- Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter of The Roots stars in The Drizzler, a new short film from Mike's Hot Honey.
- The film was produced by Two One Five, the company Trotter co-founded with Questlove, and scored by The Roots keyboardist James Poyser.
- The campaign launched nationwide on July 1 across CTV, digital, and social, building on last year's "Drizzle the Mike's" platform.
- Fans can now apply to become official "Drizzlers" through a new brand community initiative.
Mike’s Hot Honey is turning its Brooklyn pizza-shop origin story into cinema.
The brand’s new short film, The Drizzler, stars multiple Grammy winner Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter of The Roots and follows a young apprentice learning the “art, rhythm and responsibility” of drizzling hot honey at a bustling pizzeria, discovering that drizzling isn’t just a finishing touch but a ritual passed from one generation of pizza lovers to the next.
The project was produced by Two One Five, the company Trotter co-founded with Questlove, and features a custom score from Roots producer James Poyser.
Director Anthony Jamari Thomas of Scheme Engine led the shoot, while agency Another Thing developed the creative and Noble People handled media strategy, including a citywide Chicago pizza-box takeover that tied the campaign back to its pizza roots.
The film builds on Mike’s Hot Honey’s first-ever national campaign, “Drizzle the Mike’s,” which launched last summer and marked a major leap for the 15-year-old brand, similar in spirit to other recent food-brand plays for cultural credibility, like GloRilla fronting Reese’s Puffs’ “Eat ‘Em Up” remix campaign or Lizzo teaming with Chili’s on its Baby Back Ribs jingle.
For Trotter, The Drizzler adds a food-and-culture branded project to a résumé already stacked with Two One Five credits like the Oscar-winning Summer of Soul.
For Mike’s Hot Honey, previous partnerships have included Ewing Athletics sneakers and Candace Parker joining its board, but this marks its most ambitious celebrity-fronted storytelling push yet.
Takeaways
This isn’t a typical spokesperson deal; it’s a hip-hop legend directing his production muscle at a condiment brand’s origin myth, treating pizza culture with the same reverence as music history. It signals where food marketing is headed: less “celebrity holds product,” more “celebrity co-authors the brand’s story.”
Does star-driven branded film content actually move sales, or mostly move culture? Could more musicians follow Trotter’s lead into producing brand content rather than just appearing in it? What does it mean for a legacy food brand to lean this hard into hip-hop authenticity?
