31 Women We Love

In celebration of you dear reader, your homegirl you’ll share this post with, and the family members you will guide in their healing, we present to you, 31 Women We Love! 

These Black women share health and abundance with all who are ready to receive. Their expertise- firstly through a lived experience, radiates in their messaging and offerings. What I most especially love is how these women authentically show up. 

I hope you click the links and shop where available, donate where being asked and follow on Instagram for the flavorful vibes and knowledge they offer.

This post is sectioned into 7 categories. Feel free to scroll to your interest! This post is NOT sponsored. Please do your own research! 

1.Culinary Gold 🍲 2.Get In Your Bag 💰 3.Land Justice 🌱 4.Body Wellness🌿👂🏽

5.Intertainment 🎬🎛️  6.Spiritual Health 🕯️  7.Social Advocacy ✊🏿

Culinary Gold 🍲

We LOVE good food! While not always vegans and still able to taste the jerk chicken of my younger years, the meat and dairy industry is enough to turn my head away from eating meat and their byproducts. But also, the deeper I go into my spirituality, the more I realize animals best serve us when honored. On the other end of this is my food trauma. I thank these 5 Black women for nourishing me along my culinary journey. 

1. Francesca Chaney is Owner/Head Chef of Sol Sips, a vegan restaurant offering sliding scale plant-based food and beverage rooted in her Jamaican heritage. At just 22 years young, Francesca has made a phenomenal impact that rippled beyond Sol Sip’s Bushwick location. I still remember my first (and not last!) visit, traveling from my home in Jersey City to Bushwick before heading to work in the West Village. It was well worth the train transfers, wait and fast walking!
2. Danielle Henry is a Traveling Chef/Plant-based Healer/Storyteller whose business, Let’s Talk Food Inc. “uses food as a way to bridge the gap between other cultures worldwide by uniquely and boldly combining different spices and flavors.” Follow her here, and hire her for your next culinary adventure!
3. Anya Peters founded Kit an’ Kin, a food experience rooted in her Jamaican-Trinidadian lineage, after obtaining her culinary degree. Anya was inspired by the memories of childhood meals and conversation over food and family to create THE most mouthwatering meals (vegan and not) rich in spice and good West Indian vibe. Be on the lookout for Anya’s children’s book using the foods of her home to teach the little ones their A, B, Cs. 
4. Rachel Laryea of Kelewele blew my mind before even tasting her plantain ice-creams, brownies and ginger rich Kelewele. Named after the popular Ghanianan street food, Rachel has engineered a brand and experience that spans beyond the Gold Coast. Plantains are a filling provision rich in vital minerals, fiber and vitamins staple to not only Ghana and West Africa, but the Caribbean and South America. You can now order Kelewele’s baked goods for US shipping. Please consider supporting their fundraiser to purchase their BK Foodtruck! 
5. Ahki Taylor approaches veganism from an idigenous place, using food as medicine and medicine as food. Her recent Ted X talk so beautifully takes us through the simple overstanding of what happens when we consume genetically modified foods and stray from indigineous diets. She offers an array of cookbooks to help destroy fibroids, alkalinize our bodies and raise children on holistically energetic foods. We love her lemon and herb seasoning! 

Get In Your Bag 💰

I don’t know the statistics but I know Americans are deep in debt. With these 4 women by your side, I hope you feel empowered to reclaim your finances. This list is in NO WAY representative of ALL of the Black women in finance guiding us towards credit health and prosperity, but it is a great place for you to begin!

1. Tiffany Aliche is THE Budgetnista! With a new book available at small bookstores like WORD (that’s where I purchased mine out of nostalgia for Jersey City), her website and Barnes & Noble, Tiffany is that aunty who tells you everything you don’t want to hear but need to, later praising her for her teachings. It is no wonder Tiffany was just nominated for an NAACP Image Award and her book is #1 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases, Budget and Money Management. We stan!
2. Demisha started She Assists LLC to help you perfect your resume, negotiate for a higher salary-even when your boss says the door ain’t open!, and place the true value on every letter of your name. Of course, when her IG account was divined unto me, I felt an automatic connection, lol. Twinnn! Follow Demisha and stop shrinking!
3. Kezia Williams absolutely gives me life! Founder of The Black Upstart, IG blue check verified, on the advisory board of Pepsi, founder of one of last summer’s largest calls to ACTION to spend with Black Businesses, Kezia champions Black equity, wealth building and the dismantling of the “black tax” and generational disenfranchisement Blacks in America live through daily. She empowers us to walk where the money resides and claim the financial blessings we are due
4. Sharon Beason is the epitome of showing up as your authentic self while securing the entrepreneurial bag! I live for her fashion and bold, West Indian tongue. Womeneur is not only her business name but a hashtag widely used across the female business owner landscape. Since 2015, Sharon has been successfully uplifting and guiding women business owners along their journey to not only structure their businesses in a scalable way, but to EARN WHAT THEY ARE WORTH! 

