To friends, AngelDustCEO is known as “the hidden hand.” A fixture in legacy cannabis, recognized for his foundational roles with the juggernauts Certz and I Bud You, as well as his own Soil2Oil1130 and MedUSA 1130 SeshGods brands, Angel is laser-focused on his mission: Push the plant and the culture forward.
“I’ve been hands-on with this plant since I was able to get hands on it,” he laughs.
How Did AngelDustCEO Start In Cannabis?
From an impossibly young age, the Brooklyn native has loved horticulture. Green thumbs ran in his family, from his great-grandfather in West Virginia who grew every kind of tree, to his grandparents who gave the voracious reader books on botany. Living in East New York, Angel recalls that his earliest memories involve relatives smoking cannabis; he would consume it as early as the fourth grade, then start dabbling in it and selling it in years to come.
“I’ve always maintained a secret grow,” he says. “No matter where I go, I try to have a little stash of a plant somewhere. [Back in the day, I] would guerrilla grow with things, throw ‘em outside, cover ‘em up where you can, and flower ‘em.”
Far ahead of his peers in reading comprehension, Angel challenged himself by teaching other kids computer classes and devouring every encyclopedia he could find, especially volumes on agriculture and cannabis cultivation. Robert Clarke’s Marijuana Botany and Jack Herer’s The Emperor Wears No Clothes were like bibles.
AngelDustCEO In Music And Art: Andrea Martin, Roc Nation, And Defining FAME
At the same time, he developed a passion for music, starting out getting noticed in children’s talent shows. As a teenager, Angel spent a lot of time with his godmother, singer-songwriter and producer Andrea Martin. Martin, who penned chart-toppers including En Vogue’s “Don’t Let Go (Love)” and Leona Lewis’s “Better In Time,” enlisted the young man as her songwriting partner whenever she worked with hip hop artists at Roc Nation.
As Angel puts it, “FAME” - Fashion, Art, Music, and Entertainment - has been part of his life forever. His various talents, from drawing to clothing design to making beats, merged easily with cannabis as he got older.
“The best weed, no matter what it is, no matter where it is, always finds its way to me,” he notes. “And I’ve been truly blessed to have been around a lot of greats in this industry, which put me on a trajectory to be in music studios. My building in East New York is very well known for weed [and] I know a lot of people. I made connections through growers, trappers, breeders, sellers, and media.”
From I Bud You To Certz: AngelDustCEO Innovates Legacy Brands Coast To Coast
By the 2010s, Angel had gotten connected to Mario Ramos, founder of I Bud You. After years of the former passing the latter random bud samples, Ramos was impressed with his friend’s nose for cannabis. Angel became his second-in-command, building I Bud You into a powerful brand with media presence through its own TV channel for High Times. That led to new cannabis community networks at all the major competitions, VIP events, and burgeoning industry activities in markets like California and Nevada. Ever the innovator, Angel was also running his own operations on the East Coast, such as helping to build and curate City Sesh with his D.C. partners and managing multimillion-dollar grows in New Jersey and other places.
Later on, he linked with Steph.V and Euro V to help produce some of the major New York seshes with Certz/PIFF Unit. “Those events set the precedent of what [seshes] should look like in New York City,” Angel states. “Very professional, clean, safe. It provided a vibe that was not being done anywhere else… The core of Certz today is still much of the original PIFF Unit, because we embody the culture. But now we are blossoming and transforming premium flower on a global level.”
At Certz, Angel can often be seen putting that “hidden hand” to work in every aspect of operations, whether organizing events, managing corporate matters, designing strains (both horticulturally and in marketing), or even sweeping the floors. Lately, he and Steph.V have devoted major efforts to Certz’s breeding program, notably working with partners like the illustrious Compound Genetics to develop new cultivars. The acclaimed Pink Certz, a Compound collaboration, won numerous awards from the Trans Bay Union Cup to High Times’ Strain of the Year.
What's Next For AngelDustCEO?
Simultaneously, Angel continues coordinating his FAME with projects such as a hemp fashion line slated for release this summer. He places huge importance on sustainability, explaining that cannabis should not only be grown in living soil (which he does), but that products should use hemp-based packaging too.
“The same way you want to put weed in the bag, you should be using that weed to sell the bag, 'cause hemp plastic exists,” he emphasizes. “So I really believe packaging should be based to cut costs and waste."
Which brings him back to his first rule of life: Push the culture. This also means respecting the plant, and for the genius botanist, the best way to do that is to get your hands dirty.
"Take time to try and grow a plant,” he encourages. “Try it one time. If you fail, it's okay too. But you'll have an understanding of what these people work so hard to produce and what we love so much… All this plant is bigger than all of us.”
For more on Angel and Certz, follow @angeldustceo.seshgod and @certzbrand on Instagram.
*A version of this article originally appeared on the cover of Honeysuckle's 18th print edition. Click here to order and choose your element - Fire with Bun B or Ice with Queen P!
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Featured image: AngelDustCEO, from Honeysuckle's 18th print edition; Certz Lounge (C) Honeysuckle Media, 2024
