Food sovereignty and hip hop may seem like different worlds, but at their core, they share the same foundation: expression, independence, and building something from what you have. Through the lens of Beats, Beds, and Browns founder Joseph Skibbie, this piece explores how growing your own food, hip-hop culture, and community-building intersect in real, everyday life.
Introducing Joseph Skibbie and Beats, Beds, and Browns
Beats, Beds, and Browns didn’t start as a grand idea. It started with a simple challenge from a friend for Skibbie to start a podcast.
With a background in digital marketing and leadership, Skibbie knew he had the tools to be successful, but the subject matter had to come from somewhere personal, subjects he was interested in that provided inexhaustible opportunities for growth and learning. Things like:
- Hip-hop (beats)
- Gardening (beds)
- Brown spirits (browns)
It may seem like an odd pairing to some, but to Skibbie, these subjects all carried the same appeal.
Gardening, brown spirits, and hip-hop are three subjects that are inexhaustible—I will never be able to know all. These are things I am not an expert in, but for someone who thirsts for knowledge, I find that appealing,” Skibbie says.
The pursuit of these three passions has led to a deeper understanding of how they intersect in communities and to the building of a brighter future. The more Skibbie explored each one, the more he began to notice the same patterns—growth, variation, and a natural pull to share what he was learning.
The Magic of the Garden
Skibbie jokes that he “grew up on a farm” in Glen Ellyn, Illinois—though it wasn’t quite what people imagine. A vibrant Chicago suburb, Skibbie’s true exposure to the potential of gardening came from his summers spent on a goat farm called Trail’s End.
“One of my earliest memories is George Goodrich, the owner of the farm, going into this thicket of a garden—a six-foot-two gentleman disappearing into it, and all the plants shaking—which is terrifying as a small child.”
George emerged from the garden jungle, carrying a giant squash.
“He told me, ‘This is what’s for dinner.’ And that always stuck with me.” Skibbie recalls.
The minute he had a home of his own in Texas, he started gardening with a 4×6 plot. But the understanding of gardening as a movement grew over time.
Food Sovereignty and the Gardening Movement
America’s grocery shelves are filled with shelf-stable food, which is the opposite of nutritious.
Shelf-stable food is grown to survive shipping at the expense of nutrition—much of it is selected for appearance and not nutrient density. Some estimate that 90% of grocery store food content is processed food that is more dangerous for health than cigarettes. Growing your own food is an art that has largely been lost over the generations, along with the health benefits and independence it provides.
For Skibbie, food sovereignty is personal and vital.
“Food sovereignty is everyone’s God-given right to access healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food,” Skibbie says. Growing my own food has changed my life physically and emotionally, and has connected me to the ground again. I derive significant joy from gardening, and have been able to share that joy with a growing number of people over the years—food sovereignty is the start of that. And if I want that for my family and me, how could I not want that for my neighbor?”
Skibbie has put those words into action with the 100k in 10 Years Initiative, which aims to give away 100,000 free seed packets over the next decade. Through his gardening webinars and gardening-themed podcasts, Skibbie aims to educate and empower everyone to start gardening—whether they live in an apartment or on land.
“The primary way I hope to help is through education, but also by providing the simple means to get started. If I can get someone to grow one frond of dill or one stalk of celery or a carrot, and they can see how good that food tastes, hopefully it changes their life.” Skibbie shares.
That idea of starting small, learning by doing, and sharing what is gained doesn’t stop at the garden. It begins to show up in other areas of life as well, especially in the ways people create, connect, and build culture together.
For Skibbie, that connection became clearer when he looked back at another influence that had been shaping him all along—hip-hop.
Growing Community: The Intersection of Hip-Hop and Gardening
Growing up in the suburbs in the early 90s, Skibbie was intrigued by hip-hop, but the music was hard to obtain after parental advisories were introduced. Skibbie recalls the challenges of securing this music with limited resources.
“There was this brash, unwanted, yet confident level of personality expressed through hip-hop that appealed to me. The challenges to acquire it almost made me love it more, and it was so influential during my formative years.”
