‘Dream big’: Meet the Philly natives who scored a deal to provide the Sixers’ new official sports drink

With an azure sky overhead and a sleek, matching-color American sports car behind him — the hood littered with blue Pure Fuel sports drink bottles — Philadelphia rapper and social media influencer Gillie Da King bobs and weaves to the ‘70s disco song “Here Come the Sixers” in an empty parking lot outside the Wells Fargo Center, his blue 76ers hoodie resplendent in the sunshine.

Gillie’s Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast partner, Wallo or Wallo267, another Philly product and influencer, keeps watch in the background and chugs a Pure Fuel while Gillie mouths the song’s words and grooves to the heavy bass beat.

The day that video was posted on Instagram, April 14, coincided with the Sixers’ last regular-season game, a 107-86 rout of the Brooklyn Nets, the bookend of an eight-game winning streak. The Sixers had already clinched a playoff berth by then, but Gillie and Wallo had good reason to be in a celebratory mood hours before tipoff. The two are business partners in the Pure Fuel sports hydration drink company with three other Philadelphia men, and only a few days before their parking-lot jam, Gillie had announced that Pure Fuel had scored a significant business partner.

“I got some good news,” Gillie says in the April 11 Instagram post from an airport terminal as Wallo walks beside him and mock heckles his sidekick.

“Pure Fuel the official hydration partner for the Philadelphia 76ers,” says Gillie, his eyes wide like saucers. “The fastest hydration drink to ever become partners with a professional team. Talk to me!”

Twenty-four hours after that IG post — which garnered more than 20,000 “likes” — Sixers legend Allen Iverson held up a Pure Fuel bottle while standing next to his newly unveiled statue along the 76ers’ “Legends Walk” outside the team’s Camden practice facility. And during the April 14 Sixers game at the Wells Fargo Center, Pure Fuel posted an IG photo of Iverson with one of its drink products between his feet.

“Part of why this is happening, myself and my partners, we all dream big,” said Philadelphia-born Mustafa Shakur, a Pure Fuel partner and a former high school (Friends’ Central) and college basketball (Arizona) standout who later played in the NBA for the Washington Wizards and Oklahoma City Thunder. “Don’t think it happens without you being able to dream big.”

The Pure Fuel story only began a little more than a year ago, Shakur said, but has already yielded big returns. Pure Fuel beat out other hydration product competitors for the Sixers deal, a particularly notable achievement given the saturated market, and considering that none of the Pure Fuel partners — Shakur, Gillie, and Wallo, as well as South Philly’s Ra-Tah Johnson and David “Doobie” Elliott — had any experience running or owning a sports hydration/energy drink company.

Only Johnson had a connection to the beverage field, having interned at Coca-Cola before a career in music in which he managed numerous hip-hop artists, including Philly-area acts Oschino & Sparks and Charli Baltimore. His introduction to Gillie and Wallo sprung out of his music connections, and the three became close friends over the years.

“I did urban and ethnic marketing. That was just when Coca-Cola was stepping out of its comfort zone with the hip-hop community,” said Johnson, who played high school basketball at Delaware County Christian School in Newtown Square.

Elliott, who played hoops at Franklin Learning Center and then graduated from Cheyney University, embarked on a career in sports business after college. One of his first clients was Shakur. But after the firm he was working for closed its sports division, Elliott transitioned into the entertainment and music industry, and reconnected with his South Philly childhood buddy, Johnson. The two worked together on creating a record label and exploring real estate development ventures.

Between the two, and through their work in the various worlds of sports, music, real estate, and entertainment, they amassed a sizable Rolodex, an asset that would later prove invaluable when the Pure Fuel venture started to evolve.

“We were supposed to invest in an app,” said Johnson, referring to a business proposition that was presented to him, Elliott, and Shakur. That idea fell flat, but the three were also given the opportunity to sample a sports drink prototype from the California-based Sunsweet fruit company.

“It was, ‘Were we interested in investing in a beverage?’ But we didn’t like nothing about it. We hated the taste,” Johnson said with a laugh. “We said, ‘We’re not interested, good luck.’ But then Doobie [Elliott] said, ‘We can do better. Ra-Tah used to work at Coca-Cola!’ I’m like, ‘Dude, I never made a drink from scratch. I did marketing and sales. I don’t know how to create a beverage from scratch.’”

But they took on the challenge, perfecting the taste they wanted, and later helping design the packaging and brand look.

“Our partners at Pure Fuel have impressive followings, and we really connected with their stories as Philadelphia natives and entrepreneurs,” Owen Morin, the Sixers’ senior vice president of corporate partnerships, wrote in an email. “They have deep roots in the Philadelphia community, and they care about this city and the team — this is their hometown team — and that’s unique for a partner in this category.”

The franchise was previously partnered with BioSteel starting in 2020, but that company (whose Canadian parent is Canopy Growth) filed for bankruptcy last fall.

“When this category opened up, we saw it as a great opportunity to engage with new and exciting brands,” Morin said. “We went to market, and when Pure Fuel emerged, it immediately piqued our interest. This group of dynamic leaders is passionate about what they do and how they do it. They know what their brand is and they are authentic to it. When we started having conversations with them, we realized we are aligned on many of our goals and values.”

As part of the deal, Pure Fuel has seen its branding appear at the Wells Fargo Center on digital signage, team benches, coolers, and during the team’s pregame bell-ringing ceremony.

Although the 76ers’ season is on the brink as they trail the Knicks 3-2 after Tuesday’s playoff game, Pure Fuel’s reach will extend well beyond the NBA season, when the 76ers host thousands of youth players at their summer basketball camps. Morin said Pure Fuel will provide 50 free registrations for the entire week of the camps.

“Huge hometown story, for the kids from rougher parts of Philly,” Shakur said. “They need to hear and learn this story. There’s so much bad messaging out there. We’re not afraid to push the envelope and be untraditional, in a sense. I think that’s attractive in a city like Philadelphia, with authenticity as part of our brand.”

A Black-owned enterprise. A plant-based product. Some of the Pure Fuel partners navigating from past hardship toward co-ownership of a company.

“Part of life for me is being able to add value to my community,” Wallo, who served a lengthy prison sentence for armed robbery, said in a phone interview. “The only way you can do that is [to] be an example. I’m thankful I’m still here to be an example. A lot of my friends and associates, they’re not here [any] longer. Some are in prison. Some dead. For me to still be able to be living, make the wrongs that we added to our community right, it’s a blessing.”

Gillie added that it wasn’t the long friendship with Johnson that sparked his interest in being a business owner as much as: “Is the product good quality?”

“The response has been great. Everybody’s been showing a lot of love and support,” Gillie said. “We represent the culture. At the end of the day, the roots hold up the tree.”