June 25, 2025 • 37 mins
Rachel Laryea On Capitalism, Dreaming Bigger & Building Wealth: Key Insights + More
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up, his way up with Angela Yee and Happy
Wealth Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Of course, Dacy Tisdale is here.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Happy Wealth Wednesday's everybody. We are going to educate you
today in capitalism and all things capitalism and a form
of capitalism that you've probably never thought about, Black capitalism,
because we have the one and only doctor Rachel Lorea,
whose book Black Capitalist just came out a couple of
weeks ago. Its full title is Black Capitalist, a Blueprint
(00:30):
for what is Possible. Doctor Rachel is no slacker. She's
currently in asset wealth management a JP Morgan Chase. She's
the founder of kelliwell A, which is a lifestyle brand.
But your plantains and your cookies and your brownies or
what it's all about, and you have a plantain obsession,
which we'll talk about. You're also an anthropologist, sheh, and
(00:53):
your PhD is in African American Studies and socioculture anthropology.
You've been featured in the Top Times, Forbes, everything everywhere,
and we're just so excited to have you and really
proud that you wrote this book. It is fantastic.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Well, we have questions, okay, but let's start with the basics.
So what is the difference between black capitalism and regular capitalism.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Yeah, so I'll start with capitalism. It's really an economic
system focused on private actors pursuing private ownership with the
intention to yield excess capital. So it's really about profitability
and about ownership. Black capitalism, in contrast, is really about
how private actors collectives can really reposition themselves within the
(01:38):
economic system of today with the intention to yield excess capital,
but then most importantly, really create social good as well,
and so that becomes the core difference. It's about how
can you also create avenues for ownership and thriving with
that context of social good which you don't have in
a framework of capitalism.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Right, capitalism.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I think it's a bad repped because people act like
capitalist societies are really bad, Like when you hear about like,
oh yeah, it's capitalists, Oh capitalism is you know, awful,
But then we talk about black capitalism and any for it.
There was one part in the book where you talk
about being in church and why money is important when
(02:19):
it comes not to just being able to have things,
but also dignity.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Yeah, exactly, And I think that it's really the tools
of capitalism can be neutral. It's just we're living in
the history and the present of the racialization of these tools,
which is why I think them people can have these
really visceral and negative relationships too and reactions to capitalism.
But if we really think about how we can use
the tools of capitalism in new ways and restorative ways
(02:45):
that create opportunities for social good that we can tap
into that in a kind of new form that I
think ruptures preconceived notions about capitalism.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Let's give examples of that an action, because I know
when I worked on Wall Street, a company just like
take a hippocratic oath. Companies take an oath to make
their shareholders as much money as possible, and a lot
of people are like, well, what is this company being
so bad their responsibilities to their shareholders. They never said
it was anything different black capitalism. You're saying that necessary
(03:15):
thing is paying it forward and community, and in your
book you give some incredible examples of people doing that.
Is Suzu comes to mind. Yeah, talk about it in action.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, so you mentioned Asusu So one of the co
founders of that company, which is a unicorn business.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
By the way, they launch that tell people what a unicorn.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yes, it's a billion dollar valuation for a business, which
is huge, and so Amimu Abbi one of the co founders.
He launched that back in twenty eighteen with his co
founder and the work that they do is really about
creating financial visibility for the country's most financially invisible people
through credit reporting and the belief is that if people
can pay their rent on time, then you should also
(03:56):
have access to credit worthiness. And so that's a B
to B business, but ultimately has value at the bottom
line to the consumer where they now get access to
credit and access to mortgages, to different loans, personal loans, etc.
And they've really unlocked millions of dollars of capital and
credit and leverage and a financial sense to people that
(04:17):
otherwise would have never had it. And so that's really
focused on a business where they're not thinking about exploitation,
they're not thinking about extraction. It's how can we create
social good opportunity for people in a way that's clearly
profitable than being a unicorn business. And so that's just
one example, and I think it's not just from an
entrepreneurial lens whereby you can practice black capitalism. I work
(04:41):
at JP Morgan Chase, and I spend a lot of
time thinking in my seat within wealth management, what are
the things that I can do to bring the resources
within wealth management into the communities that I'm a part
of outside of it, and whether it be people are
thinking about recruitment retention of diverse professionals, They're thinking about
how they can bring in black owned businesses into the
(05:03):
organization to get different scopes of work, different opportunities. There's
so many different outlets that think about how can you
just share capital resources in different ways? Regardless of the
seat that you're in.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I'm listening to you, and you're so soft. I mean
you're a Tiger. You're just so soft. And I know
you were born in Ghana.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Well I was born here.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Actually you're born here. Your strong heritage connection to your
family in Ghana, and that's a culture where people are
conditioned to be soft spoken. That does not cut it
on Wall Street. And you actually started at Goldman Sachs
not knowing anything about finance. How did that happen and
how did you distinguish yourself as a black woman in
(05:49):
that situation?
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Yeah, So, as you mentioned, I had no context for
high finance whatsoever. But I happen to get recruited while
I was an undergrad at NYU, and I didn't think
anything of it. I was going to dismiss it. But
it was my older brother who really kind of encouraged
me to rethink that. He was like, this could change
the trajectory of your career if you take on this
internship at Goldman and.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
So student loan, debt, everything that you were at.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yeah, and so even to intern at Goldman, that's what
made the difference between me graduating debt free and graduating
with considerable debt. And so just having access to that
opportunity was huge. But those kind of early days was
a massive culture shock on top of the fact that
I was one of the few black women in that
space and you're kind of vying for that full time offer.
(06:36):
You know, you watch those like Succession or Billions or
Industry and you think that's fiction, but so much of
that is true in terms of what you go through,
the toxicity sometimes in those spaces to get the offer,
get the job, and have.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
That tent hitting black people well, really pits black people
against each other.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Yeah, So it's like you have that cultural context, but
then on top of it, as you mentioned, I have
my own kind of ethnic cultural context of you know, humility,
kind of subservience. Those are all kind of parts of
the culture. And so when you're in a place like
Goldman Sachs, you need to be as visible as possible.
People need to hear you and see you in order
for them to remember you. And so I'm then wrestling
(07:15):
with man, how do I do that when it feels
so counter to how I've grown up and how I
just kind of carry myself. And so those became the
sets of challenges that I had while also seeing for
the first time what black sociality and high finance can
look like, how you can use the tools of capitalism
and new ways that are productive for yourselves for your communities.
Because you know, when I was graduating NYU and going
(07:38):
on to Goldman, so many of my classmates that were
going on to more quote unquote altruistic careers, like how
are you going to go to the belly of the
Beast Wall Street? But then for me to see people
engage in capitalism in these like really complicated, nuanced ways
gave me a lot of hope about the possibility about
how we can really engage in the system in new
(07:59):
ways that are going to really be restorative for us
and like get us closer to that point of liberation
and economic freedom.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
You know what's interesting is for you also being a
business owner, and we were talking about this earlier, you
ended up you had a brick and mortar location, and
when you knew it was time to close that down,
you took a different type of approach that I've never
heard of before.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, so can you break that down?
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Of course. So, especially in a capitalist framework, right, an
entrepreneur would say, all right, closing up shop, today's your
last day. That's it. You figure it out, And there
was no way that I could do that, you know,
And I think for me having a kind of black
capitalist framework and orientation, it was how can I make
sure that all of my team members feel set up
(08:43):
for whatever their next thing is going to be. So
for me that meant really spending time with them leading
up to our clothes to say, hey, what are you
really interested in? What are the things that really get
you excited passionate? What are you looking to get into?