Once he entered high school, college, and athletics, hip-hop became a central part of his life and experience, then slipped into the background again with new adult responsibilities like working a job and raising a family.
“It was post-COVID when I was really able to reconnect with it.” Skibbie shares. “But it came together at the same time I was embracing this larger picture of gardening and brown spirits. And I’ve always loved whiskey, my wife can tell you I’m the first to bring up the ‘Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey’ song at any wedding.”
As his horizons expanded, Skibbie saw a larger picture forming that connected his passions.
“It was a ray of light when I realized that hip-hop artists from Detroit had really connected and been aware of the growing AgriHood movement,” Skibbie says.
Gardening, like music, is not meant to be done alone, but rather to be shared in community with a vision for a better future for all—a concept that many hip-hop artists and Chicago organizations are tuning into. Skibbie has watched with excitement as this movement has grown through urban gardening, the use of vacant land, and municipalities allowing gardening to be taught and practiced for new generations of gardeners. A dream that he owns for himself and his community.
“People are taking that initiative and starting to provide for themselves and their communities,” Skibbie says. “And if you think about it, cooking for one is harder than for a group. You can’t garden for one—you either end up with too much or not enough of the right thing. To garden is to be able to share bounty, just like creating music to share an emotional experience with someone, or cracking open a bottle of brown spirits to celebrate with a friend.”
This value for growing something and building a sustainable future is making an appearance not just in yards or vacant lots, but also in hip-hop lyrics and community initiatives.
Where It’s Happening: Artists and Community in Action
Across the country, and especially in cities like Chicago, this connection between culture and cultivation is becoming more visible. Projects like Ron Finley’s Gangster Gardener movement have helped bring gardening into urban culture in a way that feels accessible, expressive, and rooted in independence.
Closer to home, organizations like Urban Growers Collective on the South Side of Chicago are doing the work on a community level. As a minority, women-led nonprofit, they focus on building a more just and equitable food system by teaching people how to grow their own food and even turn that knowledge into economic opportunity.
Others, like Sister Sprig Farm—featured in Season 6 of the Beats, Beds, and Browns podcast—are exploring how heritage growing practices can be preserved and turned into a sustainable practice. Their work asks an important question: how do we take traditions that were once a way of life and reintroduce them as viable, modern pathways forward?
That connection shows up in the music, too. Artists like Heavy Crowns are weaving growth into their message—literally and figuratively—with songs like “Grow Sumn,” which speaks to both cultivating food and cultivating your path.
Others, like PBD Gray, a vegan hip-hop artist and entrepreneur, are blending food, culture, and lifestyle in ways that feel both personal and practical.
Even more playful tracks, like Rocco Elliott’s “Just Me & My Plants,” reflect a growing awareness that what we consume—and how we grow it—is part of a larger story.
“So many people are joining in the movement to educate and empower people to grow their own food and take charge of their future—an attitude of independence and self-expression that hip-hop has been using for years,” Skibbie says.
What started as individual efforts is beginning to feel like something larger—a shared direction rather than separate paths.
The Future of Beats, Beds, and Browns
Skibbie aims to support these initiatives, and these kinds of artists, with the Beats, Beds, and Browns podcast—seeking to connect the dots—and the people—who are pointed in the same direction.
“I feel so blessed to have reconnected with these parts of myself, and to be on the path I am on now,” Skibbie says. “What all these subjects have in common is you will never run out of something new to learn, the variables are always changing, and you constantly have obstacles to overcome—but they are not impossible.”
The Common Thread
Hip-hop, gardening, and brown spirits—what ties these three things together for Skibbie is their endless possibilities and the way they enrich community.
Gardening teaches patience and awareness. Hip-hop teaches expression and confidence. Brown spirits carry tradition, variation, and craft.
Each one offers something different, but together, they create a fuller picture of what it means to grow—personally, creatively, and within a community.
“People are overcoming obstacles and narratives, joining hands, and building something,” Skibbie says. “And I’m honored to get a front row seat to it all.”
Want to Explore More?
If you want to hear these conversations firsthand, the Beats, Beds, and Browns podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. It’s where music, community, and real stories come together—directly from the people building something meaningful.