BLACK #MAVERICKS::::The African Culture is NOW! YAGAZIE EMEZI.

About Me

Dedicated to the cultural preservation of the African aesthetic, Yagazie Emezi began an African culture & creativity website as a project to locate young and upcoming photographers with the intent of providing a platform that showcases their work and points of view of Africa.

This is part of a concerted effort to encourage the creative arts movement within Africa and the Diaspora, to provide us with spaces to tell our own stories, support our creative entrepreneurs, and view ourselves through our own lenses. With a dual degree in Cultural Anthropology & Africana Studies, Yagazie embarked on this journey to not only curate our existing culture and the talent of our youth, but to also emphasize the necessity of a habit of cultural preservation among us that goes beyond documenting only past and traditional practices. 

Our culture is NOW.

With contributing photographers based in Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, U.S and Germany and with varied backgrounds, this site documents their work and travels, in and out of Africa. You’ll also find interviews spotlighting African creatives, as well as features on art, fashion, and film. The goal is to illuminate new and different perspectives on the continent along with highlighting young and overlooked talent.

Yagazie Ledi Francisca Emezi was born and raised in Aba, Nigeria and moved to the United States in 2005 where her love and yearning for home led to an intensified passion for Africa and the arts.

She is also a visual artist and cartoonist, as well as a video blogger whose YouTube channel is a popular digital platform that discusses social issues, hilarious snippets of personal life, and a plethora of topics rarely addressed openly in African communities, such as eating disorders and sexuality. She is currently relocating back to the continent. 

My Love for Prints

I love prints! Growing up in Nigeria, I got stuck with school uniforms, hand-me-downs and the ‘mother hand-picked this for me’ clothes. But I was surrounded daily by vibrant traditional clothes worn by others around me as they bustled about their everyday routines; which perhaps explains my attraction to patterns.

Moving to the States as a teen fueled the already present desire to fit in, to blend in, but the more I believed I was doing just that, the more I felt myself crippling with body-consciousness and self-esteem issues. So at some point during my college years, I simply let myself be and started to wear what my eyes were drawn to in order to express myself.

As fond as I am of my dark colors, I cannot get enough of my printed items because with their jumble of patterns and designs, they seem to represent who I am on the outside