And then for me it was how can I tap
into my personal social network? What kind of research or
different resources that I have access to that I can
(09:06):
give and kind of share to make sure that they're
set up for success and spending time with each of them,
you know. So by the end and that closing day,
they all had their next thing lined up. They all
felt really kind of secure and what they were going
to do next. And that was just part of what
I just had to do, as you know, their leader
in that context where I needed to feel responsible for them,
(09:29):
and they also know that I value them as people.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
You know, someone called me the other day that they
worked on something in my house and they have you know,
it was a business that was kind of newly launched
when I use them, and she was like, man, it's
been tough over here. They just closed with no like
any type of heads up notice, and now we're all
out of a dab and people have these orders for
their homes that they're not going to get and I
(09:52):
don't even know how to explain it. And it made
her look bad because you know, you work at this place,
she's your connection to it. And then the place just
shuts down. Everybody that worked there is like, oh my gosh,
what am I going to do next? And then there's
still clients that aren't going to get what it is
that they were supposed to get, and who's going to
explain all of that, you know. So that's why I
think that I've never heard of anybody doing that before.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Yeah, it was just incumbentable on me to like really
make sure that my team was set even though I
was having this transition in the business. And I think
that's also part of the responsibility when you're really invested
in both profitability and social good, it's like, how can
you secure the bag, secure the people in that process?
Speaker 1 (10:32):
How do you feel about these black owned businesses that
the community gets very upset when they're like, hey, they're
selling or they're selling a portion of it, you know,
to a bigger conglomerate and now, you know, people get
very upset when that happens. And it's been an ongoing thing.
We've seen it happen time after time. But people tell you,
when you own a business, you should be building it
(10:52):
and scaling it so that at some point you are
able to sell it. But in our community, we don't
like to see that happen. When we've been in supporting
a brand from the beginning that's black owned women own
or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Yeah, I mean, I think when it comes to that,
every entrepreneur has to do kind of what works for
them if it's a lifestyle brand or if you go
into it with a kind of venture capital kind of trajectory.
But especially when the critiques are, oh, you know you're
selling it or you know you're kind of closing up shop,
then the question becomes, well, have we done our work
also as a community to sustain that business in a
(11:28):
way where selling it doesn't have to even be an
option if that's something that's a concern, And so then
the question and I think also the responsibility is on
us sometimes about when we talk about supporting black owned businesses,
are we really about that through and through and it's sustainable,
it's not just kind of a one time thing. And
so I think when you also just have this unfortunate
(11:49):
trend of black owned businesses closing because they can't sustain,
the questions really on us around like what are we
doing to really create avenues for sustained ownership within our
community as well?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
You talk about that a lot that there's you know,
questions that we need to ask ourselves when it comes
to supporting black capitalism and being in a capitalist society.
But it's so strange to be black in America and
live within a system that was designed against you that
you actually built. Yeah, and you talk a lot about
(12:24):
just kind of reframing that in your mind, like how
you look at your job, and you give an example
of a gentleman who used his job in finance just
to learn skills to give to the back to the community.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah, and so that's actually the story you're talking about.
Is a man named Alex who works at Goldvin Sachs,
and he kind of describes himself as a spy. And
his thinking is, I go into these institutional spaces knowing
that I'm in them, but I'm not of them. It's
an understanding that these spaces, these institutions, weren't created for
(12:58):
me to thrive, but yet I persisted and found myself
in these spaces. So now, how can I leverage these
institutional resources again, not just for myself, but also for
my community who doesn't have the opportunity to be in
this space like I do. And so I think that
when there's that tension of wrestling around, it's hard to
(13:19):
think about yourself being on the right side of something
when you've been on the losing side for so long.
I think that's so much the narrative of black people,
the black community, and the context of capitalism. But we
also have black, more Black millionaires than we've ever had
in this country to date, So how do we reconcile attentions?
And I think as financial literacy gets more and more
(13:40):
democratized we get access to knowledge, which knowledge is economic power,
not just power, then the questions become how do we
sit with all of this intention but of course anchored
on how do we make sure that our pursuit of
economic thriving within the system that we're in is not
dependent upon the exploitation of someone else? And that's the
(14:02):
really important part.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
You write about that in your book when you talk
about soft life and luxury and how that's a movement
from the exhaustion people stepping back and how do you
be part of that and black luxury without yeah, and
still be a good Black capitalist.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Right, And that's part of the kind of self reckoning
that has to happen, because these different trends that we see,
they're all expressions of a capitalist orientation to tap into
the soft life, which, again at its intention is really
about rest as resistance to hustle culture and to the
demands that capitalism places on us, disproportionately for black and
(14:44):
brown people. But to really live the soft life, it
requires excess capital, It requires resources in order to do that.
So then the question becomes, how do I engage in
capitalism in such a way that allows me to into
that well again, not be exploitative. So perhaps some of
those solutions are around, Okay, I want to support brands
(15:07):
that are focused on no exploitation, fair trade, etc. And
so those becomes the sets of questions and also the
responsibility that's on us and the honesty that's required to
even recognize that, Okay, soft life, black woman luxury. That's
all well and good that we want that and we
want access to comfort, but it's also a reality check
(15:30):
in terms of we're engaging in capitalism. It's not this
kind of passive experience that we're having.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
You know, with everything that's been going on right now,
people can feel really defeated just financially and trying to
figure out, Okay, how can I get to this soft life,
this luxury life when there's a lot of obstacles that
people are facing right now, So what do you say
to that? To somebody who's listening right now, that's like, okay, great,
(15:57):
I would love to be a black capitalist, have to
be able to, you know, live this life but also
do social good and have that responsibility. But they don't
know how.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Yeah, you know, I think part of the trap of
capitalism is it nurtures individualism. It nurtures this idea that
we're in it alone. It's a dogg eat dog kind
of society, and so when we think about our financial
futures and the dreams we have for ourselves, it can
be very disparaging because then the question is like, well,
how do I even achieve this? As if it's only
(16:29):
something for you to achieve on your own. But that's
where we have to kind of rupture our thinking because
it's really in community that we're able to create economic
security for ourselves and within a community context as well,
and there are practical ways in which you do that.
So what we mentioned Mimimu Abby, co founder of e Susu,
but sou sue, yes, you know, those are kind of
(16:54):
traditional old school money pulling money lending break down is
Yes Susu is when a group of people come together
and they put in money into a pot and at
a regular cadence, if it's a your week, you'll get
all of the money that we've pulled together. The next
week or the next cadence, I would get those funds,
(17:15):
and so those are not just the funds that I
put in, but everybody in the pots who's contributed to it,
I would get those resources. And so then that becomes
money and resources that I can use to whatever kind
of pursuit or goals that I have. And that's something
we've been doing for years and years and a very
practical thing that we can do now. But again, it
requires community in.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Order to Yes, it does. I remember during a pandemic.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, people were like doing suit because at that time
it was a different type of situation happening during a pandemic. Okay,
that was more like a payraid skame. Oh okay, And
that's the thing.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
You gotta be careful.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I want to say that, yes you do, because that
at that time it was not I think with the
best of intentions.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I see you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And I do think that we're in a unique space
of we don't get the access to loans and funds
and the way other groups of people do. So we
have been practicing that community coming together to make sure
that we're able to open brick and mortar locations or
even just to have a business that can survive and thrive,
because that's what you know, we're relying upon too. And
(18:25):
I guess not by twice at first.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Yeah, I'll also say though, I think for me, I
really also chopped into institutional resources that it was affiliated
with in order to even build killowally. And so, for example,
I was at Yale studying for my graduate studies while
I also started the business, and Yale has tremendous resources,
and so they were writing me checks, they were getting
(18:50):
me in front of mentors, different advisors who could help me,
and that was huge for me to even be able
to build my brick and mortar and then even have
a location at the Barclay Center at that time. Even
with Goldman, I was able to be part of their
ten thousand small businesses.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
They do great work, and so does JP Morgan.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I want to say that too, but sometimes that requires
work on our part, and I want to say that,
like you said, it's not an individual thing, and sometimes
you feel like you just have to, like, you know,
just work on the business.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
The business makes the money. That's how I do it.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
When there are places that you can go to and say, Okay,
I need help raising money, I need some grant money.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I need to figure this out.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
And it does require us doing that type of leg
work and thinking outside of the traditional.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Way exactly kind of get a little creative. I think
the first business incubator that I was a part of
was through New York City, through kind of just an
initiative they had around helping entrepreneurs. It was a ten
week program at Brooklyn Library where I would meet other entrepreneurs.
