower East Side, Roc Nation selected exactly two food partners to serve guests on opening day. One was Lucali, the Carroll Gardens pizzeria that has drawn lines around the block since Mark Iacono opened it in 2006 and is widely regarded as one of NYC’s best. The other was Cloudy Donut Co., a 100% vegan, Black-owned donut brand whose co-founder has shared a VEGPRENEUR stage.
Roc Nation could have handed that job to any caterer in New York. Instead it put a vegan donut brand founded in 2020 beside Lucali — a Carroll Gardens institution with a two-hour wait and 20 years of New York pizza lore — and gave them equal billing. Roc Nation’s companion Brooklyn pop-up was premium enough that a commemorative vinyl box set sold for $1,500.
The creative directors behind the pop-ups, Ian Schatzberg and Ken Tokunaga of General Idea, described the spaces as “physical expressions of a living body of work,” built to reflect Jay-Z’s roots. The brand behind the donuts has its own Brooklyn roots story. Derrick Faulcon spent 11 years in prison, where he mapped out a path into the food industry, and Zewiditu Jewel was a 14-year classroom teacher when she joined him. Faulcon has called the model “a generational wealth play”.
Cloudy Donut Co. is 100% plant-based and runs a rotating menu of more than 40 flavors, from Grapefruit Mimosa to Mango Chili Lime.
Jewel and Faulcon call their strategy "reverse gentrification," opening Black-owned businesses in affluent, mostly white neighborhoods. The term crystallized after a specific moment at the Brooklyn Heights store: a Black woman in her sixties who had lived in the neighborhood for years asked Jewel and Faulcon whether they worked for the company and was shocked to learn they were the proprietors. “In all the years of me living here, I’d never seen a Black-owned business in this neighborhood,” she told them. Cloudy Donut had opened in 2022 as the first Black-owned food and beverage business in Brooklyn Heights. The brand now operates four locations: two in Baltimore, one in Brooklyn Heights, and a Nolita storefront that became the first Black-owned food and beverage business in that neighborhood too.
The Roc Nation selection follows a track record of other notable collaborations. In October 2023, Cloudy Donut Co. partnered with Oatly for a truck tour across New York City, a collaboration the brand has described as Oatly's first with a Black-owned business in North America. Faulcon and Jewel also run The Brown Collective, a platform for Black and Brown culinary talent that operates pop-ups and mentorship programs alongside the donut business. Cloudy Donuts has grown to four locations since 2020 and an Instagram following north of 100,000.
Jewel has also been involved in the VEGPRENEUR community. In January 2024, she appeared as a panelist at VEGPRENEUR x Shopify: Building a Sustainable Business, held at Shopify’s NYC space, alongside Juice Press and goodsugar founder Marcus Antebi, and Reprise Activewear founder Mary Bemis. The panel was a public forum where Jewel shared the Cloudy Donut origin story with a plant-based business audience. About two and a half years later, the same founder was handing out donuts inside Jay-Z’s event.
Days after the celebration, Jewel posted her own reflection on the recognition, a carousel that pictured her beside Jay-Z over a tray of Cloudy Donut's donuts, calling it one of the brand's biggest milestones yet. She framed the Roc Nation moment less as an endpoint than as a sign of direction, writing that years of building Cloudy Donut had meant learning to "become your own light source."
Cloudy Donut Co.’s celebrity following predates the Roc Nation selection. The brand has counted Serena Williams, ASAP Rocky, Ed Sheeran, and Addison Rae among its customers. Jewel has been profiled in Her Agenda, Okayplayer, AfroTech, VegNews, and Bauce Magazine, among others. The Roc Nation selection adds Jay-Z himself to a list that was already building.
JAY-Z 30 runs well past June 25, with anniversary concerts at Yankee Stadium in July and shows in Paris and Los Angeles later this year.
Sources
- Zewiditu Jewel / Cloudy Donut Co.: "Instagram post on the Roc Nation recognition"
- Roc Nation (PRNewswire): "Roc Nation Announces JAY-Z 30 Celebrations Honoring 30 Years of Reasonable Doubt"
- Hip Hop Wired: "JAY-Z's 'Reasonable Doubt' Turns 30 With Citywide NYC Celebrations"
- Billboard: "Inside Roc Nation's NYC Pop-Ups Celebrating Jay-Z's 'Reasonable Doubt'"
- AfroTech: "After 11 Years in Prison, Derrick Faulcon Opened The First Black-Owned Business in Brooklyn Heights"
- Her Agenda: "A Peek Inside Her Agenda: Zewiditu Jewel"
- VegNews: "Vegan Doughnut Shop Makes History as First Black-Owned Business in NYC's Brooklyn Heights"
- Okayplayer: "Cloudy with a Chance of Progress"
- Black Girls Bond: "Zewiditu Jewel Leads Cloudy Donut Co. to Fame"
- Cloudy Donut Co.: "Official website"
- VEGPRENEUR: "VEGPRENEUR x Shopify: Building A Sustainable Business"
- Bauce Magazine: "Sweet Success: Zewiditu Jewel Is Changing the Culinary Game With Her Vegan Baked Goods Brand"
- Michelin Guide: "Lucali's Mark Iacono Shares His New York Favorites"
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