Styles P on Being Willing to “Lose a Dollar” to Help the Black Community

Styles P is serious about health and wellness. Alongside his longtime manager and friend, Daniel Dapaah, P held an exclusive audience in New York City at Soho Works for a recent conversation as part of PLLRS, a new series presented by Little Engine Media.

Moderated by Keith Nelson Jr., the conversation featured Styles P explaining his own evolution. The Yonkers native shared why he was willing to sacrifice commerce to build community with his company, Juices For Life. 

“It’s our job as a community,” he explained. “Somebody got to feed you at some point. It’s a fine line between saying you want to do something and making a dollar off of it. You have to know you’re going to lose a dollar, but you have to know you’re going to gain something. 

“We went from one location to five locations, just off carrying that motto and showing people love. People wanted to show love and support the brand because they believed the brand believed in them.”

P launched Juices For Life in 2011 with the intent of providing a fresh fruit juice bar that caters to an underserved community. He explained why it’s important to promote healthy juice advocacy in the Black community.

“I have juice bars – one in Yonkers, one in White Plains, a few in the Bronx,” P says. “I appreciate people's patronage, but how much of the Black community all over the world can get to those four juice bars? Logically, it doesn't make sense. So it's more sensible for me to say, ‘Thank you. I appreciate your patronage if you come here. But take that menu. Take a pic. We put all the [drink] recipes on our menu, so you can take a picture of it, go home with it, go get your own blender, go get your own juicer, and start doing it yourselves. You know why? Your baby's gonna do it. Your significant others are going to do it.”

He sees it as a way to promote wellness across communities and generations. 

“Then that s**t passes on to the whole family,” he explains. “Now we're doing better, one person, one family at a time. That becomes progression.”