Latest news with #Krept
Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
My daughter inspired me to launch a baby skincare brand
Casyo Johnson remembers his first lesson in business, aged 13, at his school in south London. Stanley Technical High School, as it was known then, didn't have an activities room to occupy the pupils during breaks. It also didn't have any money. So Johnson, now better known as Krept from the rap duo Krept and Konan, offered to raise the cash himself. He signed up his fellow pupils to give him 20p a day. 'I had a table with names, payment dates,' he recalls of the tight operation. After three weeks he handed over enough cash to pay for the facility. 'They took the money and didn't do anything,' he says. It was a tough lesson for a 13-year-old and it understandably still rankles. Instead of ping-pong, Johnson focused on surviving the gang violence around him and on his music, teaming up with his school friend Karl Wilson, alias Konan, in 2008. Their breakthrough came in 2013 when their independently produced album Young Kingz took off. It holds a Guinness record as the highest-charting UK album by an unsigned act. Johnson, now 35 and a father of one, still performs regularly. Krept and Konan launched a new album, Young Kingz II, in February this year and the pair are playing at summer festivals across Europe. He has also been able to put the business lessons from that early experience in school to good use. In 2020, during the Covid lockdowns, Johnson and his partner at the time, Sasha Ellese Gilbert, developed a natural skincare product for their baby daughter Nala. Gilbert, in particular, bridled at the toxicity of some of the common ingredients in mainstream toiletries. She used ingredient rating apps such as Think Dirty and Yuka and did not like what she found. 'When you scan these products you see how clean they are,' Johnson says. They couldn't find any brand with a full range of excellent ratings. 'It was a lightbulb moment. We thought, 'Why don't we do it?'' Johnson discovered a world of natural alternatives and the pair created recipes that they took to a manufacturer with a lab where they could be developed and tested properly. • Meet the UK's fastest-growing companies in 2025 The next step was to decide on pricing. Johnson wanted to position the range at the affordable end of the market so he sought out retailers to be a launch partner, starting with Boots. Such a big brand would also help reassure customers, typically young mothers. After all, what does a musician from south London know about producing safe toiletries for babies? Helped by his high profile, as well as his commitment to the project, a deal was struck and the brand, Nala's Baby, was launched in June 2022. Roll forward three years and Nala's Baby is a profitable £5.5 million turnover business, stocked in supermarkets like Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury's, as well as over 1,000 Boots stores. It is also sold on Amazon and through its own website. As Krept, Johnson has just returned from playing at the Wireless festival and is off to another in Paris after we talk. In Nala's Baby, he sees a venture that can provide a legacy for his daughter in the way that music cannot. 'In music, I know that I have to be the one writing music, going on tour. But what would I be able to pass down to my daughter? In music, you have to be the entertainer at all times. It is not something you can let stand on its own two feet without you being there. So long term, I always knew I wanted to get into business.' Johnson and Wilson had tried opening a bar and restaurant in Croydon first, called Crepes & Cones, but it closed as the first Covid lockdown hit. While eating out can be taken away, people will always have babies and babies will need cleaning, he reasoned. 'You always need to wash, regardless of what happens.' Getting Nala's Baby off the ground was not easy and Johnson credits the consultant Shaz Saleem for supporting the initial phase. 'We were winging it,' he admits. Johnson has a degree in accounting and finance so could cope with the numbers, but those numbers got quite big, quite quickly. It took 18 months to develop the first eight products and the co-founders wanted to launch with an eye-catching roster of 'approved by' credentials, ranging from its efficacy on the skin to being safe for babies and suitable for vegans. The tests themselves were eye-wateringly expensive. 