Jebet Naava is an innovative visual artist based in Nairobi, Kenya, with 6+ years of experience in Graphic Art & Design and 10 years in Photography.

Self-taught artist Jebet Naava effortlessly creates candid, thought-provoking and transcendent art. She is inspired by Nairobi’s vibrant creative scene and by elements of the human condition. Naava is determined to push Africa forward and claim her narrative. As a mother who has battled depression, her work tenderly centres on mental health, self-love, the celebration of the woman and the resilience of humanity.

Over the years, she has also created promotional materials, event collateral, cover artworks, short motion graphics; as well as website layouts for clients all over the world.  (Sol Generation Records, the British Council, GoodTimes Africa, to name a few)

Naava describes her work as unique, high-quality works that speak to the heart and mind of the beholder.

One of her favourite quotes:

“We all fear death and question our place in the universe. The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.” Midnight in Paris: The Shooting Script

You can also check out some of her designs at:

Instagram: @jebetn_

Linkedin: Jebet Naava

Farai Simoyi was born and raised in Zimbabwe. Growing up she was surrounded by colorful fashion and creative people who didn’t have the money to buy new gear all the time, but they had enough imagination to make and upcycle their own funky styles. Simoyi learned to sew and picked up the infectious creativity of her friends and relatives who are all about doing it for themselves. Eventually, she landed in Brooklyn, New York, where she started to make a name for herself in the fashion world

Her first big break came when she was hired to design for the House of Deréon, the fashion line led by Beyoncé and her mother/stylist Tina Lawson. That break came courtesy of a design director who, originally from Ghana, set out to give “young black creatives a chance in the field,” something which has guided her approach in the years since.

She founded the Narativ in August 2017. It’s described as “a curated house of ethically sourced artisan brands from around the world known as The Narrators.” The Narativ embraces sustainability and ethics, two key elements that fashion needs more of. 

Behind her, Simoyi has 15 years of experience designing and consulting for some of the most globally recognized celebrities with fashion brands and industry staples such as Beyonce, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, Justin Timberlake, and Rachel Roy to name a few.

Following her impressive competitive delivery in the first season of the ‘Netflix’ fashion design competition series, ‘Next in Fashion,’ Simoyi continues her mission to provide access and visibility to global artisans and designers in the U.S. market.

Yvonne Okwara Matole has won the hearts of Kenyans with over 14 years experience as a media journalist demystifying ambiguous matters on trending topics.

Yvonne started hosting the KBC’s children variety show at the age of 10 years. From the year 2008, she became a Radio Talk Show Producer of QFM; she was also given a chance to do her voice over for money matters NTV business show.

Nation Media Group (NMG) later opened up QTV and she was given a task as a producer. She later moved to KTN in November 2012 on a contract assignment. Her five years contract at KTN ended in 2018 and she decided not to renew it and instead joined Citizen TV as a news anchor. Apart from working with Royal Media Services, Yvonne does voice-overs for TV shows such as Samantha Bridal show that airs on NTV.

Okwara is also a media consultant for Kenya’s National Defense College, and sits on the ENACTUS Business Advisory Council. She is a board member at CBM Kenya, a development organization that works to improve the lives of persons with disability, and chairs the Advisory Board of Africa Uncensored, an independent media house set up by Kenya’s finest investigative journalists. Yvonne is a Bloomberg Africa Leadership Initiative Media Fellow.

Yvonne Okwara Matole is one of the famed journalists in the country who have accomplished a lot in the media industry despite studying unrelated courses in school.

Celeste Ntuli is a South African comedian and actress. She is popularly referred to as the queen of the Zulu comedy and she is known for being the first local female comic to record a one woman show DVD

Ntuli was born in Empangeni where she had her primary and high school education. She is the sixth child of eight. Her family relocated to Durban, and there she studied entertainment technology at Durban University of Technology.

In 2005, she performed her first comedy show in a church in Durban. She was a finalist on season 2 of SABC 1’s So You Think You’re Funny competition in 2009. She began her professional career in comedy in 2010. 

Currently, she is known for being the first comedian to record a one-woman show DVD entitled Seriously, Celeste. She has performed in top Comedy Shows including Blacks Only comedy showcase 2010 and 2012, SA Comic’s Choice Awards 2012 and the first Stand Up Zulu comedy show at the Durban Playhouse, in 2011. 