We would learn all the fundamentals of how to run
a successful business. And so there are ways in which
you can do this as well.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
You make this all sound so effortless, and your perspective
in the book is so beautiful, and you're you know
this this soft kind energy. But it has not been
easy for you, No, not at all. And I know
you coming out since your mother came over here from Ghana,
and I know you went through a lot of imposter syndrome,
(20:15):
not only being a black person, but being a black immigrant.
You ran into some resistance in the black community as well.
How did that affect you?
Speaker 4 (20:24):
You know, it really taught me that there's just so
much nuance and complexity. I think within the black community
we talk about how it's not a monolith, right, but
then to also experience that from the kind of immigrant experience,
and something that really crystallizes for me was I went
to an all girls preparatory school for high school, and
that was the first time I would say that I
(20:46):
was met with kind of a Black American experience and
how that differs from a kind of African experience in
a Canadian one that I was having. And you know,
you think we all look the same, but that doesn't
mean that we're necessarily going to drive and connect because
there was kind of cultural dissonances, and especially growing up
in the home that I did my mom so much
(21:07):
and well intentioned, but her attempt to create distance between
herself and her family and what she saw was, you know,
the ills of racism kind of playing out in American context,
was to say, hey, at homework in Nyan. First and foremost,
I didn't really have a context for what that meant.
But then when I was, you know, socializing in high
(21:28):
school and I was seeing the differences play out. It
kind of was just all these layers of how I
felt marginalized or other or different in these contexts, And again,
I think it gave me a vision or understanding for
how all the different ways we have to think about
this and also all that we need to get a
(21:49):
line down when it comes to black unification, even to
strive when you're thinking about economic thriving and security. There's
all these ways in which we have points of differentiation,
but those should not be obstacles ultimately when we're thinking
about this shared goal of how can we live lives
of abundance?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
You know, yeah, I can't stand saying all the division
that there is between Okay, I'm Black American, Well you're African,
but you're a West Indian. Well you're this, so you're
not black. It's like that conversation to me is at
the end of the day, when they see.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
You, what are you?
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, everyone's treated the same, but a lot's going on there.
We've spoken about this. Black immigrants create thirty percent more
wealth than Black Americans and it's a totally different sense
of self and mindset. Where do you think that comes from?
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah, And I think something we had talked about that
was like, so spot on was that within the Black
American lived experience, some of the rootedness is really around
kind of imposter syndrome, because it's a question of well,
where do I come from, where my roots, where's home?
Whereas for me, especially growing up in a Ghanaian home
in America, I always was rooted to my Ghanan culture.
(22:58):
I was always rooted back to home and ocean away
and had a really clear understanding of where I come
from and who I belonged to. And so I think
that gave me a different orientation to the kind of
work that I could do, the life that I could have.
And yes, it was a lot of hard work, it
was a lot of challenges, but I didn't come from
(23:19):
a rootedness and just not knowing kind of where I
come from. And that kind of played out for me
because we're all byproducts of our communities, our context, but
then also kind of the foundation within which we come from,
and if we don't have that rudedness, it can create
a different set of outcomes as well. And so I
think that adds to some of what people will say
are those differences that we get caught up in. But
(23:42):
again it's like we can't end the conversation there, and
that action has to you know, push past that.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
We had Caroline, Caroline Wanga on last week and she
has a book that just came out and she's so
connected to her African roots and you see how that's
affected her and for Americans, Black Americans, that's just not there. Right.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
She knows both sides of her family like everything, like everything,
and the whole history of who they were, and the
values are in hers exactly who she is, and that
disconnect that doesn't exist for Black Americans, like my parents
never talked about, you know, they didn't know about that.
(24:24):
They came from such abjunct, crazy situations in the South
that it was you have to you know, super excel
to make it here, so you you know, to be
super stacy, you have to you know, have that and
that pressure. It's it's real for Black Americans and it's
and it's a very different experience.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yeah, and I acknowledge that. I think that it becomes
a point that we have to talk about regardless of
how difficult it is. But then still think about, well,
how do we address this in a community context to
you know, push past it.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
What are your thoughts about attending a PWI. Also, I
would love to hear that, because, as you know, I
have friends who have kids now who are thinking about, like, oh,
it's hard because I don't want my kid to be
the only black kid in the school. But then you know,
HBCUs like attending an HBCU. I hear people talking about
(25:20):
why they want to and how, you know, amazing it's been.
But then I've also heard people be like, well, I
don't want that. That's not the real world. So I want
to know what your thoughts are having experienced that PWI.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I mean, it is not for the faint of heart
to get through that experience. Yeah, it was tough. I
mean I'll tell you stories of you know, sometimes my
mom would bring me Ganean food and that was like
comfort food for me because I went to a boarding
school and I would eat it in the storage closet
because people would be so critical of, oh, what's that
(25:53):
it smells funny, you know, different things like that, and
so in so many ways, it was just all these
attempts to kind of strip me of my comp and
even that rootedness that I knew that I had. And
you know, I have friends who went to Howard HBCUs
and even before they went they thought, oh, oh, this
isn't realistic, Like, this isn't a kind of portrayal of
(26:13):
what real life is going to look like. It's not
going to be a set up for success. But then
when they went through it, they're like, I would never
create that for anything. And even when I talk to
some of my friends who teach at some HBCUs, they
talk about the confidence of the students being different than
some of their black students in PWI places because they
(26:35):
just really get kind of this overpouring of love and confidence,
and it's something so beautiful I think to be a
black student be taught by black professors, even to be
in a context where you are really celebrated for who
you are, there's nothing wrong with it. You're not going
to be questioned in that sense. And so I would
have loved to do that personally. Because of the PWI experience,
(26:57):
it's challenging, but I will say I think it did
give me some strategies and tactics for how to navigate.
