Photos: Bryce Lennon brycelennon.com

The motto for 29 has been ‘grind silently.’ Sometimes it’s better to celebrate small victories quietly, rather than making huge announcements about every accomplishment. In a lot of ways, it has been working, and has given me a deep satisfaction for the work i’m doing. I’m  gonna share this little piece of joy with ya’ll though. So BOOM, a few months ago, I started writing to different black owned companies, hoping to be sent samples in return for advertising/press on my website and gain more traffic. I knew that I would have to be consistent with it, to gain any type of results. Lucky for me, a magical black girl by the name of Cortino Williams, answered my email. We had a great conversation about her brand BeautifulMonster350, and I was able to get one of her shirts and capture its essence on camera. Scroll down to read my interview with Cortino and peep some gems from the photoshoot.:)

What inspired you to start your brand? 

I too was a relaxed sister, until a turn of events started making my hair fall out. So I had to get a teeny weeny Afro/ natural. Well when you wear a lil fro you have to wear accessories to dress up your style so you won’t get mistaken as a little boy. So I was looking for cool tees that expressed my NAPPINESS HAPPINESS and they were all boring and the same. And a lot of them not made by us. So I decided to tap a market that needed me to make HAIR LOVE tees for us that were proud to be lil nappy head girls, lol.