Land Justice 🌱

Imani was born in a small parish in the countryside of Jamaica, W.I. As a little girl, she and her friends would plait blades of grass, pick fresh fruit unclaimed by the property lines, cook jackfruit seeds in her tin can and tend to her garden. Papa, her caretaker/non-biological Grandfather, worked the banana plantation and at home intentionally collected rainwater and smoked the daily catch over their OG stove. At an early age Imani learned that the land was sacred. These 3 women- 2 organizations! treat the earth with this same love, knowing and gratitude. 

1. B. Anderson is a storyteller, healer and stewardess of indigenous land practices as rooted in the Maroons of Jamaica. B guides us towards a communal healing rooted in land justice and cultural preservation. Her organization, Song of the Spirit Institute provides us with an abundance of opportunities to give space to plant healing and land restoration while honoring our ancestral practices. I encourage you to donate to Song of the Spirit Institute and get involved beyond your dollar. 
2. Sisters Leah Penniman and Naima Penniman of Soul Fire Farm are farmer goals! Based in Albany, New York, their BIPOC led “how to” videos, work through Freedom Food Alliance, youth programming, petitions and community activism drawing very real connections between food insecurity/desserts to the prison pipeline, is groundbreaking. When you click these links, please do more than browse but take a deep and shadowy look into how YOU may be contributing to the inequity of food access in your community and ways that YOU can bring fresh, organic, even local! produce and knowledge into the spaces YOU occupy. While shadow work ain’t easy, it yields some of the most nutrient dense veggies. ...Kale anyone?! 

Body Wellness🌿👂🏽

If the ingredients in what you put on your skin are not things you can pronounce in layman's terms, or items you would eat without illness, the gurus say to stay away. These 3 women have surely taught me a thing or two about healing the body with herbs either in body products or their programs. Nature is the greatest and first pharmacy! Do you listen when your body speaks?

1. Orisha Oshun healed her body and that of her fiancee after years of a toxic relationship with alcohol, drugs and what society told her was food. From homelessness and the psych ward, this Sistar manifested I Am Surviving Vegan, a VERY successful vegan coaching service that empowers people on their journey to heal their bodies through meditation and a holistic lifestyle. 
2. Paris Williams is a multidimensional artist who makes herb infused, vegan soaps that smell good enough to eat. She has offerings for the face, body and hair, carefully crafted for specifics such as yoni health, hair growth, eczema and the babies. I’ve tried nearly all of them, lol.
3. T.C Atkinson is a first generation Black in America who gifted us with Embrace Pangea, a line of detoxing products rooted in her Jamaican wisdom of herbs. Release to receive!

Intertainment 🎬🎛️

We all love visually stunning imagery that evokes emotion. Be it film, photography, paintings or hand-crafted goods, the healing we feel when we consume content that we relate to, informs our perspective on culture and allows space for a range of emotions is priceless. Everything I have seen these 4 women put their hands to creating has been no short of inspiring. 

1. Chelsea Odufu is a digital visionary. Content creator, nomad, creator of TechAfrique- currently serving the vibes in Tulum, Mexico, the afro-futuristic film series Black Lady Goddess and Ori Inu, Chelsea steps SO deep into the power of Black women. Her travels alone speak to the global expansion of Black femininity and the storyline of every piece she creates affirmes in me my power and that of Black women. Check out her short series screened at film festivals from NYC to New Orleans. 
2. Iya Niambi Salako Omiseeke & Iya Thandiwe Fatoyosi Osuntoki of Oshun started healing my heart with the first beat drop. The two divinely met while studying at NYU- Thandiwe in Journalism and Africana Studies and Niambi a student of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. Their sonic melodies transverse this dimension, calling upon the Orishas and our divine ancestors to guide the healing of our hearts, from where we can heal our communities and honestly face the truths of spirit, capitalism, earth justice and all things love. 
3. DeShuna Spencer took matters into her own hands when, after frustratingly clicking through channel after channel, the offerings did not speak to a Black experience she knew to be true. DeShuna wanted something more than what is offered on the cable networks and large streaming services we all know, bringing it to us via KweliTV, a streaming network offering monthly and annual subscriptions to hundreds of movies and television shows from Black spaces in Cuba, Ghana, Nigeria, Portugal, The United Kingdom, Antigua, and Brazil to name a few. 
4. Danielle Johnson aka MsHotSauce™ owns Boston’s first and only female led radio station, SparkFM. She is as hilarious and raw as I remember her from high school. Stream today for the latest in Reggae, Soca, Kalyso, Kompa and all things urban radio. She also runs a youth program for girls interested in radio.