I've been in spaces where I've been you know, the other,
or in these marginalized experiences, and so unfortunately you get
used to it, but you kind of learn how you
navigate those spaces, and it's required, I think when you
think about just how do you participate as a black
(27:19):
person in a capitalist context? Anyways, it comes at such
a cost.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Poster child for PWI definitely the most defining thing I
went through, and as I did a story I believe
when I was at CNN on the director Andre Robert Lee,
who wrote did the documentary Prep School Negro about him
growing up in going to a prep school in Philly,
but his mother was like poverty line, so he had
(27:46):
the economic not fitting in and the PWI experience. And
I went to interview him and beautiful penhouse and so
and soho and you know, successful director. I don't know why,
it just came up and out of me. I just
looked at him and I'm like, are you broke? And
he's like, how did you know that? And then you know,
(28:07):
I go into the research. People who grow up in
that situation have a very very very distinct financial behavior
pattern that always assimilating and keeping up. That just becomes natural,
and things like self confidence and self esteem can't develop
because you're surviving. You're in survival mode to fit in
and they have a textbook financial pattern that I'm you know,
(28:30):
leading to a lot of debt. And I know I'm
you know, just been so on top of that to
make sure that you know, my son went to this school,
but I'm like started a diversity committee at his first
school right on top of all of that. But it's
a serious experience. And where we met at I was
(28:51):
had the honor of being in a book club that
your book was. I kind of sat back and noticed
that there was a lot of very very successful black
people there and I see where, like a lot of
the people I work with, a lot of the audiences
I serve and stuff don't relate to that group. And
I saw how much that group didn't relate to the
experience of everyday entrepreneurs. And I love the fact that
(29:15):
you emphasize you don't necessarily have I'm not here to say,
get a college degree, get all that. There's other models
for entrepreneurship, So tell us about those a little bit.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Yeah, you know, I think what's so important, especially in
this framework for black capitalism, is you could say, oh,
this is really almost like an elite story to be
a black capitalist, and that's not the case. By any means,
because I think when you really think about social good
and community orientation, that does require a level of organizing.
So how can we all come together. Some folks might
(29:44):
have more monetary resources than others, but that's not to
say other folks don't have other resources, whether it be
kind of social capital that they have, or human capital,
or just things to offer, you know, to really get
us to that place of a more kind of liberatory
economic future. That way, equity, yes, yes, it's huge, and
so we really have to kind of think about that
(30:04):
because yes, you know, in the context of what you raised,
there can be this kind of dissonance or a lack
of familiarity or engagement or an understanding that we all
have different positions within the spectrum of capitalism that we
live in. But you know, when you think about entrepreneurship,
even for my situation, like I started with a Kickstarter,
(30:26):
I had two thousand dollars of my personal funds that
I put in you know, talk to friends and family,
was able to cobble together another two thousand dollars and
then really leaned into those institutional resources to then kind
of build you know, the building blocks of kilowill and
then getting the brick and mortar space, which I got
through COVID, and that was a time where landlords were
(30:48):
more reasonable, you know, with rents and everything like that,
and so it was just kind of good timing, striking
when the iron was hot, and then that was what
kind of really gave me, you know, those first stuff,
and then also really focusing on being grassroots and really
getting into the community, spending time they're really letting that
be the foundation to building my businesses at least, and
(31:11):
that's where I kind of saw success. So it didn't
start from a place of just having access resources by
any means. It was very much a lean startup model
where it was like everything that I do is because
people are wanting to see it reflected in the business,
whether it be a product or a distribution channel, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
I love that because part of what I'm trying to
do now, like even with this building I have in Detroit,
part of that is also making some of those units
for people who are just as impacted and making sure
that we're like, while I'm trying to make sure I
build it my portfolio, I also want to make sure
that it's doing something that's positive in the community, and
so that's really the model that we're trying to follow,
(31:51):
I think in everything that we do.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So I love that.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
And you talked about COVID times I did the same thing,
like just negotiating during that time, yes, and being able.
I want to ask you about also working in wealth
management and financial planning and things like that.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
How important is it you think for.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
People to actually go to experts that can help them
when it comes to making sure that they're you know,
kind of maximizing what it is that they have when
it comes to finances. Because we always talk about this,
sometimes people feel like, well, if I'm not rich, what
do I need to even worry about that?
Speaker 4 (32:27):
For Yeah, big misconception. It's like if you can save,
if you can invest, do it, do it yesterday, Like,
you know, get on it as soon as possible. And
I will say, doing your homework is really important because
there's a lot of misinformation out there as well. And
you know, we're also living in a time where getting
(32:47):
an advisor can be very expensive when perhaps the kind
of investing strategy that might work for you doesn't even
require it. You might want to do a more kind
of self directed approach, which also doesn't mean if you
think like, oh, self directed, I don't really have the
knowledge what does that mean? But there can be very
simple ways kind of building blocks to starting investing even
with you know, minimal funds on a regular basis. But
(33:09):
I would say I think what's really important is investing
consistently and even kind of going through the volatilities that
we might see that might create anxiety and worry and fear.
You got to just keep doing it, got to keep
doing it, kind of chipping away at it. And like
I said, I think we're in a time where financial
(33:30):
knowledge is getting more and more democratized, and so it's
not just this kind of thing that feels exclusionary or
for elite people or something like that. And so tap in.
You know, the time is now and you can really
kind of get into it regardless of how many funds
you have. And so that's really important for people to know.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
When you talk about black capitalism. You know, we just
had to target boycott. This community has so much economic power. Yeah,
and it's we've seen is like target, but we've never
seen anything really turn into like a game stop moment
when everybody pulled all their money out of that stock
and then really forced real change. We have the power
(34:10):
to do that. How do we click into that?
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yeah, you know, while our kind of positionality within capitalism
is evolving as black people, the one that's been most
familiar to us has been our kind of consumerist orientation.
And to your point, that's where we have so much
economic power, and so that's where that social good piece
becomes really important, the community piece and the shared objective
(34:38):
around what are we really aiming to do collectively, Because again, capitalism,
as we know, it's all about the individual. It's all
about kind of creating distance between each other as we're
all striving for profitability and excess resources. But if we
can start looking at each other, talking to each other
about what really matters to us collectively, what's going to
get us to this next step and how can we
(34:59):
show wit and negotiate for it with our dollars which
we use every day and that's a symbol for how
we vote every day. So we really have to think
about it in that sense, and that's what then creates
tangible change for us as well. And everybody can have
access to that, you.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Know, before you go tell everyone about your bakery stuff,
and where they can get it. It's so good. I
like talking.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Oh so yes, Kally Now it's all e commerce and wholesale,
and so you can go to Kally NYC dot com
check out all the planting.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Good all that.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yes, So that's k E L E W E L
E n YC dot com and we ship nationwide. If
you're in New York City, you can go to gin
Jan both their Harlem and their Brooklyn location and Brooklyn
t the Brooklyn location to get our good.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
What's your obsession with plantains?
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Oh, you know, it's it's my planting love story. It
starts culturally. So Kellally long before was the name of
my business. It's the name of a popular Ginean street
food and it's basically write plantains coated in spices and
ginger and you fry it to golden perfection and it's
the most delicious thing. And so my mom would make
that for me growing up as a kid. And then
(36:13):
fast forward, you know, I start undergrad at NYU. I'm
like on a budget, and I was also going plant
based at that time, and so plantains became a dairy
substitute for me, a meat substitute, and you can get
like four for a dollar at that time not so
much anymore, you know, So I was eating them all
the time. And then fast forward again when I was
in grad school, you know, taking my anthro one oh
(36:34):
one classes. We anthropologists were so curious about culture, how
it's created and sustained. And I kind of have this
light bulb moment of thinking about plantains as a medium
to really think about culture and identity, because even for me,
I have familial kind of memories that are evoked when
I eat plantains now that bring me back to my mom,
my grandma, etc. And I can be West African, the
(36:57):
next person from the Caribbean, the next person from Latin America.
We're all eating plantations, even though we're preparing it differently.
So I really wanted to build a business that really
spoke to cultural connection, innovation, and familiarity as well.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Somehow this is all in your book. Yeah, it is
such a good book, everybody, honestly, Black Capitalist, And it
came out just a few weeks ago. And where can
people get it?
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Anywhere books are sold, wherever you get your.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Books, Amazon and everybody watched the full interview on YouTube,
and we'll have a link to her book so you
can get it so that you can get it, but
it is. You're just a delight and your book is
really groundbreaking, groundbreaking stuff, and we are so excited that
you stopped by to spend some time with us.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Thank you, thank you. We appreciate you so much.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
It's a gift Black capitalist, everybody. Get it on Amazon
right now.
