There was something about this new kid in town that intrigued Chris Ball, the founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based Ball Family Farms. The legacy cultivator is well-connected in the cannabis space, but he didn’t know Hoodbaby—a name that was circulating among his peers.
Zak “Hoodbaby” AlkatibPhoto courtesy of Ball Family Farms
It didn’t happen all at once, but Hoodbaby’s persistence would eventually pay off.
“That’s the beauty in all of this, because my mindset was, as a home grower, ‘OK, I’m going to lose now to win later,’” he said. “As long as I do something different and try to find something and aspire to do something different, it will come. It may not come this run; it may not come next run; but as long as I continue to push and try to push that envelope, it will eventually come.”
Ultimately, Hoodbaby knew he had something special when he started giving out samples to “industry giants,” and they started reaching back out to him to say, “Yo, what did you give me in that jar?”
Invader Zim, a lineage of Runtz x Zkittlez x Animal Cookies S1, was his proprietary strain.
But who is Hoodbaby? Ball needed to know, Ball Family Farms spokesperson Ralina Shaw said.
“Chris really does keep his ear to the ground,” she said. “So, to have someone new in the space that he hadn’t heard of, but everybody knows who he was, Chris has mentioned to me before, ‘I had to go and find out, OK, what is the deal with this dude? Why does everybody know who he is? What’s so special about him? Lemme go find out for myself.’”
After just one smoke session at a social gathering, Ball and Hoodbaby were off and running.
“I just got to be my true self,” Hoodbaby said. “And Chris loved exactly who I was.”
From there, Ball Family Farms introduced its Rare Breeds program with Hoodbaby as the inaugural participant, offering him the opportunity to develop Invader Zim in a licensed, commercial facility. The program focuses on providing underground talents the tools they need to turn original genetics into top-shelf products in California’s marketplace.
“This is about giving real growers a lane,” Ball said in announcing the program launch in April. “For too long, the people who built this culture have been left out of the legal game. Rare Breeds is how we change that—by putting legacy talent front and center and creating real opportunities from the ground up.”
So, who is Hoodbaby? The pheno hunter answers that question himself as he dives into Invader Zim, the Rare Breeds program and his vision for what’s to come.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for style, length and clarity.
Photo courtesy of Ball Family Farms
Tony Lange: So, Hoodbaby, I love the name. How did that name come about?
Zak “Hoodbaby” Alkatib: Honestly, just being in the grow. I’m just unapologetically myself, going to listen to the music that I prefer, I’m going to be singing, I’m going to be having a good time, I’m going to be energetic. It was like, “Oh, Hoodbaby’s in the building. It’s time to step it up. It’s time to turn up. It’s time to have some fun. It’s time to get work done.” So, the Hoodbaby comes from when I used to be in the grow with my gold grill, my three chains, I’m listening to music, I’m dancing, I’m singing, and I’m having a good time. We’re all having a good time. The energy is contagious, everybody catches on, and now everyone’s having a good time. So, it’s just really the Hoodbaby effect, and now everybody in the facility is easygoing. We all work together. We all sing. We all dancing. We all accomplishing the daily goals and moving as a unit. And that’s where the title came from, and it kind of stuck and hasn’t left.
Invader ZimPhoto courtesy of Ball Family Farms
Alkatib: I was really just in the kitchen cooking for five years, and I thought I originally loved it, and I was all in on it until I actually opened a restaurant in Chicago. The 18-hour days, back-to-back-to-back, on weekends, just the constant stress, it was a reality point: That wasn’t my passion. It was something that I could do, and I could tolerate, but it just wasn’t my passion. I wanted to do something that I loved, and cannabis has always been something that I’ve loved. So, I took a gamble and got a job trimming at Project Cannabis, and I continued to be a chef at the same time until I was moved over to the cultivation side two weeks later. So, that’s how I jumped into this industry.
Lange: What motivated you to start pheno-hunting from your own home grow, and why do you think that some people view you as a visionary for what’s to come in cannabis?
Alkatib: Simply just because I understood what the industry was—genetics, profiles—these things were being sought after at the time I jumped into this industry. So, it was really trying to give myself a head start and getting my name out there, letting people know that I am working on something different. That’s the main reason why I wanted to do it: just to try to push myself. It takes a lot of guts to do what I do. It takes a lot of foreseeing and foreshadowing and belief to do it. Cultivating cannabis does not guarantee you’ll ever produce anything profound and unique. So, it’s not a given.
Invader ZimPhoto courtesy of Ball Family Farms
Alkatib: What I was looking for was a different touch on Zkittlez. Zkittlez has been in the market for over 10 years, and a lot of people like the taste, but it doesn’t really do a lot for effects for some people. Also, Runtz is probably still one of the top-selling strains. So, I just kind of wanted a mixture of something everybody liked and also something that I liked, which is the Animal Cookies. Being from the Bay, that’s something that I’ve profoundly smoked throughout my life. So, I just wanted to give a different perspective on Zkittlez and bring in something new. And that was my insight on creating it, but I didn’t think it would be what it is now.
It definitely gets you high for two to three hours. It’s a little bit more potent than your Zkittlez and your Runtz. So, it just touches on that part of the spectrum, which is why I think it makes it unique and sets it apart from other strains that are being dropped currently in today’s market. It has longer-lasting effects, and it simply just tastes good from start to finish.
