40 Oz To Freedom – The Best St. Ides Raps

Yesterday, XXLMag.com highlighted Sprite’s longstanding relationship with hip-hop by showcasing some of their best rapper-endorsed ads. While hip-hop’s relationship with Sprite has been mostly positive, there's another beverage with a darker association that deserves props too.

Lambasted in the early '90s for it's supposed threat to urban communities, St. Ides' most effective marketing tools were the rap ads that featured countless rap stars spittin' about the Crooked Letter brew.

Aside from the politics and no matter your opinion of hip-hop’s endorsement of the controversial beverage in its heyday, the stellar verses in the ads can’t be denied. Here's a few of the best. Bottoms up! —Brooklyne Gipson

King Tee - Ice-T protege, King Tee bails through the liquor store for a case of St. Ides.

Ice Cube & Geto Boys - Although his former groupmate Eazy-E once warned, “People say it ain’t wise, to get faded off the St. Ides,” that didn’t stop Cube and the Geto Boys from going Ham over the beverage in this early '90s ad.

Snoop Dogg & 2Pac - What a difference the right check can make. A few short years after shouting, “Fuck St. Ides!” in his politically-charged record, “Young Black Male,” Pac had his own Special Brew flavor of the drink. Thug Passion, indeed.

Snoop Dogg & Nate Dogg- Leave it to Nate Dogg to make the smoothest of all the St. Ides ads.

Wu-Tang Clan- The Wu was the first to show the world Crooked I wasn't just a West Coast thing with their "Shaolin Blend."

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Yo-Yo & Ice Cube - Yo-Yo proves that St. Ides is an equal opportunity drink because it “wouldn’t be nothing without a woman’s touch.”

EPMD - 40 oz. or a can?

The Notorious B.I.G. - In an interesting nod to the West, Biggie walks through Brooklyn rapping about his love of the West Coast's malt liquor of choice over the same beat DPG's used for "New York, New York".