What's up, his way up with Angela Yee and Happy
Wealth Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Of course, Dacy Tisdale is here.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Happy Wealth Wednesday's everybody. We are going to educate you
today in capitalism and all things capitalism and a form
of capitalism that you've probably never thought about, Black capitalism,
because we have the one and only doctor Rachel Lorea,
whose book Black Capitalist just came out a couple of
weeks ago. Its full title is Black Capitalist, a Blueprint
(00:30):
for what is Possible. Doctor Rachel is no slacker. She's
currently in asset wealth management a JP Morgan Chase. She's
the founder of kelliwell A, which is a lifestyle brand.
But your plantains and your cookies and your brownies or
what it's all about, and you have a plantain obsession,
which we'll talk about. You're also an anthropologist, sheh, and
(00:53):
your PhD is in African American Studies and socioculture anthropology.
You've been featured in the Top Times, Forbes, everything everywhere,
and we're just so excited to have you and really
proud that you wrote this book. It is fantastic.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Well, we have questions, okay, but let's start with the basics.
So what is the difference between black capitalism and regular capitalism.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Yeah, so I'll start with capitalism. It's really an economic
system focused on private actors pursuing private ownership with the
intention to yield excess capital. So it's really about profitability
and about ownership. Black capitalism, in contrast, is really about
how private actors collectives can really reposition themselves within the
(01:38):
economic system of today with the intention to yield excess capital,
but then most importantly, really create social good as well,
and so that becomes the core difference. It's about how
can you also create avenues for ownership and thriving with
that context of social good which you don't have in
a framework of capitalism.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Right, capitalism.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I think it's a bad repped because people act like
capitalist societies are really bad, Like when you hear about like,
oh yeah, it's capitalists, Oh capitalism is you know, awful,
But then we talk about black capitalism and any for it.
There was one part in the book where you talk
about being in church and why money is important when
(02:19):
it comes not to just being able to have things,
but also dignity.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Yeah, exactly, And I think that it's really the tools
of capitalism can be neutral. It's just we're living in
the history and the present of the racialization of these tools,
which is why I think them people can have these
really visceral and negative relationships too and reactions to capitalism.
But if we really think about how we can use
the tools of capitalism in new ways and restorative ways
(02:45):
that create opportunities for social good that we can tap
into that in a kind of new form that I
think ruptures preconceived notions about capitalism.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Let's give examples of that an action, because I know
when I worked on Wall Street, a company just like
take a hippocratic oath. Companies take an oath to make
their shareholders as much money as possible, and a lot
of people are like, well, what is this company being
so bad their responsibilities to their shareholders. They never said
it was anything different black capitalism. You're saying that necessary
(03:15):
thing is paying it forward and community, and in your
book you give some incredible examples of people doing that.
Is Suzu comes to mind. Yeah, talk about it in action.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, so you mentioned Asusu So one of the co
founders of that company, which is a unicorn business.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
By the way, they launch that tell people what a unicorn.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yes, it's a billion dollar valuation for a business, which
is huge, and so Amimu Abbi one of the co founders.
He launched that back in twenty eighteen with his co
founder and the work that they do is really about
creating financial visibility for the country's most financially invisible people
through credit reporting and the belief is that if people
can pay their rent on time, then you should also
(03:56):
have access to credit worthiness. And so that's a B
to B business, but ultimately has value at the bottom
line to the consumer where they now get access to
credit and access to mortgages, to different loans, personal loans, etc.
And they've really unlocked millions of dollars of capital and
credit and leverage and a financial sense to people that
(04:17):
otherwise would have never had it. And so that's really
focused on a business where they're not thinking about exploitation,
they're not thinking about extraction. It's how can we create
social good opportunity for people in a way that's clearly
profitable than being a unicorn business. And so that's just
one example, and I think it's not just from an
entrepreneurial lens whereby you can practice black capitalism. I work
(04:41):
at JP Morgan Chase, and I spend a lot of
time thinking in my seat within wealth management, what are
the things that I can do to bring the resources
within wealth management into the communities that I'm a part
of outside of it, and whether it be people are
thinking about recruitment retention of diverse professionals, They're thinking about
how they can bring in black owned businesses into the
(05:03):
organization to get different scopes of work, different opportunities. There's
so many different outlets that think about how can you
just share capital resources in different ways? Regardless of the
seat that you're in.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I'm listening to you, and you're so soft. I mean
you're a Tiger. You're just so soft. And I know
you were born in Ghana.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Well I was born here.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Actually you're born here. Your strong heritage connection to your
family in Ghana, and that's a culture where people are
conditioned to be soft spoken. That does not cut it
on Wall Street. And you actually started at Goldman Sachs
not knowing anything about finance. How did that happen and
how did you distinguish yourself as a black woman in
(05:49):
that situation?
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Yeah, So, as you mentioned, I had no context for
high finance whatsoever. But I happen to get recruited while
I was an undergrad at NYU, and I didn't think
anything of it. I was going to dismiss it. But
it was my older brother who really kind of encouraged
me to rethink that. He was like, this could change
the trajectory of your career if you take on this
internship at Goldman and.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
So student loan, debt, everything that you were at.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yeah, and so even to intern at Goldman, that's what
made the difference between me graduating debt free and graduating
with considerable debt. And so just having access to that
opportunity was huge. But those kind of early days was
a massive culture shock on top of the fact that
I was one of the few black women in that
space and you're kind of vying for that full time offer.
(06:36):
You know, you watch those like Succession or Billions or
Industry and you think that's fiction, but so much of
that is true in terms of what you go through,
the toxicity sometimes in those spaces to get the offer,
get the job, and have.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
That tent hitting black people well, really pits black people
against each other.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Yeah, So it's like you have that cultural context, but
then on top of it, as you mentioned, I have
my own kind of ethnic cultural context of you know, humility,
kind of subservience. Those are all kind of parts of
the culture. And so when you're in a place like
Goldman Sachs, you need to be as visible as possible.
People need to hear you and see you in order
for them to remember you. And so I'm then wrestling
(07:15):
with man, how do I do that when it feels
so counter to how I've grown up and how I
just kind of carry myself. And so those became the
sets of challenges that I had while also seeing for
the first time what black sociality and high finance can
look like, how you can use the tools of capitalism
and new ways that are productive for yourselves for your communities.
Because you know, when I was graduating NYU and going
(07:38):
on to Goldman, so many of my classmates that were
going on to more quote unquote altruistic careers, like how
are you going to go to the belly of the
Beast Wall Street? But then for me to see people
engage in capitalism in these like really complicated, nuanced ways
gave me a lot of hope about the possibility about
how we can really engage in the system in new
(07:59):
ways that are going to really be restorative for us
and like get us closer to that point of liberation
and economic freedom.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
You know what's interesting is for you also being a
business owner, and we were talking about this earlier, you
ended up you had a brick and mortar location, and
when you knew it was time to close that down,
you took a different type of approach that I've never
heard of before.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, so can you break that down?
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Of course. So, especially in a capitalist framework, right, an
entrepreneur would say, all right, closing up shop, today's your
last day. That's it. You figure it out, And there
was no way that I could do that, you know,
And I think for me having a kind of black
capitalist framework and orientation, it was how can I make
sure that all of my team members feel set up
(08:43):
for whatever their next thing is going to be. So
for me that meant really spending time with them leading
up to our clothes to say, hey, what are you
really interested in? What are the things that really get
you excited passionate? What are you looking to get into?
