Heavy Is the Head:
A Eulogy, A Sold Out Room, and What Comes Next

Last week at this time I was standing in a church, giving the eulogy for my biggest fan. The person who believed in me from day one. She moved hell and high water to help me get to where I am today, and the level of gratitude I carry I know I will spend the rest of my life trying to grow into. The very fabric of my being exists because of what she gave me, and she kept giving it until her last breath.

On Sunday we hosted a sold out Taste of AfriKin, and I could see her in the smiles. I could feel her in the joy of the guests who filled that room. Since June I had been quietly going back and forth, carrying this alone, and last Tuesday I laid her to rest. No grand announcements. Those who knew her knew how much she loved music and the arts. She lived for it.

She taught me the simple rules of the cost of success. Price versus value. Doing what you have to do to get where you need to be. Going through it quietly, never needing the attention, just here to get it done. Understanding the cost and the task in front of you. Some of us are here for the credit, and some of us are here for creating. Know your lane, and stay humble enough to grow into it. There are teachers all around us, and we must place our trust in them. I have so much left to learn, and so much I am grateful for.

We must know that as each day unfolds, we hold the power to create stories yet untold. We carry each other into the future. May we write something we can be proud of.

Heavy Is the Head

Laying your mother to rest is not an easy task. Getting on a flight days later to produce an event at the capacity expected of us has no words attached to it, only gratitude for the patience, love, and understanding shown to me through it. Without the resources to accomplish everything we desire, we do our best to quietly put out each fire as it comes. Understaffed and overworked. Some might call it overwhelmed. We choose not to, because the vision we were given, it would be ungrateful to call it that. It is said you will not be given more than you can bear, and we trust that the grace of this work reaches the hearts and minds of those who find fault in where we are, until we get to where they need us to be.

Life is a journey, a joyride of ups and downs, and the equanimity we hold for both is what will define our character.

A Sold Out Room, and a Debt of Gratitude

I hold so much love and appreciation for our community and the way they show up and support what we do with AfriKin. It is a testament to the love of culture and community. It is the love of knowing you have a safe space to come to, to be with your kin and celebrate each other. A place like no other. It is the individual energy of each living soul who enters Maison AfriKin that gives it life. We are only the builders of the house. You are the infrastructure, the furnishings, and the occupants that make it a home.

Before I turn the page, I want to say this plainly, and by name. To the City of North Miami, and to the Office of Mayor Alix Desulme and Councilman Kevin Burns, thank you for standing with us and for believing that a room in North Miami could hold this much culture. To the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, thank you for placing us on a stage large enough to carry this work into the world. To every chef who traveled here carrying a country on a plate, to every performer who gave us rhythm we could feel in our chest, and to every single person who walked through the doors of Maison AfriKin that Sunday: thank you. You filled that room, and in filling it, you carried her with me.

Senegal took the jollof rice crown this year. Chef Ari Diop carried the title with her Braised Oxtail Jollof, with Ghana finishing second. Fifteen nations came to that table, and it was Senegal's hands that walked away with it.

2026 Jollof Rice Champion

Chef Ari Diop, Senegal, Braised Oxtail Jollof. Ghana finished second. September 6, Maison AfriKin.

May Love Be the How, What, Why, When, and Where

May our love for life and for one another always supersede any other thought or emotion that seeks to enter. What we have in common is far greater than what separates us. The key ingredient has always been, and will always be, our love for humanity across ethnic and gender lines, across every disparity that will try to say otherwise. May we always know that love is the how, the what, the why, the when, and the where. Any other question you might have, the answer lies within there. So if you ever ask me about my team, remember this. We do it all for love.

What Comes Next: AfriKin Art Fair 2026

With Taste of AfriKin behind us, our full focus turns to Miami Art Week and AfriKin Art Fair 2026, themed GRIOT: Urgent Storytelling for Our Times, running November 29 through December 6. This will be our twelfth consecutive year producing during Miami Art Week, and the fair is curated by Dr. Joseph L. Underwood. The AfriKin Vernissage, our All White VIP opening, takes place November 29 at Maison AfriKin.

Sponsorship opportunities for AfriKin Art Fair 2026 are open now, placing your brand inside a season built on twelve years of proven cultural relevance, civic recognition, and an audience that returns and brings others with them. If your brand wants to stand inside this work, we would like to talk with you.

Upcoming AfriKin Events

We Are a 501(c)(3), and Every Gift Builds the Permanent Home

AfriKin Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN 85-2592611, and every sponsorship and every gift is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. AfriKin's capital campaign funds the institution that makes every evening possible, a permanent home where this knowledge never has to depend on one more folding table again. We are raising $300,000 to convert a decade of proven cultural relevance, exhibitions, press, and civic recognition into secured infrastructure, a funded season, and the staffing to operate as a lasting institution rather than a reconstituted event series each year.

The AfriKin Ecosystem

AfriKin does not live on one website, and it was never meant to. Five properties carry different parts of the same mandate, each one built from the start to point back toward the others.