Here's All You Need to Know About The History of FUBU

Founded by Daymond John and co-founders Carlton E. Brown, J. Alexander Martin, and Keith C. Perrin, FUBU was birthed by John mortgaging his home for $100,000 and using that seed money to rebuild half of his home as a factory. Clever huh? Well, that’s not all.

According to a June 2015 article written by Alec Banks via TheHundreds, John and his business partners made an appearance at a trade show in Las Vegas, where they somehow managed to sell $400,000 USD worth of clothes that didn’t yet exist, which ultimately led to John’s mother taking out a second mortgage on her home due to John being turned down by nearly 30 banks for a business loan.

By the year 1998, FUBU had reached its peak, grossing $350 million worldwide in sales. They had also gotten an unexpected popularity boost from one of hip-hop’s biggest names, LL Cool J, the previous year when the rapper wore a FUBU hat in his GAP commercial, dropping the phrase “For Us, By Us” into the rap he created for the commercial.

GAP’s production team and representatives were unaware of the brand and phrase, and upon finding out were miffed as FUBU was not a part of the GAP brand. The resulting controversy only served to boost FUBU’s popularity, and it was only up from there.

The early 2000s saw similar success, and though Daymond John and crew weren’t a Diddy (or Puffy as he was known back then) or Jay-Z in the sense that they weren’t rappers with rap labels that also happened to have very successful apparel lines, they were still very much involved in the hip-hop world.

This was evident with their 2001 The Good Life release, which was a compilation album released through Universal Records. The album spawned the hit “Fatty Girl,” which featured Ludacris, LL Cool J, and Keith Murray. Another hit, “Light’s Camera Action” by Mr. Cheeks was released, and there were additional appearances from Nate Dogg, Nas, and Beenie Man to name a few.