And then for me it was how can I tap
into my personal social network? What kind of research or
different resources that I have access to that I can
(09:06):
give and kind of share to make sure that they're
set up for success and spending time with each of them,
you know. So by the end and that closing day,
they all had their next thing lined up. They all
felt really kind of secure and what they were going
to do next. And that was just part of what
I just had to do, as you know, their leader
in that context where I needed to feel responsible for them,
(09:29):
and they also know that I value them as people.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
You know, someone called me the other day that they
worked on something in my house and they have you know,
it was a business that was kind of newly launched
when I use them, and she was like, man, it's
been tough over here. They just closed with no like
any type of heads up notice, and now we're all
out of a dab and people have these orders for
their homes that they're not going to get and I
(09:52):
don't even know how to explain it. And it made
her look bad because you know, you work at this place,
she's your connection to it. And then the place just
shuts down. Everybody that worked there is like, oh my gosh,
what am I going to do next? And then there's
still clients that aren't going to get what it is
that they were supposed to get, and who's going to
explain all of that, you know. So that's why I
think that I've never heard of anybody doing that before.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Yeah, it was just incumbentable on me to like really
make sure that my team was set even though I
was having this transition in the business. And I think
that's also part of the responsibility when you're really invested
in both profitability and social good, it's like, how can
you secure the bag, secure the people in that process?
Speaker 1 (10:32):
How do you feel about these black owned businesses that
the community gets very upset when they're like, hey, they're
selling or they're selling a portion of it, you know,
to a bigger conglomerate and now, you know, people get
very upset when that happens. And it's been an ongoing thing.
We've seen it happen time after time. But people tell you,
when you own a business, you should be building it
(10:52):
and scaling it so that at some point you are
able to sell it. But in our community, we don't
like to see that happen. When we've been in supporting
a brand from the beginning that's black owned women own
or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Yeah, I mean, I think when it comes to that,
every entrepreneur has to do kind of what works for
them if it's a lifestyle brand or if you go
into it with a kind of venture capital kind of trajectory.
But especially when the critiques are, oh, you know you're
selling it or you know you're kind of closing up shop,
then the question becomes, well, have we done our work
also as a community to sustain that business in a
(11:28):
way where selling it doesn't have to even be an
option if that's something that's a concern, And so then
the question and I think also the responsibility is on
us sometimes about when we talk about supporting black owned businesses,
are we really about that through and through and it's sustainable,
it's not just kind of a one time thing. And
so I think when you also just have this unfortunate
(11:49):
trend of black owned businesses closing because they can't sustain,
the questions really on us around like what are we
doing to really create avenues for sustained ownership within our
community as well?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
You talk about that a lot that there's you know,
questions that we need to ask ourselves when it comes
to supporting black capitalism and being in a capitalist society.
But it's so strange to be black in America and
live within a system that was designed against you that
you actually built. Yeah, and you talk a lot about
(12:24):
just kind of reframing that in your mind, like how
you look at your job, and you give an example
of a gentleman who used his job in finance just
to learn skills to give to the back to the community.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah, and so that's actually the story you're talking about.
Is a man named Alex who works at Goldvin Sachs,
and he kind of describes himself as a spy. And
his thinking is, I go into these institutional spaces knowing
that I'm in them, but I'm not of them. It's
an understanding that these spaces, these institutions, weren't created for
(12:58):
me to thrive, but yet I persisted and found myself
in these spaces. So now, how can I leverage these
institutional resources again, not just for myself, but also for
my community who doesn't have the opportunity to be in
this space like I do. And so I think that
when there's that tension of wrestling around, it's hard to
(13:19):
think about yourself being on the right side of something
when you've been on the losing side for so long.
I think that's so much the narrative of black people,
the black community, and the context of capitalism. But we
also have black, more Black millionaires than we've ever had
in this country to date, So how do we reconcile attentions?
And I think as financial literacy gets more and more
(13:40):
democratized we get access to knowledge, which knowledge is economic power,
not just power, then the questions become how do we
sit with all of this intention but of course anchored
on how do we make sure that our pursuit of
economic thriving within the system that we're in is not
dependent upon the exploitation of someone else? And that's the
(14:02):
really important part.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
You write about that in your book when you talk
about soft life and luxury and how that's a movement
from the exhaustion people stepping back and how do you
be part of that and black luxury without yeah, and
still be a good Black capitalist.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Right, And that's part of the kind of self reckoning
that has to happen, because these different trends that we see,
they're all expressions of a capitalist orientation to tap into
the soft life, which, again at its intention is really
about rest as resistance to hustle culture and to the
demands that capitalism places on us, disproportionately for black and
(14:44):
brown people. But to really live the soft life, it
requires excess capital, It requires resources in order to do that.
So then the question becomes, how do I engage in
capitalism in such a way that allows me to into
that well again, not be exploitative. So perhaps some of
those solutions are around, Okay, I want to support brands
(15:07):
that are focused on no exploitation, fair trade, etc. And
so those becomes the sets of questions and also the
responsibility that's on us and the honesty that's required to
even recognize that, Okay, soft life, black woman luxury. That's
all well and good that we want that and we
want access to comfort, but it's also a reality check
(15:30):
in terms of we're engaging in capitalism. It's not this
kind of passive experience that we're having.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
You know, with everything that's been going on right now,
people can feel really defeated just financially and trying to
figure out, Okay, how can I get to this soft life,
this luxury life when there's a lot of obstacles that
people are facing right now, So what do you say
to that? To somebody who's listening right now, that's like, okay, great,
(15:57):
I would love to be a black capitalist, have to
be able to, you know, live this life but also
do social good and have that responsibility. But they don't
know how.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Yeah, you know, I think part of the trap of
capitalism is it nurtures individualism. It nurtures this idea that
we're in it alone. It's a dogg eat dog kind
of society, and so when we think about our financial
futures and the dreams we have for ourselves, it can
be very disparaging because then the question is like, well,
how do I even achieve this? As if it's only
(16:29):
something for you to achieve on your own. But that's
where we have to kind of rupture our thinking because
it's really in community that we're able to create economic
security for ourselves and within a community context as well,
and there are practical ways in which you do that.
So what we mentioned Mimimu Abby, co founder of e Susu,
but sou sue, yes, you know, those are kind of
(16:54):
traditional old school money pulling money lending break down is
Yes Susu is when a group of people come together
and they put in money into a pot and at
a regular cadence, if it's a your week, you'll get
all of the money that we've pulled together. The next
week or the next cadence, I would get those funds,
(17:15):
and so those are not just the funds that I
put in, but everybody in the pots who's contributed to it,
I would get those resources. And so then that becomes
money and resources that I can use to whatever kind
of pursuit or goals that I have. And that's something
we've been doing for years and years and a very
practical thing that we can do now. But again, it
requires community in.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Order to Yes, it does. I remember during a pandemic.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, people were like doing suit because at that time
it was a different type of situation happening during a pandemic. Okay,
that was more like a payraid skame. Oh okay, And
that's the thing.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
You gotta be careful.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I want to say that, yes you do, because that
at that time it was not I think with the
best of intentions.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I see you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
And I do think that we're in a unique space
of we don't get the access to loans and funds
and the way other groups of people do. So we
have been practicing that community coming together to make sure
that we're able to open brick and mortar locations or
even just to have a business that can survive and thrive,
because that's what you know, we're relying upon too. And
(18:25):
I guess not by twice at first.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Yeah, I'll also say though, I think for me, I
really also chopped into institutional resources that it was affiliated
with in order to even build killowally. And so, for example,
I was at Yale studying for my graduate studies while
I also started the business, and Yale has tremendous resources,
and so they were writing me checks, they were getting
(18:50):
me in front of mentors, different advisors who could help me,
and that was huge for me to even be able
to build my brick and mortar and then even have
a location at the Barclay Center at that time. Even
with Goldman, I was able to be part of their
ten thousand small businesses.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
They do great work, and so does JP Morgan.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I want to say that too, but sometimes that requires
work on our part, and I want to say that,
like you said, it's not an individual thing, and sometimes
you feel like you just have to, like, you know,
just work on the business.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
The business makes the money. That's how I do it.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
When there are places that you can go to and say, Okay,
I need help raising money, I need some grant money.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I need to figure this out.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
And it does require us doing that type of leg
work and thinking outside of the traditional.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Way exactly kind of get a little creative. I think
the first business incubator that I was a part of
was through New York City, through kind of just an
initiative they had around helping entrepreneurs. It was a ten
week program at Brooklyn Library where I would meet other entrepreneurs.