'I wanted to tick every single box,' Johnson says. Before long they had invested £250,000. This was enough to give them their break with Boots, but now Johnson needed more cash to begin production. The cost of the indicative orders from Boots and minimum production levels required from the manufacturer were sobering. So Johnson pitched to friends and family, including Konan and the likes of Anthony Joshua, the former heavyweight world champion. They backed him and he sold a stake, raising £1.5 million. 'There is a lot of pressure because you are taking money from people you know to invest in your dream,' he says. 'But I genuinely thought it was going to work.' Some friends were not 100 per cent convinced, though. 'Some did say this is a bit risky, man. You are going into baby skincare. This is crazy.' He admits he didn't see the baby skincare entrepreneur in him before it happened. 'I never, never saw it coming, for me to be doing this. But my life went down that road when I had a daughter. It was never planned but it felt right at the time. I became a father and so I understood the need for [Nala's Baby] even more, just being a dad, saying 'I would want this for my daughter'.' Knowing he had six months before the launch in Boots, Johnson plotted out what he would do each day to build awareness on his social media: he has more than 690,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok. The effort worked. 'I wanted it to be a frenzy and that is literally what happened,' he recalls. Nala's Baby sold out online within ten minutes and many of the 400 Boots stores saw their shelves cleared. Some products started popping up on eBay, being offered at well above the retail price. Feedback from customers with skin issues was positive and by 2023 it won the Mother & Baby best baby skincare range award, as voted for by parents, beating the previous winner and market leader Childs Farm. 'It was a key moment for us,' Johnson recalls, as there were supermarket buyers in the room. Boots took its new range, called Vanilla Cloud, to more than 1,000 stores and the supermarkets followed. Nala's Baby now claims to have an 8 per cent share of the market. As the business became a more serious business venture, Johnson also used his contacts for advice, including his friend Franklin Asante, who is head of entrepreneurs at the private bank Coutts. Asante sat Johnson next to Saeb Eigner, former chairman of the Dubai Financial Services Authority, at a dinner. The two chatted and after Johnson had completed some homework to prove he was serious, Eigner introduced him to Gordon McCallum, the former chief executive of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group. He in turn introduced Johnson to Anna James, a former marketing director at Mothercare and Carphone Warehouse, who became Nala's chief operating officer. James recommended someone she had worked with, Ben Newnum, who joined as Nala's managing director in July 2023. 'He lives, eats and breathes Nala's Baby,' says Johnson, full of admiration for Newnum's attitude and work ethic. The 'introducers' have all invested in Nala's Baby, sensing a good thing. The business is now a team of eight, soon to be ten, all working out of a small office on the fourth floor of a building next to Paddington station in London. The location suits the team more than Johnson, who lives in Essex and has a 90-minute commute. Next up is the launch of a natural multi-purpose sanitiser 'that is effective as bleach but is not harmful'. Then next year is international expansion, either in Europe or the US. 'I do want it to be a global brand,' Johnson says. 'We are gearing up for 2026 to go international.'
Times
27-06-2025
- Business
- Times
Nala's Baby
