Afropreneurs: This New At-Home Salon Service Amplifies the Gift of Having Black Hair (OkayAfrica)

Ladies, if you live in New York, listen up. New service Yeluchi by Un-ruly is poised to help you re-imagine the salon experience — by bringing it to your home. Read more in my latest for Okayafrica's Afropreneur series below. View the originally published piece here. 

Antonia Opiah just wanted to get her hair done. As she prepared to go on vacation, the serial entrepreneur struggled to find time to have her hair braided between the demands of work. “I wished that someone could come to my house and do my hair, she lamented, “so that I could feel justified spending time on my hair by being simultaneously productive.”

In New York City, there are a handful of apps from Glam Squad to Priv that allow stylists to come to you, but they primarily cater to white women. In researching better at-home hair options, Opiah asked her sister Abigail to try out a few existing options. The results were disappointing. When Abigail booked an appointment with one of the services, the stylist arrived not knowing where to begin. After poking around her hair, he took a picture for his records.

“Abigail’s experience confirmed for us that these services aren’t catering to black women, so we decided that there was space in the market.” Opiah says. In March 2016, the sisters jointly launched Yeluchi by Un-ruly, which focuses on bringing the salon experience to the homes of black women.

The service is an extension of Un-ruly, a website that celebrates the beauty and versatility of black hair. Opiah founded Un-ruly in 2013 as a kind of online beauty shop—a space where women could come together to discover hair and their day-to-day lives. “Like many black women, I change my hair pretty frequently,” Opiah says. “When I started Un-ruly, I wanted a nicely designed website where I could find inspiration for my next hairstyle.”

Un-ruly breaks down the ins and outs of every hairstyle under the sun—from natural hair to wigs and extensions. Opiah and her team of contributors live and breathe hair. They capture street style inspiration and write about healthy hair care regimens; they reflect on society’s beauty standards. Yeluchi builds on the impressive knowledge base that Opiah has built through Un-ruly to help its clients pursue a happy hair journey.

The name of the service, Yeluchi, is a play on Opiah’s own Igbo name, Chinyelu, meaning “God’s gift.” To Opiah, choosing a name with such a powerful meaning was not only a way to leave her mark on the business, but also to challenge perceptions of black hair as difficult.

As the sisters have rolled out the service, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing—there are several unexpected surprises. Despite the limited menu of hairstyles, for example, clients routinely ask for variations on simple styles like ends curled or edges laid a certain way. To Opiah, this is not so much a challenge as it is an affirmation of the versatility of black hair. “You can’t put it in a box no matter how hard you try.”

Now operating across New York’s five boroughs, Yeluchi boasts a network of top quality stylists who cater to a menu of protective styles like braids and weaves. Prices range from $50 for a simple cornrow style to $300 for the waist-length box braids of #carefreeblackgirl fame. With bookings taking place primarily online and a small network of stylists, Yeluchi aims to grow slowly to achieve quality service before expanding its reach in New York and to other cities. While an app is planned down the line, Opiah is in no rush.

“The service comes first, and we want to understand our customer because we’re seeing that there are so many nuances that go into styling black hair,” she says. “We’re prioritizing the service before creating the app because the app is just a vehicle for the services people are purchasing.”

As consumers become more accustomed to an “Uberized” environment, Yeluchi stands apart from the rest of the gig economy as more than just a service. With the support of the Un-ruly platform, Opiah has created a product that is not only revolutionizing the notoriously time-intensive nature of protective styling, but also educating consumers on their hair’s endless possibilities.

Afropreneurs: The College Student Running a Luxury Jewelry Brand From His Dormroom (OkayAfrica)

When I think of people I'd like to have over for dinner, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ranks at the top of the list. The Nigerian author is one of this generation's most celebrated fiction writers, but I've enjoyed watching her dive more into the world of cultural commentary. In a recent interview with the New York Times on femininity, she said:

"There’s a part of me that likes shoes, and likes dresses, and likes makeup, and likes books, and likes to write. I think that’s the case for many women. But our culture makes us think we have to choose slices of ourselves that we’re comfortable showing the world."

As a social scientist who enjoys fashion and design , I'm glad that Chimamanda is leading the charge to create more space for feminine women to be taken seriously in business and society. With that set-up, I'll say that I thoroughly enjoyed writing this piece on jewelry brand KHIRY for Okayafrica. Not only am I an avid collector of statement jewelry and an amateur designer myself, but I also am in awe of Jameel Mohammed's efforts to re-define the meaning of luxury at just 21-years-old. Read more below or hop on over to the Okayafrica website for more. 