We would learn all the fundamentals of how to run
a successful business. And so there are ways in which
you can do this as well.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
You make this all sound so effortless, and your perspective
in the book is so beautiful, and you're you know
this this soft kind energy. But it has not been
easy for you, No, not at all. And I know
you coming out since your mother came over here from Ghana,
and I know you went through a lot of imposter syndrome,
(20:15):
not only being a black person, but being a black immigrant.
You ran into some resistance in the black community as well.
How did that affect you?
Speaker 4 (20:24):
You know, it really taught me that there's just so
much nuance and complexity. I think within the black community
we talk about how it's not a monolith, right, but
then to also experience that from the kind of immigrant experience,
and something that really crystallizes for me was I went
to an all girls preparatory school for high school, and
that was the first time I would say that I
(20:46):
was met with kind of a Black American experience and
how that differs from a kind of African experience in
a Canadian one that I was having. And you know,
you think we all look the same, but that doesn't
mean that we're necessarily going to drive and connect because
there was kind of cultural dissonances, and especially growing up
in the home that I did my mom so much
(21:07):
and well intentioned, but her attempt to create distance between
herself and her family and what she saw was, you know,
the ills of racism kind of playing out in American context,
was to say, hey, at homework in Nyan. First and foremost,
I didn't really have a context for what that meant.
But then when I was, you know, socializing in high
(21:28):
school and I was seeing the differences play out. It
kind of was just all these layers of how I
felt marginalized or other or different in these contexts, And again,
I think it gave me a vision or understanding for
how all the different ways we have to think about
this and also all that we need to get a
(21:49):
line down when it comes to black unification, even to
strive when you're thinking about economic thriving and security. There's
all these ways in which we have points of differentiation,
but those should not be obstacles ultimately when we're thinking
about this shared goal of how can we live lives
of abundance?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
You know, yeah, I can't stand saying all the division
that there is between Okay, I'm Black American, Well you're African,
but you're a West Indian. Well you're this, so you're
not black. It's like that conversation to me is at
the end of the day, when they see.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
You, what are you?
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, everyone's treated the same, but a lot's going on there.
We've spoken about this. Black immigrants create thirty percent more
wealth than Black Americans and it's a totally different sense
of self and mindset. Where do you think that comes from?
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah, And I think something we had talked about that
was like, so spot on was that within the Black
American lived experience, some of the rootedness is really around
kind of imposter syndrome, because it's a question of well,
where do I come from, where my roots, where's home?
Whereas for me, especially growing up in a Ghanaian home
in America, I always was rooted to my Ghanan culture.
(22:58):
I was always rooted back to home and ocean away
and had a really clear understanding of where I come
from and who I belonged to. And so I think
that gave me a different orientation to the kind of
work that I could do, the life that I could have.
And yes, it was a lot of hard work, it
was a lot of challenges, but I didn't come from
(23:19):
a rootedness and just not knowing kind of where I
come from. And that kind of played out for me
because we're all byproducts of our communities, our context, but
then also kind of the foundation within which we come from,
and if we don't have that rudedness, it can create
a different set of outcomes as well. And so I
think that adds to some of what people will say
are those differences that we get caught up in. But
(23:42):
again it's like we can't end the conversation there, and
that action has to you know, push past that.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
We had Caroline, Caroline Wanga on last week and she
has a book that just came out and she's so
connected to her African roots and you see how that's
affected her and for Americans, Black Americans, that's just not there. Right.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
She knows both sides of her family like everything, like everything,
and the whole history of who they were, and the
values are in hers exactly who she is, and that
disconnect that doesn't exist for Black Americans, like my parents
never talked about, you know, they didn't know about that.
(24:24):
They came from such abjunct, crazy situations in the South
that it was you have to you know, super excel
to make it here, so you you know, to be
super stacy, you have to you know, have that and
that pressure. It's it's real for Black Americans and it's
and it's a very different experience.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yeah, and I acknowledge that. I think that it becomes
a point that we have to talk about regardless of
how difficult it is. But then still think about, well,
how do we address this in a community context to
you know, push past it.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
What are your thoughts about attending a PWI. Also, I
would love to hear that, because, as you know, I
have friends who have kids now who are thinking about, like, oh,
it's hard because I don't want my kid to be
the only black kid in the school. But then you know,
HBCUs like attending an HBCU. I hear people talking about
(25:20):
why they want to and how, you know, amazing it's been.
But then I've also heard people be like, well, I
don't want that. That's not the real world. So I want
to know what your thoughts are having experienced that PWI.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I mean, it is not for the faint of heart
to get through that experience. Yeah, it was tough. I
mean I'll tell you stories of you know, sometimes my
mom would bring me Ganean food and that was like
comfort food for me because I went to a boarding
school and I would eat it in the storage closet
because people would be so critical of, oh, what's that
(25:53):
it smells funny, you know, different things like that, and
so in so many ways, it was just all these
attempts to kind of strip me of my comp and
even that rootedness that I knew that I had. And
you know, I have friends who went to Howard HBCUs
and even before they went they thought, oh, oh, this
isn't realistic, Like, this isn't a kind of portrayal of
(26:13):
what real life is going to look like. It's not
going to be a set up for success. But then
when they went through it, they're like, I would never
create that for anything. And even when I talk to
some of my friends who teach at some HBCUs, they
talk about the confidence of the students being different than
some of their black students in PWI places because they
(26:35):
just really get kind of this overpouring of love and confidence,
and it's something so beautiful I think to be a
black student be taught by black professors, even to be
in a context where you are really celebrated for who
you are, there's nothing wrong with it. You're not going
to be questioned in that sense. And so I would
have loved to do that personally. Because of the PWI experience,
(26:57):
it's challenging, but I will say I think it did
give me some strategies and tactics for how to navigate.
I've been in spaces where I've been you know, the other,
or in these marginalized experiences, and so unfortunately you get
used to it, but you kind of learn how you
navigate those spaces, and it's required, I think when you
think about just how do you participate as a black
(27:19):
person in a capitalist context? Anyways, it comes at such
a cost.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Poster child for PWI definitely the most defining thing I
went through, and as I did a story I believe
when I was at CNN on the director Andre Robert Lee,
who wrote did the documentary Prep School Negro about him
growing up in going to a prep school in Philly,
but his mother was like poverty line, so he had
(27:46):
the economic not fitting in and the PWI experience. And
I went to interview him and beautiful penhouse and so
and soho and you know, successful director. I don't know why,
it just came up and out of me. I just
looked at him and I'm like, are you broke? And
he's like, how did you know that? And then you know,
(28:07):
I go into the research. People who grow up in
that situation have a very very very distinct financial behavior
pattern that always assimilating and keeping up. That just becomes natural,
and things like self confidence and self esteem can't develop
because you're surviving. You're in survival mode to fit in
and they have a textbook financial pattern that I'm you know,
(28:30):
leading to a lot of debt. And I know I'm
you know, just been so on top of that to
make sure that you know, my son went to this school,
but I'm like started a diversity committee at his first
school right on top of all of that. But it's
a serious experience. And where we met at I was
(28:51):
had the honor of being in a book club that
your book was. I kind of sat back and noticed
that there was a lot of very very successful black
people there and I see where, like a lot of
the people I work with, a lot of the audiences
I serve and stuff don't relate to that group. And
I saw how much that group didn't relate to the
experience of everyday entrepreneurs. And I love the fact that
(29:15):
you emphasize you don't necessarily have I'm not here to say,
get a college degree, get all that. There's other models
for entrepreneurship, So tell us about those a little bit.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Yeah, you know, I think what's so important, especially in
this framework for black capitalism, is you could say, oh,
this is really almost like an elite story to be
a black capitalist, and that's not the case. By any means,
because I think when you really think about social good
and community orientation, that does require a level of organizing.
