Hi guys! Big thanks to all of you who’ve read Who is NOIR Labs. Bigger thanks to you if you’ve shared it with your community. May every Black person around you come to know the fullness of their glory and power.
Today I’d like to share with you the story of NOIR Labs. There is a sanitized version of our story here, but this is not a mainstream lightbulb-moment-in-the-classroom, built-in-my-parents’-garage kind of start-up story. This is the story of a soul traumatized by every form of colonialism–a science of slow genocide, a violence that never ended, that only redesigned itself. A soul who would rather join my Ancestors than stay here and take imperialist genocide lying down.
I watched Spike Lee’s Malcolm X when I was seven. Read his autobiography in high school. Somewhere in between those dates, I heard my mom say that we should purge all the African leaders. I watched my parents struggle to find significant work in spite of their advanced education due to the blatant anti-Blackness and anti-immigrant sentiment in Missouri–and all of white America–at the time. I watched every gathering of African adults–Nigerian adults, especially–rapidly devolve into a heated debate about how to save our Continent. I watched my parents mourn their parents without being able to travel home due to anti-African immigration laws–an extension of the global carceral “state”. These experiences–and binge-watching Roots in high school–made it simply not enough for me to complain about racism and then go on about my business.
Enlightenment
I was then introduced to the life and philosophies of Thomas Sankara by a Tchadienne immigrant in Arizona who barely spoke English. All this radical education, none of which came from the white institutions I attended from my arrival in the UK at 5 years old. I had to learn the truth about Blackness on my own. Collecting books like some collect baseball cards from the first time I stepped in a bookstore and had the means to invest in my intellectual development.
Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Mariam Makeba, Huey P. Newton, Stokely Carmichael. Every single one of these selfless individuals, these instrumental Ancestors, gave us a roadmap to freedom. Imperialist media and education systems have done their best to hide the stories of these visionaries, but any bookstore you walk into in non-Klan country should have their stories. Cheikh Ante Diop, Ivan Van Sertima. These are the names we should be celebrating and the people we should be obsessing over.
Building an Idea
Ultimately, the long and short of the story of NOIR Labs is that I was inspired by the selfless (r)evolutionaries who came before me. Being that I am a born artist and storyteller, who loooves my femininity, my contribution certainly wouldn’t be traditional guerrilla warfare. My guerrilla warfare is guerrilla storytelling. Inserting the dreams, visions and strategies of our Ancestors deep into the minds and spirits of every thinking Black person from the smallest Congolese village to the most influential multinational boardroom.
The first thing I remember selling was hand drawn “photographs” taken by my paper “camera” as a six-year old. Since then I’ve sold everything from t-shirts to Yoruba classes, to now tickets to NOIR FEST. In 2006, after reading extensively about the African Brain Drain, I decided to do something about it. I founded Exodus to Africka to send resources from the Diaspora to the Continent. It actually instead ended up focusing on cultural exchange: Yoruba films, Yoruba classes, Nollywood films.
When I got to Yale, I told everyone I met that I wanted to build a cultural database to help the African Diaspora connect more deeply with the Continent through curated African language and cultural education resources. That database evolved to Portal X, where we’ll host virtual NOIR FESTs, connect the Diaspora to high quality African language instruction, and more deeply connect us to each other. From this community, we’ll harness the talent and passion for the Continent to develop educational institutions that are not marred by internalized self-hatred and anti-Blackness but directed by deep self-love and the guiding of the Holy Spirit.
Building a Team
As someone who was never good at asking for help before developing these ideas, successfully recruiting three people who had no intention of building something so radical was a big deal for me. I have only been successful thus far due to my obedience to the Holy Spirit. Every time I have failed to listen, I have FELT it. So obedience is my new religion. Since those three people came through the org, so many others have literally volunteered themselves to help build this vision. I have to celebrate them every chance I get because people who are willing to really put in consistent time and incredible genius energy to build a Liberationist platform are extremely rare.
Edirin Aghoghovbia gets the first set of flowers. Educated by a Nigerian system that intentionally hides the fullness of the country’s radical history, he had no clue where my radical mindset was coming from, but just loved me and supported me as a friend. Raquel Silva, raised in Brazil, but made of African spirit was the next to say kinda-yes. That kinda-yes turned into over a year of volunteering her talent and resources to help us cultivate a loving community and build partnerships with institutions with our same ideals–until Google got to hire her. Sabelo Mhlambi was next. Our partnership was short-lived, but the intellectual contributions he made live on in the DNA of the organization.
Daven Hines has been with us almost a year now, volunteering to help us spread the word and build our US community after coming to one of our events. Faith Crittenden joined next, literally just reaching out to say, “how can I help?” and help she did. We wouldn’t have started our podcasts so beautifully if not for Faith. Sabrina Ashworth built our team of MBA interns and our film jury, and has submitted countless grants on our behalf. Kirsten Coy saved my life when she came in just as our team was going from 1 full-timer, 4 part-timers to 5 full-timers, 4 part-timers (all of this PRE-revenue, mind you).
Then Jack Sullivan and Alexis Kirton, our interns–hired through Columbia–helped us build our financial strategy and marketing plan. Jack built a ten-year revenue deck in just one week (after months of research on African Diaspora markets). Uzomaka the Oracle came in and sealed the deal, providing me the spiritual guidance that prepared me to damn the fears and step into the light, frfr. She also developed much of our operational design and business strategy. Finally we welcome Nya Holder who is at the helm of NOIR FEST planning and just general JOY cultivation. Thank you thank you thank you to all of you beloveds, you know I looooove you!
Our team continues to evolve as needed, with the Holy Spirit bringing just who we need and guiding those who need to transition elsewhere, always ensuring that I have the support needed to get us to and through the next phase.
Parenting a Business and a Child
The most important team member though, is my eleven year old daughter. I obey the Holy Spirit and do this work for her posterity, her legacy, her children. She challenges me greatly to be better each day. She provides rigorous, unfiltered feedback about everything I do, and unrestricted hugs, laughs and genius in just the right doses.
Now it’s time for me to work for her. I’m excited for us to raise this $5 million to secure our next three years of operations so that I can spend more time playing hand games with Yetunde on the beach, taking her to anime cons in Japan, teaching her about our history as African people and preparing her to build her own legacy. Since her father passed, I’ve been her primary parent, friend and teacher. With our world going through such trauma, she needs me now more than ever, which means I need to be able to afford to take more breaks. This will be made easy by a fully funded NOIR Labs.
Our team thus far has been 90% volunteer, and look at what we’ve produced. Imagine if we were fully funded what you’d get!!! Share this post, our vision, our mission with your community and with your favorite Black millionaires. Send this to Will Smith, Lauryn Hill, Oprah, Ava, David Oyelowo, Lupe Fiasco, Dangote, Beyonce, everybody you think could easily cut a check. We’re manifesting 5 people to invest 1 million. Amen.
Then you get to have Portal X, quarterly NOIR FESTs, the African Digital Institute and anything else you collectively communicate that you’d like us to build. You too will soon be able to invest in this dream by purchasing your ticket to NOIR FEST, preordering NOIR Co apparel, and locking in your Portal X membership.
We do this work because we are obsessed with bringing Black people joy, and bringing us together, in every way we can. It’s our time. Let’s thrive together.
We love you!
One,
Lolade
