2 Chainz’s “Dabbin’ Santa” Christmas sweater seemed like a genius idea to most, but just how genius may come as a surprise. The trendy play on the holiday “ugly sweater” trend earned the popular rapper a cool $2 million in revenue, according to his new interview with Forbes.
After assembling a 70-person team to bring the designs to life, 2 Chainz used the campaign to help do charitable Christmas deeds, but not without the help of his famous friends.
“We made close to $2 million in revenue,” he revealed. “I had a numerous amount of celebrities helping with the shirt. It was on the NFL, it was on TNT, it was on Good Morning America, it’s on ESPN . So I could not continue receiving those blessings without giving back at the end of the day.”
One way of giving back was 2 Chainz’s aid to Dierdre Plater, a disabled veteran. By furnishing her home and paying her rent for a year with proceeds from his “Dabbin’ Santa” sweaters, the rapper funneled the money from the merchandise into charitable efforts through his T.R.U. Foundation. The rapper told Forbes that Plater’s story hit home for him.
“My dad was a veteran. He passed a couple of years ago. He was in the Army. He jumped out of airplanes for a living. So it’s just charity, period, for me,” he said. “They had no furniture; they were living month-to-month. I just wanted to relieve some of that stress. I just felt like, if I gave them a year’s cushion, which no one ever offered me, it would be a good opportunity.”
2 Chainz also revealed that his “Dabbin’ Santa” sweaters were a long time coming. Dating the idea’s inception back “a couple years,” the rapper noted that the “dab” dance was just the perfect time to move forward.
“I don’t want people to think this was an overnight success. We’ve been trying with a bunch of designs for a couple years now,” he said. “This is just timing meets opportunity. There’s the whole dab thing, and Atlanta’s always been somewhere that actually moves the culture a little bit. We have been the backbone of hip-hop for the past couple years. So with dabbing coming out of Atlanta, it just began to grow legs and start moving on its own.”