Rank 10 Annual sales growth over three years 174.66%Children's toiletries brand Being a hip-hop artist and baby skincare entrepreneur may seem like an unusual combination. But for the rapper Casyo 'Krept' Johnson, 35, it made perfect sense to launch a baby skin and haircare range when he and his co-founder, Sasha Gilbert, 29, struggled to find natural products for their child, Nala. The pair decided to create their own natural, non-toxic baby products in 2020. It was important for Krept — one half of the hip-hop duo Krept & Konan — to ensure the products were affordable, so they chose, as he said recently, to 'take a hit on our margins because we genuinely feel like this is a product for the people'. The brand has since won the backing of high-profile investors including the footballers Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, and the boxer Anthony Joshua. The company states it was valued at £17.5 million in 2022. Its products, which range from body butter to shampoo, started trading with Boots in 2022. Listings followed in all big supermarkets, as well as Next and Debenhams, helping sales to hit £5.5 million in the 12 months to March this year. The Oxfordshire-based brand isn't Krept's only business venture. Alongside Konan (real name Karl Wilson), in 2018 he launched Crepes & Cones, a halal dessert shop that has since closed. Then in February this year the pair joined forces with a third entrepreneur, Kaysor Ali, to open a supermarket called Saveways in south London catering to ethnic communities. Explore the Sunday Times 100 — interviews, company profiles and more
Daily Mail
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Krept & Konan escorted out of boxing match by bouncers following shock altercation
Krept & Konan were escorted out of a building by bouncers after becoming embroiled in a shocking altercation at a boxing match on Saturday night. In a video obtained by The Sun, the British rappers - Casyo Valentine 'Krept' Johnson and Karl Dominic 'Konan' Wilson can be seen being hauled away from the backstage area of a Misfits boxing event. Footage shows Konan, 35, in a white T-shirt furiously trying to get past a trio of security workers as he attempted to dive into the action, while Krept, 35, who was in a black hoodie, was seen shoving past a woman who attempted to intervene. As the woman tried to stop him getting caught up in the action, she was heard yelling to him: 'You've got Nala!', referring to his five-year-old Nala - the inspiration behind children's skincare brand Nala's Baby. A number of bouncers were then seen pushing him backwards away from the disturbance, with shouting and swearing heard around them. It is understood that the duo left the event of their own accord, with security helping them out of the building for their own protection. In a video obtained by The Sun, the British rappers - Casyo Valentine 'Krept' Johnson and Karl Dominic 'Konan' Wilson [pictured] can be seen being hauled away from the backstage area of a Misfits boxing event Several shocked bystanders were also seen watching the heated confrontation take place, which occurred following Wakey Wines' shock win against Mo Deen, reports the publication. It is not known how the brawl started or who else was involved. MailOnline has contacted representatives of Krept & Konan and Misfits Boxing for comment. The video, shared by an attendee to TikTok, garnered a number of comments from people weighing in with their opinion. One person shared: 'Should've let them in the ring!', with another remarking: 'Grown men you know.' 'Easy to kick off when you've got tons of people holding you back', said a third. With another defending the hitmakers as they said: 'Clearly, someone has troubled them. This is not their normal behaviour so stop with all the judgements.' Meanwhile, one of the commentators alleged that the ruckus started when someone tried to snatch Krept's chain. It is understood that the duo [pictured in February] left the event of their own accord, with security helping them out of the building for their own protection The drama follows months after the rap duo launched the UK's first ever 'inclusive' supermarket - offering people from BAME backgrounds the opportunity to shop for halal meat, exotic fish, ethnic hair products and cosmetics under one roof. Saveways opened in Croydon, south London, on 1 February by hip-hop stars Krept & Konan, who promise to provide a 'professional and modern retail experience' that prioritises inclusivity and affordability for underrepresented communities. The wholesale supermarket boasts a staggering 15,000 square metre space specialising in global produce, meat counters, essential goods and more. A transformative project drummed up by the rap duo, created in partnership with entrepreneur and owner of Steakout, Kaysor Ali, the groundbreaking venture addresses a long-standing gap in the local grocery market.
