MIZIZI

Mizizi

Clothing Line

Paakow Essandoh

Dallas, Texas & Tampa, Florida

Mizizi was founded in 2014 by two African students at the University of South Florida, who were sitting in the dining hall discussing the scarce amount of Africans and African pride that was shown in Florida. One of the young men is of Ghanaian descent and the other Kenyan descent. After spending hours of discussion, they compared & contrasted the ways in which Caribbean’s display their culture throughout the state and what Africans could do to do the same. This unknowingly lead to the birth of Mizizi; meaning “roots” in Swahili, the purpose of the line was to stylishly show off the African culture and revive the pride that lies dormant in many of our hearts. After further discussion, the students were insistent in bringing their idea to life. With the help of the USF Research department they were able to research the amount of African immigrants/2nd generation born in the USA, to find the demographic countries in which the collection would target. Now, Mizizi has created a collective of 7 pieces, of the most populous immigrants in the United States as of 2015. These students, Paakow Essandoh, Chief Executive Officer, and George Kariuki (who later left the company to further pursue other business endeavors) is now the head personnel of Mizizi. He continues to build on ideas, much like the ones for the first collection, and focus on designing more pieces to further serve a greater purpose.

I know it’s been awhile but what better way to come back from my hiatus than with a culturally aware clothing line? With so much going on in the world as far as racism we need a clothing line to celebrate us and our poppin’ melanin. This line is very symbolic of black lives and why they matter, I mean all life originates from Africa and it’s time to be proud of our roots. I know a lot of African-Americans don’t know their roots and that they have lost their history but we can still be proud to be of African descent. It’s a common misconception that African-Americans don’t want to be African (I mean there are those very ignorant few, but….) for the most part we would love to know where we come from there’s just a lot of factors that keep us from knowing. There’s also a common misconception that Africans don’t accept that African-Americans are of African descent (and maybe they don’t) but I feel like they would be more accepting if we first accepted our ancestry and just become culturally aware. I would love to see African-Americans become more supportive of black owned businesses and quicker to uplift each other rather than tear each other down. Also to not be so quick to focus on the negative of our people but praise the positives. I’m tired of seeing us segregating each other based on our skin tones, no more light-skinned vs dark-skinned, puhlease. You would think with all of the Black Lives Matter movements we would be more appreciative of our fellow brothers and sisters but some things do take time. I think this clothing line is just what we need to become culturally aware. I think with every jersey they should give a like a little note card with facts about the country (or continent) of the jersey you buy and break down common uneducated beliefs about the country. Now I do believe All Lives Matter but we are talking about the black ones right now. So let me take the time out to say RIP to Christian Taylor. He was a young African-American man based in Arlington, TX going to college trying to make a better name for himself and his family. Christian Taylor is my friends little brother and his life did not deserve to be taken like that. He was a follower of Christ and an all-around great guy, he set out to change the world and he’s doing just that. If you would like to donate to Christian Taylor’s fund go to paypal.com, the account is WorldChanger8715@yahoo.com and his dad’s charity is ccstx.org (the charity is to help the youth in the DFW community become more aware and learn how to interact with police officers in our community.)

If you would like to shop Mizizi access their social networks below:

Instagram: @Mizizi.shop

Twitter: @Mizizishop