While most college students pull all-nighters on term papers, Jameel Mohammedalso manages to spend his evenings looking at jewlery prototypes. Mohammed, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Pennsylvania, founded luxury brand KHIRY (pronounced “cai-ree”) in 2014 after interning at Barneys New York. Just two years later, KHIRY products are now sold by luxury online fashion retailer Moda Operandi and will launch an e-commerce store within the next year.

KHIRY celebrates the depth and beauty of the traditions of Africa and its diaspora through high-quality goods. Its inaugural jewlery collection is crafted from 18-karat gold, silver, rose quartz, with the occasional leather touch.

Building the KHIRY brand hasn’t come easy. Mohammed funded production of the first collection by raising over $25,000 on Kickstarter, and manages the growing brand with a motley crew of fellow Penn undergrads passionate about fashion and design.

Despite the challenges of juggling schoolwork and running a business, Mohammed is driven by his goal of developing an alternative vision of luxury in an industry dominated by European brands. “Luxury isn’t just in a vacuum—it’s steeped in the history of the nation and community. France and Italy, for example, are often viewed as having luxury as a part of their national heritage. That’s informed by the history of those nations and the power they were able to accumulate during the height of colonialism and empire,” Mohammed says.

KHIRY’s first production, its Spring/Summer ’16 collection, draws from some of Africa’s most notable icons: Malick Sidibé’s striking portraits of Malian youth, Djibril Mambety’s seminal film Touki Bouki, and the Dinka, Sudan’s legendary cattle herders.

As a political science major at Penn, Mohammed has benefitted from a diverse student body and course offerings that have nurtured his interest in the many cultures of the African diaspora. Aimé Césaire, celebrated Martiniquais author and founder of the Négritude movement, is a significant influence on the KHIRY ethos.

Mohammed grew up in a low-income, predominantly black community in Chicago, but attended Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the United States’ most prestigious boarding schools. His experiences living at different extremes of American society has fueled a desire to use fashion as a tool to start a dialogue between communities that aren’t always in conversation with each other.

“What really struck me about Césaire is his focus on finding, researching, and developing ideas about his own culture as a means of accessing his own truth and that of his people,” Mohammed says. “That has made me think about what role culture and image play in our society, especially because both are such fraught topics in our public discourse today. Césaire’s work really has inspired our latest project—a journal of art and culture called Négritude, which will have a bunch of interviews on black creatives and essays on things that inspire me and KHIRY.”

As Mohammed grows KHIRY’s imprint, he hopes to expand in the future to new products like shoes, bags, and clothes. Like its bold and expressive designs, the brand is taking a stand by openly embracing its roots in black aesthetics. At a moment when black culture and black lives feel under attack, KHIRY is celebrating the most compelling, moving parts of the history of Africa’s diaspora.

African Art Fairs Like 1:54 Are Transcending Boundaries (OkayAfrica)

Originally published on the Okayafrica website.

The new international scramble for Africa via the rise of contemporary African art and its global appeal begs the question: what exactly is African art?

Given the effects of globalization, the line between local and international has become increasingly arbitrary. British-Nigerian Turner Prize-winning painter Chris Ofili, for example, grew up in Manchester and now lives in Trinidad; Gabonese artist Owanto has spent the majority of her career living and working in Europe. While both artists are certainly African, their work, which incorporates a variety of media, often does not directly address the continent. It often seems that the artist’s identity is enough to be categorized as African art, rather than the substance of a piece.

When the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York first acquired the art of El Anatsui, the celebrated Ghanaian artist, curators first placed his work in the African gallery. Only later did they add his pieces in the Modern and Contemporary Galleries. For Anatsui, it “raise[d] so many questions as to what precisely [he is]…African artist or an artist? An artist in India is the same as an artist in Africa, Ghana, Japan or America.”

With sales directed at a public largely unacquainted with Africa’s vast diversity, some curators are adding nuance to the idea of “African art” by casting the new wave of talent as a coterie of artists of African descent exploring universal themes through locally-rooted perspectives. Indeed, the use of ‘1:54’ itself in the name 1:54 Contemporary Art Fair is an attempt to draw attention to the 54 countries and hundreds of cultures that make up the African continent.An expanding network of galleries across the continent helps contribute to that diversification. Over 14 Africa-based galleries from the continent’s five regions exhibited at 1:54’s London 2016 edition—a number that stands to grow in the near future.