She won Golden Horn Award for Best Supporting Actress in a TV Soap, SATMA in 2014. In 2018, she and Skhumba Hlophe had the most nominations for the eighth annual Comics’ Choice Awards. She also won the Flying Solo Award as well as the Comedy G Award of the 2019 Savanna Comics’ Choice Awards.

Romanie-Jade Tulloch is a talented, self taught, 21-year-old makeup artist from Nottinghamshire who creates spectacular illusions that will leave you appreciating art more.

Romanie-Jade Tulloch has been perfecting her signature illusionist looks since January 2019 and has got people loving the style.

In less than a year, the makeup artist, who studied fine art at Nottingham College for two years. Having studied fine arts for two years in college, she naturally drifted from conventional makeup to painting artistic optical illusions on her face and posting her best work on Instagram. She has attracted a dedicated social media audience of over 400,000 followers.

The self-taught artist mostly relies on small paint brushes and professional makeup products you can find in pretty much any cosmetics store, and spends between three and five hours on a single artwork. The make-up illustrator is also a panelist for Instagram’s new 21 under 21 list. See some of her artworks below:

Shelley Mokoena is a fashion designer and a resourceful young business woman. At 24, Shelley completed her studies in interior design at the University of Johannesburg and chose to go in a different direction with her venture into the fashion space.

While she was a student, she met her business partner with whom she started a successful fashion brand known as Prime Obsession which started as a thrift wear brand but went on to produce a clothing line of its own. In 2017, Mokoena was able to showcase Prime Obsessions SS17 collection at XAFL.

Shelley Mokoena is also the owner and founder of the women’s wear brand, Connade. Her love for fashion inspired her to start her design label. Connade is a platform where she shares her love and creativity with the world. 

The brand was founded in 2019 and has made significant progress since then. Recently, Shelley showcased her clothing at the SAFW trade show for the first time. 

 Shelley collaborates and works with many cool fashion brands such as Woolworths, Country Road and many more as a  fashion designer, stylist and fashion influencer . With a focus on niche audiences that has in part contributed towards her great success within the fashion industry, Mokoena believes in giving consumers what they truly want by digging deeper than just the surface level.

Hadeel Osman (Sudanese) is an art director, fashion stylist and multimedia artist. She is also the founder and creative director of DAVU Studio, a multidisciplinary fashion studio and made it to Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 List for the year 2020.

She was born in UAE, studied in Malaysia and US, and on completion of her studies, she worked in the UAE, Zimbabwe, Sudan and currently in Kenya.

Her expertise includes creative direction, writing, corporate communications, fashion styling, video production and branding.

Hadeel Osman has over seven years of experience in the media and fashion industries. Her creative inspiration stems from her years raised in the United Arab Emirates and living in Malaysia.

She decided to return to Sudan in 2016 so she can contribute to the arts and culture scene of her country (Sudan), which has fallen under the radar both locally in the commercial sphere and regionally across the continent and also uplift Sudan in the creative field and Africa as a frontier of the world’s art and culture.

She believed Sudan to be a very interesting and difficult nation to create in. It was hard to find raw inspiration from the streets according to Her, so She came up with the name of her business, DAVU, which stands for ‘designing a visual utopia’.

DAVU is a multi-disciplinary creative studio that fuses design, art, education and sustainability. DAVU has given her the opportunity to work with Sudanese visual artists and designers and was commissioned by the Sudan Independent Film Festival to train costume designers, jewelry designers and filmmakers.

She has worked on several projects with clients in Dubai, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Sudan to enhance their branding strategies.

Hadeel is an advocate for change and development in Sudan and across Africa and is heavily involved in the pursuit of evolving the local contemporary fashion scene into a fully functioning industry. She is detail-oriented and solutions-driven.

This Article was culled from The African Creative

Keitumetsi Qhali also known as Director Kit is a South African Director, Writer and Producer. Qhali hails from the Eastern Cape region of South Africa, is a multi-award winning director. She works in long and short form films and videos and to date, has directed over 29 videos.

Her early work dates back to 2014 when she directed an African hit music video Rands and Nairas by Nigerian artist Emmy Gee featuring AB Crazy & Dj Dimplez. The music video won the Best Music Video of the Year award at the 2014 Nigeria Entertainment Awards and was nominated for the Channel O music video award, for the most gifted music video of the year and Most Gifted Newcomer. Qhali bagged all these wins at the age of 24. Later, she was signed to the prestigious Darling Films production company as their first black female commercials director.