So how can we all come together. Some folks might
(29:44):
have more monetary resources than others, but that's not to
say other folks don't have other resources, whether it be
kind of social capital that they have, or human capital,
or just things to offer, you know, to really get
us to that place of a more kind of liberatory
economic future. That way, equity, yes, yes, it's huge, and
so we really have to kind of think about that
(30:04):
because yes, you know, in the context of what you raised,
there can be this kind of dissonance or a lack
of familiarity or engagement or an understanding that we all
have different positions within the spectrum of capitalism that we
live in. But you know, when you think about entrepreneurship,
even for my situation, like I started with a Kickstarter,
(30:26):
I had two thousand dollars of my personal funds that
I put in you know, talk to friends and family,
was able to cobble together another two thousand dollars and
then really leaned into those institutional resources to then kind
of build you know, the building blocks of kilowill and
then getting the brick and mortar space, which I got
through COVID, and that was a time where landlords were
(30:48):
more reasonable, you know, with rents and everything like that,
and so it was just kind of good timing, striking
when the iron was hot, and then that was what
kind of really gave me, you know, those first stuff,
and then also really focusing on being grassroots and really
getting into the community, spending time they're really letting that
be the foundation to building my businesses at least, and
(31:11):
that's where I kind of saw success. So it didn't
start from a place of just having access resources by
any means. It was very much a lean startup model
where it was like everything that I do is because
people are wanting to see it reflected in the business,
whether it be a product or a distribution channel, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
I love that because part of what I'm trying to
do now, like even with this building I have in Detroit,
part of that is also making some of those units
for people who are just as impacted and making sure
that we're like, while I'm trying to make sure I
build it my portfolio, I also want to make sure
that it's doing something that's positive in the community, and
so that's really the model that we're trying to follow,
(31:51):
I think in everything that we do.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So I love that.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
And you talked about COVID times I did the same thing,
like just negotiating during that time, yes, and being able.
I want to ask you about also working in wealth
management and financial planning and things like that.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
How important is it you think for.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
People to actually go to experts that can help them
when it comes to making sure that they're you know,
kind of maximizing what it is that they have when
it comes to finances. Because we always talk about this,
sometimes people feel like, well, if I'm not rich, what
do I need to even worry about that?
Speaker 4 (32:27):
For Yeah, big misconception. It's like if you can save,
if you can invest, do it, do it yesterday, Like,
you know, get on it as soon as possible. And
I will say, doing your homework is really important because
there's a lot of misinformation out there as well. And
you know, we're also living in a time where getting
(32:47):
an advisor can be very expensive when perhaps the kind
of investing strategy that might work for you doesn't even
require it. You might want to do a more kind
of self directed approach, which also doesn't mean if you
think like, oh, self directed, I don't really have the
knowledge what does that mean? But there can be very
simple ways kind of building blocks to starting investing even
with you know, minimal funds on a regular basis. But
(33:09):
I would say I think what's really important is investing
consistently and even kind of going through the volatilities that
we might see that might create anxiety and worry and fear.
You got to just keep doing it, got to keep
doing it, kind of chipping away at it. And like
I said, I think we're in a time where financial
(33:30):
knowledge is getting more and more democratized, and so it's
not just this kind of thing that feels exclusionary or
for elite people or something like that. And so tap in.
You know, the time is now and you can really
kind of get into it regardless of how many funds
you have. And so that's really important for people to know.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
When you talk about black capitalism. You know, we just
had to target boycott. This community has so much economic power. Yeah,
and it's we've seen is like target, but we've never
seen anything really turn into like a game stop moment
when everybody pulled all their money out of that stock
and then really forced real change. We have the power
(34:10):
to do that. How do we click into that?
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yeah, you know, while our kind of positionality within capitalism
is evolving as black people, the one that's been most
familiar to us has been our kind of consumerist orientation.
And to your point, that's where we have so much
economic power, and so that's where that social good piece
becomes really important, the community piece and the shared objective
(34:38):
around what are we really aiming to do collectively, Because again, capitalism,
as we know, it's all about the individual. It's all
about kind of creating distance between each other as we're
all striving for profitability and excess resources. But if we
can start looking at each other, talking to each other
about what really matters to us collectively, what's going to
get us to this next step and how can we
(34:59):
show wit and negotiate for it with our dollars which
we use every day and that's a symbol for how
we vote every day. So we really have to think
about it in that sense, and that's what then creates
tangible change for us as well. And everybody can have
access to that, you.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Know, before you go tell everyone about your bakery stuff,
and where they can get it. It's so good. I
like talking.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Oh so yes, Kally Now it's all e commerce and wholesale,
and so you can go to Kally NYC dot com
check out all the planting.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Good all that.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yes, So that's k E L E W E L
E n YC dot com and we ship nationwide. If
you're in New York City, you can go to gin
Jan both their Harlem and their Brooklyn location and Brooklyn
t the Brooklyn location to get our good.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
What's your obsession with plantains?
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Oh, you know, it's it's my planting love story. It
starts culturally. So Kellally long before was the name of
my business. It's the name of a popular Ginean street
food and it's basically write plantains coated in spices and
ginger and you fry it to golden perfection and it's
the most delicious thing. And so my mom would make
that for me growing up as a kid. And then
(36:13):
fast forward, you know, I start undergrad at NYU. I'm
like on a budget, and I was also going plant
based at that time, and so plantains became a dairy
substitute for me, a meat substitute, and you can get
like four for a dollar at that time not so
much anymore, you know, So I was eating them all
the time. And then fast forward again when I was
in grad school, you know, taking my anthro one oh
(36:34):
one classes. We anthropologists were so curious about culture, how
it's created and sustained. And I kind of have this
light bulb moment of thinking about plantains as a medium
to really think about culture and identity, because even for me,
I have familial kind of memories that are evoked when
I eat plantains now that bring me back to my mom,
my grandma, etc. And I can be West African, the
(36:57):
next person from the Caribbean, the next person from Latin America.
We're all eating plantations, even though we're preparing it differently.
So I really wanted to build a business that really
spoke to cultural connection, innovation, and familiarity as well.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Somehow this is all in your book. Yeah, it is
such a good book, everybody, honestly, Black Capitalist, And it
came out just a few weeks ago. And where can
people get it?
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Anywhere books are sold, wherever you get your.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Books, Amazon and everybody watched the full interview on YouTube,
and we'll have a link to her book so you
can get it so that you can get it, but
it is. You're just a delight and your book is
really groundbreaking, groundbreaking stuff, and we are so excited that
you stopped by to spend some time with us.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Thank you, thank you. We appreciate you so much.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
It's a gift Black capitalist, everybody. Get it on Amazon
right now.
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