For all the shortcomings of the term “African art,” it does serve a purpose in driving sales. In light of limited domestic markets and the fact that 80 percent of African art primarily sells in the United States and Europe, grouping together African artists is key to elevating their international profile. In this light, it is somewhat fitting that this year’s 1:54 London featured a discussion on locating “African design” and its constituents. The art of the continent’s leading talents sells at a relative discount compared to their peers from regions like East Asia. At 1:54, for example, pieces generally range from $1,500 to $100,000 (with a few notable exceptions from venerable stars like Sudan’s El-Salahi). Increasingly, the visibility of these artists on an international stage as “African” can help their investment appeal among collectors.

The wide umbrella of “African”—which often includes the diasporic perspectives of the Afro-Latin, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-American perspectives—also allows for an opportunity to explore commonalities of the black experience on a global platform. Increasingly, African-American artists like Kehinde Wiley and museums like Brooklyn’s MoCADA Museum have been catalysts for transatlantic conversations on black aesthetics. 1:54’s inclusion of an installation by British-Trinidadian artist Zak Ové and photographers by African-American photographer Gordon Parks speak to the inclusivity of the current African art market, and a willingness to expand its vocabulary beyond references to tradition and neo-colonialism.

Although some may criticize the explosion of Africa-centric art events, they may be seen as a statement of possibility rather than a reflection of constraints. With a rapidly expanding creative class across the continent, Africa is increasingly becoming a locus of discursive gaze and thought. Artists like Ghana’s Serge Attukwei Clottey are pushing the limits of the gender binary, while Algeria’s Zoulikha Bouabdellah probes religious lines. In showcasing an array of African artists working across styles and mediums, fairs like 1:54 challenge society to pursue a more wide-ranging definition of “Africa” that embraces and frees the continent from its historical baggage by claiming all these artistic representations without being beholden to just one.

Afropreneurs: Fred Apaloo’s Villa Grace is Shaking Up Ghana’s Fine Dining Scene (OkayAfrica)

If you've checked out the food section of this site, Jikoni, you're well-aware that I'm passionate about all things food. I recently interviewed Fred Apaloo, the creative director of Ghanaian boutique catering company Villa Grace for Okayafrica. Villa Grace, alongside some of my favorite Accra hotspots like Cafe Kwae and Tea Baa, is shaking up the Ghana food scene. Learn more here or read below.

Ghanaian chef Fred Apaloo is serving up elaborate brunches at his Accra pop-ups. He’s part of a budding fine-dining scene in the Ghanaian capital that emphasizes international flavors.

With a growing number of Ghanaian professionals returning home from abroad, Accra’s food scene is in the midst of a revolution. Alongside newly launched restaurants—Tea Baa, Neem Grill and Café Kwae—Villa Grace, Apaloo’s boutique dining company, is leading the charge to help more Ghanaians rethink their relationship with food.

Villa Grace has quickly become one of Accra’s most exclusive and unique dining experiences. Through intimate pop-up brunches, the brand has gained a large following, selling out tables weeks in advance. And yet, despite the careful preparation that goes into each Villa Grace event, its creation happened almost by chance.

When Apaloo moved home from Miami in 2015 to spend more time with his mother, he spent much of his downtime experimenting in the kitchen and documenting his creations via Instagram. “As I posted the photos, I had a lot of people message me asking if I’d cook for them, so I started a series called ‘Brunch Friends,’” he says. “I’d lay out a spread every Saturday, and I’d plate it nicely as if we were in a restaurant in the comfort of my home.”

After two cousins encouraged him to create an Instagram page as a platform for a social media blog, he launched Villa Grace as a food photography project. The overwhelmingly positive response led him to develop a pop-up dining experience a few weeks later.

“I studied hospitality management and I have a background in hospitality and service, so the whole concept wasn’t brand new to me,” Apaloo tells Okayafrica. “In Miami, pop-ups are common, but they’re still a new concept in Accra. Our first brunch, the ‘Genesis’ brunch, featured six courses and went extremely well. After I saw the reviews, I realized I could really launch it into a concept.”

In West Africa, where the kitchen is often perceived as the domain of women, some might view Apaloo’s choice to branch into catering as unusual. He dismisses such comments with a laugh. According to him, “Skills aren’t gendered. You don’t have to be a man to be a doctor or a woman to cook. Culinary skills are about artistry and individual talent.”