Spiritual Health 🕯️

“Whenever cultures interface, either through conquest or through peaceful assimilation, the dominant cultural religious structure will extract the more positive aspects of the subjugated culture. What’s left in its wake are the negative aspects. People generally accept this negativity because it’s the part of the origin or tradition that is presented by the dominant culture.” Baba Ifa Karade We give thanks to these 9 Black Priestesses/Diviners/Readers/Spiritual Healers for unapologetically speaking and healing through African spirituality. P.s. Find out for yourself. Bless you! 

1. Jessyka Winston is no doubt a Vodou Mambo with THE sauce! Her candle magick, anointing oils, and baths have opened doors to my healing. You can shop online or in-person at her beautifully curated New Orleans apothecary. 
2. Empress Karen Rose curates her instagram in a way that brings me instant calm. Her spiritual baths and herbal teas are divine. She offers an herbal apprenticeship that empowers you to strengthen your relationship to herbs and innerstanding of the moon. 
3. Tatiana Morales pulls cards that will snatch your wig! An Ifa Priestess, her messages have always been timely, lifting me out of depression. She has many offerings, both product and service based. What are you afraid of?...
4. Suhaly Batista has always been otherworldly, and it is no surprise that she has found her place as a medicine maker through her company, Moon Mother Apothecary. A student of Empress Karen Rose and fellow NYU grad, I am excited to watch Suhaly grow into her light.  
5. Azizaa Mystic travels to your point of origin through her ancestors to answer some of life’s most pressing questions;  “What is my purpose?” “Why do I keep struggling to find love?” etc. You can book a reading and shop her products here. 
6. Faithlyn Scarlett serves up some delicious yoni centric healing, crystal healing and body work at Faith’s Naturals. We are blessed to share the city of Boston with Faith. 
7. Alexandra Elle rose to fame with her post-it note affirmations. She uses writing to heal, encouraging us to speak abundance over our lives as we move through and out of traumas. You can check out her offerings here.
8. Lauren Ash is aesthetic goals, helping Black women to be seen and heard through her healing work with Black Girl in Om and their podcast. You can support the building out of BGIOs physical space, h(om)e, located in Lauren’s hometown of Minneapolis, MI here. 
9. Dr. Jennifer Mullan is a therapist, liberator and activist. Decolonizing Therapy is rooted in naming, imagining and healing ancestral traumas, and naming and claiming our inner rage child. She stresses the impact that imperialism, whiteness and colonialism has had on ALL of us and provides us with some tools to righteously rage towards our healing. 

Social Advocacy ✊🏿

We all know the power of words. Be it poetry, thoughts, song or scribbles. When put to good use, our words fuel social advocacy that dismantles broken systems and dangerous ideologies. These 4 women are here to stand up for the Black and Idigenous community like the freedom fighters before them. When Black people live in justice and freedom, we all live in justice and freedom. 

1. Aja Monet uses poetry to liberate Black bodies. The power of her pen literally sets chained bodies free. Her writing is colorful, visual, honest, painful, and oh so gentle. I admire this sistar for her social justice work around prison advocacy, immigration rights and the work she is doing with Vis for Voices. Dear Aja, thank you!
2. Niambe McIntosh led the charge in seeking justice for her late brother, JaWara Tosh. She is a key player in the legalization of marijuana and restoration of justice for Black and Brown men and women disproportionately and unfairly arrested and incarcerated for marijuana possession and usage. She sits on several advisory boards.
3. B Hunter radiates, clearly guided by her God body! Power Speaks Louder has been donating food to individuals and families in need all COVID with donations from big brands and local, California businesses. Her work stems from the power of words.
4. Trinity Simone is a teenage powerhouse! Dual entrepreneur, Trinity gives a voice to incarcerated youth through her non-profit organization, The Youth Will Be All Write. She is a beacon of light and role model to teens and adults alike.