How does that saying go: “There’s more than one way to skin a cat?” I don’t know who came up with that or why, but I can say this: There’s more than one way to tell a cannabis story.

When it comes to DJ Gasolina, cannabis intersects with several parts of her life.

Her past life as an athlete, her love for New York and fashion, and eventually, her work as the founder of Ultra-Premium Gas. Cannabis played a part in all those things.

If you read the magazine or follow us on socials, you might already recognize her name. She curated a playlist for our latest issue, bringing some of her musical taste to our pages.

I recently got to know the person behind the name at Primitiv Boston. From hoop dreams to fashion and launching a line that’s an extension of her personality, DJ Gasolina is more than one thing.

Hoop Dreams

Before cannabis became a business for Gasolina, it was something much more personal.

A former basketball player, Gasolina’s relationship with the plant developed in part through athletics and recovery. Like many former athletes, she began looking at cannabis through a different lens when dealing with what years of playing sports can do to the body.

That experience helped shape the way she thinks about cannabis today, particularly the relationship between the plant, recovery, and the body’s endocannabinoid system.

Long before she launched Ultra-Premium Gas, she had a relationship with the plant.

The business came later.

Ultra-Premium Gas

To understand Ultra-Premium Gas, you first have to understand Gasolina’s relationship with New York.

Although she isn’t originally from the city, New York changed her life. Her connection to the city, its Puerto Rican community, and its cannabis culture eventually became part of her brand’s identity.

Gasolina created the name Ultra-Premium Gas in 2022. The name pulls directly from an era of New York cannabis culture when “gas” wasn’t just marketing talk.

It was something you heard outside, between friends, and from people selling weed on the street.

“I got that gas.”

“I got that sour.”

Ultra-Premium Gas takes that energy and combines it with another influence that runs deep in her family: cars.

Her grandfather was a mechanic. Her great-uncle was a mechanic. Cars and the people who worked on them were part of her world growing up. That history gave Gasolina another cultural language she could incorporate into the brand.

Cannabis culture meets car culture.

And underneath the visuals and branding is still an appreciation for the plant itself. When our conversation turned to terpenes, Gasolina made her priorities pretty simple. Whether the terpene percentage is considered high or low matters less to her than the actual experience.

The terpenes have to be there.

The flavor has to be there.

It’s How You Wear It

Cannabis isn’t Gasolina’s only form of self-expression.

Fashion has been part of her life since childhood.

Her mother made sure she understood early that style wasn’t necessarily about the name printed on a piece of clothing or how expensive something was.

“It’s not about what you’re wearing. It’s how you wear it,” said Gasolina.

That philosophy stayed with her.

Finding inspiration in the fashion she grew up around, particularly Black culture, hip-hop, and the looks that defined the 1990s and early 2000s, Gasolina developed her own style.

Those influences still show up in how she presents herself today.

For Gasolina, fashion also offers a way to bring pieces of our past forward without copying them outright. You can pull from the cultures and eras that shaped us while still creating something personal.

Chasing Sour

Eventually, our conversation landed on something that could make a certain generation of cannabis consumers instantly nostalgic: Sour Diesel.

Anyone who experienced New York during the height of Sour knows the conversation can quickly turn into a collection of stories.

Gasolina has plenty.

Just speaking about Sour Diesel brings back memories of New York nights with friends. Parties that went late. Dancing until four in the morning. Hanging around Washington Square and the West Village.

The weed is part of the memory, but the people made it matter.

Looking back, Gasolina associates those nights with becoming what she describes as her “unafraid, fully empowered self.”

From the flower to the fashion, she still holds on to those memories, and they show up in the UPG line.