Cereal Curator to the Stars

Ami Moyal, the creator of popular Instagram account @cereallife, didn’t set out to be a cereal curator to the stars. On Cereal Life, the Toronto-based Moyal is usually reviewing the newest Cinnamon Toast Crunch variety or modeling limited-edition Frankenberry Crocs. But last year, something changed. That’s when Cathy Rong, the Chief of Staff for Ahmir Thompson, a.k.a. the musician Questlove, reached out to Moyal with a request to curate a breakfast cereal bar for Questlove’s star-studded game night. Rong knew that Questlove was a huge cereal fan and decided to surprise him.

Moyal, whose friends refer to him as a cereal sommelier, wanted to make sure he was compiling a cornucopia of cereals suitable for Questlove’s palate. So he asked Rong for guidance. “I kind of gave him some guardrails, like, stuff that you can only find in Canada and is not really available in New York and limited-edition stuff,” Rong said.

Soon, Moyal was brainstorming the types of cereals he would source. “The first thing was, like, I’m gonna get him some stuff he’s never tried before,” he said. Through his hookups, he found Questlove Disney 100th Anniversary Confetti Cake and IHOP Mini Blueberry Pancake and Syrup cereal. “The next thing was like, hey, I want to get some stuff that he’s had as a kid but he doesn’t know he can get, and one of those was Quisp,” he said. An iconic 1980s cereal, Quisp tastes a bit like Cap’n Crunch but is shaped like a saucer. “The other part was like, I gotta get the classics. Everyone loves Fruity Pebbles,” he said. He also added Froot Loops and Cinnamon Toast Crunch to the lineup. Moyal even used his connections to source varieties that hadn’t even hit the shelves yet.

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Lined up on an island in the kitchen of a private residence were an array of new and old brands. The Quisp stood next to Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls, adjacent to Cap’N Crunch’s 60th Anniversary Birthday Crunch. In the middle was the star of the show, the millennial-pink box of Strawberry Milkshake Frosted Flakes, Tony the Tiger’s face beaming as he holds a bowl of the pale pink cereal. Then the guests sauntered in: Zoe Kravitz, Jason Sudekis, Mike Birbiglia and other celebs picked from the curated cereals and doused them with a variety of milks: oat, cashew, cow. In between spooning bites of Peanut Butter Cap’N Crunch, they dealt decks of Uno and tweezed fake organs in the board game Operation.

Questlove isn’t the only musician who has recently embraced his love of cereal. Snoop Dogg just released a line of cereals. Travis Scott and Lil Yachty have graced the box of Reese’s Puffs, which has become “the hip hop cereal,” Moyal said, after the company released a popular Reese’s Puffs rap. Reneé Rapp performed at a 60th anniversary Cap’N Crunch party in Palm Springs where the cereal Moyal curated was served. Relishing a bowl of Froot Loops shows a down-to-earth relatability, a childlike vibe that humanizes the richest, most successful A-list stars. Cereal is “just accessible, fun, nostalgic,” Rong said. “I think [cereal] brings [celebrities] down to reality… back to childhood to being able to walk down the street without being harassed,” Moyal said.

It’s not the first time that music stars have rhapsodized about cereal. Back in 2005, LL Cool J rapped about sleeping with all the cereal mascots in “Milky Cereal”: “Then there was Pebbles, times was rough/ She was turnin’ tricks to get her coo-coo puff!/ Her mind was gone, but she turned me on.” G. Love & Special Sauce sung, “Keep your hands off my Lucky Charms” in “Milk and Cereal.” In 2018, Cupcakke rapped, “I got bitches wanna box me like I’m Cinnamon Toast Crunch.”

Questlove’s party was a hit. “People loved it and loved to take pictures with [the cereal]. I’m sure he has a couple [boxes] saved in his archival storage,” Rong said. One cereal in particular connected. “[Quisp] definitely struck a chord with him. Childhood memories sort of thing,” Moyal said. One of Questlove’s guests, Padma Lakshima, praised the party when she was interviewed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Moyal curated a few other of Questlove’s parties, and then, earlier this year, he got a message from Rong. “She asked me, ‘How can we step it up a notch? Do you think we can make a Questlove cereal [so] all these celebrities who show up could have a little takeaway?” Moyal said he could create the cereal box, but it was two weeks before the party, so he couldn’t actually manufacture new cereal. He decided to buy mini boxes of retail cereal and fill the boxes with that. Ami called up his illustrator and printer friends to help. Then, Moyal said, “I just kind of banged my head and tried to include as many Easter eggs [inside jokes] in the design of the cereal box [as I could].”

He named the imaginary cereal Questlove Crunch. He and the designer Rendhy emblazoned the front of the box with a cartoonish illustration of Questlove behind a drum kit, using spoons as drumsticks. One of the drums is filled with cereal: candy-colored loops, chocolatey oats and caramel colored squares, renderings of the mass market cereals in the mini packages inside the box. On the back is a game of “Curly Quest,” in which Questlove’s magnificent hair is repurposed as a maze. Rong had input on the designs, asking for Questlove’s hair to be bigger, changing the color of the hoodie. Though Questlove Crunch doesn’t exist in real life, Rong said that Questlove might be open to collaborating with a company to create his own cereal. If Moyal were creating it, he said he’d design a peanut butter or chocolate Quisp-like cereal.

Moyal thinks other celebrities could create their own custom cereals as well. Taylor Swift could have Swifties, he said: “I would put different marshmallows that resembled different eras in her career.” He would have CD-shaped and tape-shaped marshmallows, representing the mediums people used to listen to her music when she first started in the music industry.

“I think that a lot of role models growing up were on those cereal boxes,” said Moyal. Being on a cereal box “elicits a sense of ‘I made it,’ beyond having your face on a billboard. It’s bringing your image home with your fans in a way. You’re eating something with their personality attached to it,” he said.

Inside the World of a Breakfast Cereal Curator to the Stars