In 2018, she directed a short film titled The Initiate which was bought by Showmax.  She was nominated for a Loerie Award for her fashion film Winter Blues for the Edgars winter campaign. She also won a SAFTA (South African Film and Television Awards) for Best Factual Educational Documentary Programme for her short film titled KICK IT. 

When it comes to stories, Qhali loves layered stories that are character-driven and full of emotion. History, African mythology and science fiction all interest her. Qhali’s dream film would be a fantasy or real-life character story set in pre-colonial South Africa.

As a leading filmmaker in her industry, Qhali is one of the few Black, female directors working in the commercial space, and this creates a lot of pressure. Qhali has had to be clear and confident with her decisions and career path. 

Without much advice from people in the industry, Qhali relied on her family. Her mother, particularly, has supported her from the beginning, and her father got onboard when she started working.

Mimi Shodeinde is a British Nigerian artist, designer and entrepreneur, born and raised in London, Mimi’s passion for art was developed at a young age. Winning awards for her artwork she went on to complete her degree in Interior Architecture at Edinburgh. 

In 2015, Mimi founded “Miminat Designs” a London based design studio committed to creating functional art. She has worked and collaborated on a wide range of projects both nationally and internationally, from interior architectural projects, furniture design, lighting and product design spanning The UK, Europe, The Middle East and West Africa. 

Mimi’s drafting and painting skills together with her artist’s eye allow her to break down the relationship between form and function where art and design intersect. She draws on her diverse influences and background to manipulate the use of space through both form and placement defying categorization. Her style is fluid, sophisticated and functional but seeks to imbue each project with a personality of its own.

Her Nigerian heritage and her love of travel have enriched her practice, allowing her to assimilate different cultures and incorporate them into her designs. Each item of furniture is treated as a piece of sculpture because to Mimi, furniture is an artistic form of expression. 

She aims to personalize her designs to the individual’s lifestyle – each piece rendering itself into the environment where it is placed. Functional, yet sculptural and sophisticated, every piece of furniture is a gateway to her identity as a designer.

In addition to her painting and furniture design, Mimi is the Co-Founder of the charitable organisation ‘SHE.Creates.’ This charity has been established to help improve the lives of young women in developing regions by nurturing their creativity.

This article was culled from Lionesses of Africa.

Nadia Marie Sasso is a high-powered creative cultural producer and unconventional scholar from Sierra Leone but based in Los Angeles. She often combines critical writing and research with digital media in film, music, and fashion. She was named among Katie Couric’s “Next Generation of Female Leaders”. Her expertise is developing engaging creative content and driving strategy across various platforms and media. 

Nadia has 10 years of relevant professional experience, with documented success in the areas of social innovation, strategic partnerships, and new media. Her portfolio proves that she is deeply invested and interested in media as a storytelling tool to not only engage and inspire audiences but also connecting people around the world with stories they will love. 

Nadia made her creative debut with the independent film “Am I Too African to be American, Too American to be African, in which she produced and directed. The film featured Issa Rae and has impacted afro-millennials around the world. More recently, she released an experiential art activation #BCuzSheSaidSo which featured her #13AlbumsTo31 visual social campaign to inspire Black women to be unapologetic about their identity. 

Through her entrepreneurial and creative ventures along with her passion for making connections she has worked Issa Rae, Luvvie Ajayi, Jose Antonio Vargas, Viacom, Nielsen, UBS, Peace Corps, and the United Nations. She has also leveraged her background in diversity, marketing, communications, and new media across notable stages including The White House, The Smithsonian, and universities all over the world.

She advocates for changing the way relationships are built, fostered, and established across various industries both in the diaspora and on the African continent. 

Sasso is a frequent social impact honoree, prolific public speaker and panellist at prestigious conferences and universities, and recipient of significant press recognition in major media outlets. She has been recognized by notables like Former President Barack Obama and Katie Couric for catalyzing innovative and positive change via filmmaking and social work.

Having a Ph.D. from Cornell University, she provides expert insight and advice on content for TV shows and films relating to the African Diaspora. Nadia is a creative genius and a mover and shaker of all things media with a focus on entertainment, culture, entrepreneurship, and all things Africa and Diaspora.