On May 8 I had the opportunity to be a part of the reunion of Mike & Ike following their highly publicized split last year. The reunion took place at the Tribeca Cinema’s in Tribeca, New York where I was greeted by a friendly staff. The drinks were flowing and the stunning new boxes of candy, crafted by Ike himself, stuck out and made your mouth water. I had the opportunity to speak with Grammy Award winning singer Nelly, Senior Marketing Manager Donald Houston and David Yale, president of Just Born Inc. where I got their point of view on the long awaited reunion.
Houston explained what caused the devastating split saying, “Mike &Ike split up last year due to creative differences. Mike went out to pursue his life-long ambition of becoming a rap artist and producer, Ike went in to pursue his love of art.”
The split was a tragedy to candy lovers world-wide, but through the help of Houston, his team and Nelly. They were able to bring the pair back together.
“Throughout the year we kept in contact with them, but they were still involved in their own thing. Ultimately, their love of Mike & Ike Candy and the opportunity to make a great candy even better sort of lured them back in as well as listening to all of their fans imploring them to back together. I think it was their love of the candy and their devotion to their fans helped this happen.”
So how do Mike and Ike feel about the reunion?
“Ike feels great about the reunion, he was hoping that one day his artwork would eventually take place and be shown in the commercialization of Mike & Ike and you’ll see his influence on our new packaging, which is really sort of eye-catching and eye-popping. They both feel good about it.”
Indeed the new packaging is something to be said. I was honored to try the newest flavor, Strawberry Reunion, featured in an eye catching new box full of neon colors and fantastic artwork.
Houston discussed the newest flavor to the package saying, “Strawberry Reunion, which the boys put together to sort of commemorate their getting back together, and also they are working on a film. They have contacts in Hollywood and they are working on the film that sort of documents their split and how they got back together called “The Return of Mike & Ike.”
So what did Nelly, whose hit song “Country Grammar” had people of all ages rocking out, have to do with the reunion? “My role was like this,” he explained, “youu guys quit BSing and get back in here. It was one of those situations were these guys are the best at what they do and we just had to sit in a room for an hour and a half- we spent about 30 minutes watching them argue with each other until we finally got back to the niddy-gritty.”
Continued he notes, “I was the mediator, trying to convince them whatever it is they are doing right now is incorrect and they need to get back to what they do best.
In addition to his role in bringing the Mike & Ike back to work, he will also be working on an ad campaign alongside Mike & Ike.
“It’s focusing on them releasing the new flavors, Mike has added real fruit juice, so the flavors pop you can really taste it. We’ve got Strawberry Reunion which Mike created; Ike has redone all of the boxes and everything so if you look you see a whole new shape and concept of the boxes, they’re a little bit edgier, a lot of great things moving forward so I’m going to help bring that out to the rest of the world.”
In addition to acting as a mediator and bringing the candies back together, Nelly is also working on a new album.
“My new album is entitled M.O, my seventh album, it’s dope, it’s an album that I feel the first time since my first album that I’ve really been in a situation where I’ve feel I’m really trying to have fun again.”
“For a long time music was so serious to me and even thought I was making those songs, serious and thought provoking, I look at it like I could be overthinking because in the beginning it wasn’t a lot of overthinking it more feeling so this one is definitely more feeling,” he added.
Nelly has also teamed up with Pam Bell to create an affordable school for those seeking an education in a musical trade.
“I recently opened up a school in St. Louis called “Extreme Institute” where I partner with a trade school and a nice young lady named Pam Bell came up with an affordable way to send kids that may not know exactly what they want to do in life but have the courage and really want to produce records and learn how to mix-master, if they want to take dance or whatever they want to do and we created a way to do that at their leisure and at an affordable price. It is one of the first schools of its kind and it’s located in downtown St. Louis and I’m very proud of it.”
images: Nelly/ Mike & Ike Official Twitter