Named after his beloved grandmother, Villa Grace celebrates her painstakingly meticulous approach to entertaining. Apaloo credits his appreciation for presentation, excellence, and natural ingredients to time spent following his grandmother around the kitchen and garden growing up. “I saw the love and the care she put into the food she made, and at a young age, I made the connection between effort and product when it comes to food,” he says.
For Apaloo, brunch is not just about food, but also an opportunity for friends and laughter.

Having lived in Miami, the land of boozy brunches, the self-described gastronomist keeps the champagne flowing at most events. Moët & Chandon, one of the world’s largest champagne houses, sponsored Villa Grace’s most recent pop-up, “Endless Summer by Fred Apaloo.”

Now, Villa Grace has over four public brunches under its belt, and a burgeoning clientele of private catering clients. Down the road, Apaloo sees additional room for growth. “The Villa Grace concept is ultimately a boutique restaurant – a home-away-from-home space with good food, good company, and good laughs. Our pop-up dining series is paving the road for that.”

While Villa Grace’s price tag ($80 to $100) may be out of the reach of most locals, Accra’s rapidly rising middle class may deem the luxury of experiential dining well worth the cost. As Ghana’s food industry continues to grow, Villa Grace is poised to take over and re-define fine dining, Africa-style.

Follow Villa Grace on Instagram to see some of Apaloo’s work and to learn more about upcoming events.

Afropreneurs: Mozambique’s Celmira Amade Celebrates the Natural Beauty of Melanin-Rich Skin with TSAKA (OkayAfrica)

My newest contribution to Okayafrica's Afropreneurs series -- Mozambican skincare line TSAKA. Learn about how entrepreneur Celmira Amade is making waves in the beauty industry by disrupting the market for women of color.

If there’s one thing England is famous for, it’s the country’s cool, rainy weather. Mozambican entrepreneur Celmira Amade discovered that the hard way when she moved to London to study international business.

“I was born and raised in Mozambique, where it was summer year-round. Winter for us is 22 degrees Celsius—a summer day in the U.K.,” she says. “When I moved, I started getting dry skin and blemishes. No skincare products worked. The only thing I could do to manage the changes was wear makeup because that was all that was available in mainstream stores.”

Frustrated at these temporary solutions, Amade began using her grandmother’s Mozambican skincare recipes handed down through generations of her family. After studying entrepreneurship at Cambridge’s Judge Business School, Amade began to consider turning her pet project into a full-fledged venture. Today, she is taking her family’s beauty secrets to the masses through new vegan skincare line—TSAKA. Meaning happiness in Mozambique’s Ronga dialect, TSAKA celebrates the natural beauty of melanin-rich skin.

“There has been very little change in the mainstream beauty market to address the needs of people with melanin-rich skin. While there has been some evolution in availability of makeup and hair care, skincare continues to lag behind,” Amade says.

TSAKA plans to fill that gap by developing an internationally-recognized inclusive beauty brand. In recent years, African beauty ingredients like shea butter and marula oil have gotten their fair share of hype. TSAKA hopes to add a new addition to that mix: Olacaceae extract. The flowering plants are only found in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Madagascar, and have anti-inflammatory properties that can help fight hyper pigmentation. In TSAKA’s signature face mask, the natural ingredient not only detoxifies the skin, but also minimizes blemishes. Launched in 2016, the beauty line is the first in the U.K. to exclusively use Olacaceae extract.

“I wanted to do something that created a community, and helped improve people’s self-image without changing it,” Amade says. “You don’t need makeup to look beautiful. There are simple ways you can enhance your natural beauty.”

From ingredients to application, simplicity is at the core of TSAKA’s ethos. To use the face mask, Amade recommends sprinkling some of the powder with a teaspoon of water before applying to the face for half-an hour. With a preservative-free formula, the mask can be a component of any beauty routine.

The formulation isn’t the only African feature—the brand’s gorgeous, colorful packaging also celebrates its roots through symbols and colors on its ankara-inspired lids. Yellow and brown symbolize the wealth of TSAKA’s active, natural ingredients, and purple highlights the premium nature of its products. Infinity symbols signify unlimited potential while four hearts represent a love of Mother Nature.

For now Amade is concentrating on building buzz about the face mask, but don’t rule out additional TSAKA products in the near future. “We may launch a face serum sometime soon as a next step in our skin care regime. Our face mask deep cleans and detoxifies the skin, but the serum will help restore moisture and leave you glowing.”