Scottish Sun
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Chaos erupts as rappers Krept & Konan are hauled away by bouncers in shock footage of ‘brawl' at Misfits Boxing match
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) THIS is the shocking moment Krept and Konan were hauled out of a Misfits Boxing event as chaos erupted after a fight. The hip hop duo were dragged out of the backstage area following Wakey Wine's defeat of Mo Deen on Saturday night. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 4 Krept and Konan were involved in chaos after a Misfits Boxing fight Credit: Tiktok/@proboxingfans 4 Konan was seen being held back Credit: Tiktok/@proboxingfans 4 Krept in a black jacket being held back Credit: Tiktok/@proboxingfans 4 The pair were hauled out Credit: Tiktok/@proboxingfans In the alarming footage Konan can be seen desperately trying to wriggle free from bodyguards. Krept meanwhile appears to shove a female guest out of the way as she gets in the way to try and calm him down. Another woman is then caught up in the melee as the artist wrestles with someone in the crowd. Shocked bystanders watched on as the heated confrontation took place in full view following the Misfits boxing event. Read More PET SHOCK Sickening moment dog walker drags animals by their leads & hurls them into home Video footage then ended with the two rappers being escorted outside of the gated area by security guards and other peacemakers. It is not yet confirmed what sparked the chaotic row. The viral video, which was originally uploaded to TikTok has now been viewed thousands of times. Viewers were quick to weigh in with their opinions in the comment section. One wrote: "Should've let them in the ring!" Another said: "Grown men you know." Hull City captain and his teammate brother 'in brawl on nightclub dance floor' - as club issues statement A third commented: "Clearly, someone has troubled them. This is not their normal behaviour so stop with all the judgements." "Easy to kick off when you've got tons of people holding you back," said another. Some social media users claimed that the fight started when a group allegedly tried to steal Krept's chain. But others were more sceptical and theorised that the rappers were trying to start promotion for an upcoming fight on Misfits boxing. Krept, Konan, SAUK Security and Misfits Boxing have been contacted for comment. It comes after corner shop boss and TikTok star Wakey Wines took on Mo Deen in a heavyweight bout. Aggressive pushes from Wakey got big roars from the crowd, as he was a huge fan favourite. By the final round Mo Deen looked tired as though he was just trying to survive. The judges scored the contest 48-47, 49-46, and 49-46 in favour of Wakey Wines. A huge cheer from the crowd erupted as the corner shop boss got the victory. The rescheduled card came live from Derby, after the original card for March 29 was cancelled with KSI pulling out. Misfits is the home to celebrity-style crossover bouts and headed up by YouTuber KSI.
The Sun
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Chaos erupts as rappers Krept & Konan are hauled away by bouncers in shock footage of ‘brawl' at Misfits Boxing match
THIS is the shocking moment Krept and Konan were hauled out of a Misfits Boxing event as chaos erupted after a fight. The hip hop duo were dragged out of the backstage area following Wakey Wine's defeat of Mo Deen on Saturday night. 5 5 5 In the alarming footage Konan can be seen desperately trying to wriggle free from bodyguards. Krept meanwhile appears to shove a female guest out of the way as she gets in the way to try and calm him down. Another woman is then caught up in the melee as the artist wrestles with someone in the crowd. Shocked bystanders watched on as the heated confrontation took place in full view following the Misfits boxing event. Video footage then ended with the two rappers being escorted outside of the gated area by security guards and other peacemakers. It is not yet confirmed what sparked the chaotic row. The viral video, which was originally uploaded to TikTok has now been viewed thousands of times. Viewers were quick to weigh in with their opinions in the comment section. One wrote: "Should've let them in the ring!" Another said: "Grown men you know." Hull City captain and his teammate brother 'in brawl on nightclub dance floor' - as club issues statement A third commented: "Clearly, someone has troubled them. This is not their normal behaviour so stop with all the judgements." "Easy to kick off when you've got tons of people holding you back," said another. Some social media users claimed that the fight started when a group allegedly tried to steal Krept's chain. But others were more sceptical and theorised that the rappers were trying to start promotion for an upcoming fight on Misfits boxing. Krept, Konan, SAUK Security and Misfits Boxing have been contacted for comment. It comes after corner shop boss and TikTok star Wakey Wines took on Mo Deen in a heavyweight bout. Aggressive pushes from Wakey got big roars from the crowd, as he was a huge fan favourite. By the final round Mo Deen looked tired as though he was just trying to survive. The judges scored the contest 48-47, 49-46, and 49-46 in favour of Wakey Wines. A huge cheer from the crowd erupted as the corner shop boss got the victory. The rescheduled card came live from Derby, after the original card for March 29 was cancelled with KSI pulling out. Misfits is the home to celebrity-style crossover bouts and headed up by YouTuber KSI.