Lange: Shifting gears to Ball Family Farms and the Rare Breeds program: Can you tell me about your relationship with Oscar Figueroa, the cultivation facility manager there?
Alkatib: That’s my life mentor. He was the cultivation manager at Project Cannabis. He was also part of the decision-making to bring me over from trimmer to cultivation. I just like the way he carries himself and how he goes about handling business and is always diving into the environmentals. He’s an aircraft mechanic, so he understands the facility on a deeper level. So that was the interest that we had. I wanted to learn some of the things that I didn’t know, coming from where I come from, about equipment. So, he took me under his wing and taught me the ins and outs, and I’m still learning from him till this day. He’s somebody who I look to when I’m trying to learn something or understand something on a deeper level, to simplify it in my brain to where it just clicks.
The Ball Family Farms Rare Breeds team: Cultivation Facility Manager Oscar Figueroa (from left), CEO Chris Ball, and Brendan Keegan.Photo courtesy of Ball Family Farms
Lange: That’s nice that Oscar linked you up with Chris Ball. What was your first smoke session with Chris like?
Alkatib: It was really genuine, man. It kind of just happened on its own. Oscar knows how crazy I am about genetics and pushing the envelope on genetics, and at the time, Ball Family was looking for something up and coming. And that was my area of opportunity that I could provide. And, like I said, it just kind of happened organically. It’s my mentor. I would love to work with my mentor for the rest of my life, ideally. So, then I linked up with Chris, and Chris had seen some of the product. We ended up having a smoke session at a connected event, and I just got to be my true self. And Chris loved exactly who I was, just the energy and person that I was, not really knowing everything about me. And once he found out exactly who I was, it kind of just was a symbiotic relationship. Everything just flowed. We talked about where I was from, who I was, and how did everybody at the event know me, because they knew him as well. What is it about me, and why do these people, these same people that he knows, know me?
I just pitched Chris my vision, and he kind of believed in it. In today’s market, it’s very, very tough. So, for somebody to believe in your vision and see the same things you see, it’s rare. That’s what I mean by it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s rare that you have a vision and you present it to someone else, and they can also see the same things as well.
Invader ZimPhoto courtesy of Ball Family Farms
Lange: What’s your dream in the cannabis space, and what do you hope to accomplish from your partnership with BFF?
Alkatib: I’m technically already accomplishing it. It’s just to bring the forefront of new genetics into this industry and always be constantly working on new genetics to push new terpenes and new experiences to the industry. There’s so much that’s still untapped in this industry, and we won’t know unless we go and do these pheno hunts and go through and find different, unique, profound genetics, so we can push forward a special product. Chris has already done it for seven years, so I just wanted to be a part of that to push that forward and continue that legacy at the end of the day.
On my end, I just follow the trends in cannabis. I’m not just coming out of thin air with an idea. It’d be a combination of what the trends are in today’s market right now and just trying to bring something new with that—a combination. The reason why I say a lot of the groundwork was done for me is that creating these connections with other breeders and other cultivators means having access to their gene pools to pull from. So, I’d say that’s really what a lot of what I was doing prior to joining Ball Family Farms was just setting up those connections and getting these people to trust me and believe in what I’m going to do while I’m at Ball Family Farms: executing pheno hunts and searching for new strains.
Lange: I’m sure there are certain limitations based on doing things at home versus a licensed facility, right?
Alkatib: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And those are the challenges which inspired me to get where I am, because those challenges really can affect the outcome of the overall product and the genetic, Invader Zim, that we’re talking about. Yes, it was good, but it didn’t reach its highest potential until I joined the facility here and got into a better environment and to a more sustainable facility, and just overall in a better program. Because of those constraints in home growing, sometimes you don’t have access to supplies that a business would have at the end of the day.
Photo courtesy of Ball Family Farms
Alkatib: Stunned. Amazed. It’s a lot of emotions, bro, because like I said, years of work; it’s not just two, three months, you know? We’re talking about a couple of years, and at the time you feel stagnant, you don’t really feel anything at all. So, it was just really a humbling feeling and experience. It kind of even revalidated myself to Ball Family and Chris: Yes, we did make the correct decision. So, amazing drop.
Lange: Are you hoping to introduce other strains to California’s licensed cannabis market?
Alkatib: That’s all I’ve been doing while I’ve been in this facility. Pink Pineapples and Yellow Diamonds. Those two are very unique and very different from Invader Zim, so I’m excited about that. We’re currently running it. We’ll go through maybe a couple more trial runs before we decide to release and really dial it in, get the terpene profiles to come out and be superior. I’m just trying to provide a strain for everyone. It may not be that specific strain, but I want a lineup that everyone can go through, and they can experience and have a good time smoking and enjoying their experience with the genetics that I’ve sourced.
Lange: As the inaugural participant in the Rare Breeds program, do you want to help ensure the success of future growers who also may have this opportunity?
Alkatib: Most definitely. I mean, I’m not the only one doing this. I was just selected to be the first one. And there are other people that are working on special and unique products currently that don’t have the spotlight and don’t have the opportunity I have. So, my job is to also go find these things and see if we can work something out and bring them to the table as well. Hopefully, I can help somebody else along their journey that’s doing cool things as well.
Zak "Hoodbaby" Alkatib is the inaugural participant for Ball Family Farms' Rare Breeds program.Photo courtesy of Ball Family Farms