Highlights of 1:54 Contemporary African Fair London 2016 (OkayAfrica)

One of my favorite events every year is 1:54 Contemporary Art Fair. With London and New York editions, the fair is promoting the work of artists and galleries across the continent and diaspora. I shared a few of my highlights of 1:54's London 2016 edition with Okayafrica. You can check them out below or on the Okayafrica website. 

The fourth edition of 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair brings together over 40 exhibitors from 18 countries to showcase a diverse range of contemporary work by leading artists from the continent and diaspora. Named after the 54 countries of Africa, the ambitious fair will shine a spotlight on African art at Somerset House, the majestic Tudor palace overlooking the Thames.

Following a well-attended symposium at New York’s Armory Show earlier this year, 1:54 is poised for strong sales. With over a third of the galleries at this year’s fair exhibiting for the first time, collectors and art enthusiasts at 1:54 will enjoy a three-day celebration of African artists at the vanguard of their disciplines.

FORUM, the fair’s extensive series of talks and events, will once again run alongside the fair, and will bring together artists, exhibitors, and cultural critics to explore convergences across artistic and cultural production.

Below, we share our favorite highlights of this weekend’s 1:54 London:

1. “Black and Blue: The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness,” Zak Ové

As you enter Somerset House’s stately courtyard, you’ll find Irish-Trinidadian artist Zak Ové’s army of 40 two meter high black graphite statues standing guard amongst the foundations. The son of acclaimed filmmaker Horace Ové, Zak Ové originally trained in film and photography, before branching into sculpture following a residency at Caribbean Contemporary Art in 2007.

The “invisible men” standing guard both recall Ralph Ellison’s classic and harken back to the famed Yoruba masks that mark the aesthetic of the cool. The installation, also a commentary on power, beauty, and identity, references a play written by Ben Jonson and enacted by Anne of Denmark and her court ladies, painted in blackface, in the courtyard of Whitehall Palace in 1605. The play reflected a shift from earlier appreciation of black beauty to a preference for lighter skin in the 17th century. In reclaiming the name of the play and situating his army in the neoclassical palace, Ové affirms that black lives matter.

2. The First UK solo exhibition of Malian photographer Malick Sidibe (1936 – 2016)

The fair’s crown jewel, although not for sale, is “Malick Sidibé: The Eye of Modern Mali,” an exhibition presented by 1:54 in collaboration with MAGNIN-A. Located in the main hall, the stunning 45 black-and-white photographs celebrate the jubilance of post-independence Mali. Known as the “eye of Bamako,” the late artist gained a formidable international following as one of the fathers of African photography, subverting narratives through spontaneous images of Bamakois dancing and modernist studio portraits of the city’s youth.

3. Nando’s Exhibition in Collaboration with Yellowwoods Art

As you enjoy your delicious peri-peri chicken on your next trip to Nando’s, stop to look at the art. The South African chain, which owns over 1,000 restaurants in 30 countries, is also home of the world’s largest private collection of Southern African art. Founded in 1987, Nando’s has been working with artists since 2002 through a close partnership with Cape Town-based Yellowwoods Art, a firm specializing in creating opportunities for budding South African talent. At 1:54, Nando’s and Yellowwoods present a few of the artists that feature in their UK collection. Stop by to see works by Regi Bardavid, Lizette Chirrime, Pat Mautloa, and Maurice Mbikayi.

4. “PASSAGE,” Alexandra Karakashian

At this year’s fair, Alexandra Karakashian will create a site-specific installation entitled“PASSAGE.” The piece, much like much of Karakashian’s practice, draws from her family’s experience escaping the Armenian genocide and migrating through Africa before settling in Johannesburg. Through oil and paper designs, Karakashian reflects on issues at the forefront of exile, migration, and the environment, issues at the heart of today’s Euro-African relations.

5. 1:54 Lounge

The 1:54 Lounge and Bookshop are not only an opportunity to relax and reflect, but to see how designers are pushing the boundaries of functional art. This year, designer Ifeanyi Oganwu (Expand Design Ltd.), visual artist Phoebe Boswell, and textile design firm Toghal have collaborated to create forty unique stools and cushions. A modernist take on the traditional stools common across West Africa, the contemporary work, entitled “Pedestal + Duniake,” also celebrates East African culture by drawing inspiration from the traditional Swahili kanga. In addition to the interior spaces of the 1:54 lounge, Toghal has also collaborated with designerLulu Kitololo to create a collection of cushions that will be positioned on a number of Somerset House’s terraces. Draw some inspiration from the bold designs of the collection, which is up for sale during and following the event.