Post Malone Relaunches Lifestyle Brand With Donation of 40,000 Masks to Frontline Workers – Rolling Stone

Post Malone quietly relaunched his lifestyle brand, Shaboink, on Monday, introducing a partnership with Direct Relief to provide personal protective equipment to doctors and nurses on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the partnership, Shaboink will donate 40,000 N95 masks to be distributed to frontline medical workers across the country.

Originally launched as a CBD company last summer, the plan was for Shaboink to relaunch as a full-fledged lifestyle brand, with the addition of apparel, accessories and merch. But Malone, who’s been self-isolating at home in Utah, says those plans suddenly seemed trivial when confronted with the current coronavirus pandemic.

“I’ve been working with my team on a number of unreleased products that fit into my lifestyle that I can’t wait to share with my fans,” he says, “[but] when faced with COVID-19, I knew it was important to pivot to products that could help us stay clean now, so we can get back to shaboink’ing later.”

In addition to the mask donation, Shaboink’s website will relaunch with pre-packaged “Clean Kits,” that contain things like hand sanitizer, face masks, hand soap, disinfectant wipes and disposable gloves. The kits also include individual packets of vitamin C “crystals,” to help boost immunity.

The small kit includes a pack of ten masks and costs $50, while the “super size” box gets you 50 masks and will sell for $100 (most of the costs come from sourcing products and materials, like the three-ply masks, which are made with a special anti-bacterial fabric). The candy box-style packaging, meantime, is designed to offer a little reprieve in an otherwise unnerving time.

“I just wanted to make something that’s fun, and Shaboink is about having fun at all times,” Malone says, adding that a portion of sales from the kits will be donated to Direct Relief as well. “We’re all in a pretty shitty time right now but we’ll get through it; let’s keep clean and kick this thing’s ass.”

Malone, who cancelled the last remaining dates of his “Runaway Tour” due to coronavirus concerns, says he’s been keeping busy at home during his downtime, working on a new album that he first teased in January, and playing “a lot of video games; a lot of Call of Duty.“

And while Malone is encouraging fans to stay home, the rapper and singer says he’s eager to get back on stage as soon as it’s deemed safe to do so. “I’m sure we’ll find a safe way to enjoy live music again real soon and I’m looking forward to that,” he says; “I’m sure the fans are too. I know this is a shitty time,” he continues, “but we’ll all get through it together.”

Monday’s mask donation comes on the heels of Malone’s Nirvana tribute concert last month, which helped raise nearly a million dollars for the United Nations Foundation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. Malone has also offered up a personal donation of one million dollars to COVID-19 relief, asking fans to help him choose where the funds should go.