Viva Cabo Verde:
A Night That Moved the Ancestors

Cabo Verde International Football Welcome Reception • June 20, 2026 • Maison AfriKin at Scott Galvin Center, North Miami

Photography: Danielle Farrakhan

This one deserves to be said plainly before anything else: Friday morning I woke up to a notification. The Associated Press had published a feature on Art and the Beautiful Game: Africa on the World Stage and our Cabo Verde International Football Welcome Reception. On Juneteenth. That moment set the tone for a weekend I will carry for a very long time.

By Saturday evening the room was full. Happy people. Ready to raise the vibration. Ready to let the Blue Sharks know that Global Africa here in South Florida is with them, in numbers, at the stadium and in spirit. And when Cabo Verde took the pitch against Uruguay on Sunday, they did not disappoint. The draw has kept the energy alive. The team remains unbeaten at the 2026 World Cup. Whatever we called in on Saturday night, it landed. Let us keep pressing forward.

The People Who Made the Room

Thank you to Mayor Alix Desulme of the City of North Miami for delivering opening remarks and for doubling down publicly on the partnership between the City and AfriKin as we continue to activate Global Africa's art and culture at the Scott Galvin Center in downtown North Miami. That partnership is real, and the Mayor's presence in the room confirmed it.

Thank you to Consul General of Cabo Verde Octavio Gomes for words of profound encouragement from the stage. His presence gave the evening the diplomatic weight it deserved, and his words carried something that the room could feel.

The live music held the space from start to finish. JamGuru filled the room with energy and never let it drop. Aaron Mentos on steel pan kept the island vibration moving. And when Mustafa and Bilal began drumming, they called the ancestors into the building. I believe that is exactly what happened. Cabo Verde got on the scoreboard the next day. We are not arguing with results.

The PUMA runway of the 2026 teams they outfitted was an absolute hit. African diaspora style at the center of a moment the world is watching. PUMA showed up for this with intention, and the room felt it. Thank you to the PUMA family for making this activation real.

Chef Abdul Mushin delivered Jollof Rice, Jerk Chicken Glinhada, Three Bean Masala Stew, and Kale Tortellini. Tropileaf presented Conch Salad, Spicy Conch Salad, and Vegan Mango Salad. People came back for more. Casa Noosh brought the caviar. Every plate was a statement. And the cocktails by Mixologist Shaion of Laid Epidemic, built around Grogue Rum and Prosperous Vodka from Cabo Verde, fresh mango juice, and hibiscus tea, had the room vibing from the first pour to the last.

And I was the host for the evening, biting my tongue, learning my Portuguese and Creole on the spot, trying to make my fellow Cabo Verdeans proud of me. They were gracious. They helped me along on stage and made sure I represented without butchering their native tongue. I am still saying Viva Cabo Verde all weekend long. I always will.

The Blue Sharks are still in it. Unbeaten. Based in Tampa but spending time in Florida, which means there is more room for us to welcome them. Let us give them a reason to come back to Miami by getting them through every progression. We are Africans. We can do this.

To the AfriKin Team: This Is Yours Too

I would be doing this moment a serious disservice if I did not stop and say this loudly, clearly, and without reservation: none of what you witnessed on Saturday evening happens without the AfriKin team. Not a single moment of it.

These are people who show up not because it is easy but because they believe. They believe in this institution, in this mission, in the community we are building, and in the vision of what AfriKin is becoming. Their work ethic is not something I can manufacture or manufacture around. It is something they bring every single time, every event, every install, every communication, every detail that the room felt but may not have consciously noticed. That is the mark of a great team. The invisible work that makes everything look effortless.

I am deeply, sincerely, and permanently grateful to each of them. AfriKin is what it is because of who they are. The awards, the press, the diplomatic relationships, the full rooms, they are all a reflection of people who chose to pour themselves into something that matters. That is not something I take lightly for a single day.

To the AfriKin team: thank you does not cover it. But know that I see every hour, every sacrifice, and every act of belief. You are the foundation underneath the foundation. This one was for you too.

A Note From the Founder

So somebody pulled me aside this weekend and, with the most sincere face, explained to me that AfriKin has not yet secured the funding it deserves because I am not connected enough to the right people. Not bureaucratic enough. Too much of a wild card. That the established institutional world in Miami simply does not know what to make of me or how I have built what I have built, nearly two decades in this market and New York before that, without being affiliated with the Joneses. They genuinely believed they were telling me something I needed to hear.

Then, in the same breath, they told me that most of the people in those rooms, including themselves, are indebted to whoever funds them, that decisions are already made before they walk in, and that their job is essentially to show up and agree.

I stood there. Quiet. Smiling on the inside something tremendous.

Not because it stung. Not because I was processing. But because there is a specific kind of comedy in watching someone hand you the very receipt that explains why their advice does not apply to you, while fully believing they are helping. I was entertained. Genuinely. God has a sense of humor and a very precise delivery.

AfriKin was built free. It will grow free. The work is the currency and always has been. Everything else is just people being moved without knowing they are moving.

Viva Cabo Verde. Back to the game.

The Exhibition Is Open. Come In.

Art and the Beautiful Game: Africa on the World Stage is open now at Maison AfriKin through October 2, 2026. If the AP News feature brought you here this week, this is the room it was written about. Come in. Spend time with the work. Let it tell you something the Fan Festival was never built to say.

AfriKin Art Fair 2026: The Call to Artists Is Still Open

AfriKin Art Fair 2026 • GRIOT: Urgent Storytelling for Our Times • Miami Art Week, Nov 29 – Dec 6, 2026

While the World Cup brings the planet's attention to what Africa produces on the pitch, AfriKin is building the room where Africa's artistic production gets its full reckoning off it. The 12th Annual AfriKin Art Fair, GRIOT: Urgent Storytelling for Our Times, runs November 29 through December 6, 2026, during Miami Art Week, curated by Dr. Joseph L. Underwood. The call to artists is open through September 1. If your practice is rooted in the African diaspora and you have something urgent to say, we want to see it.

The AfriKin Store

If you are just discovering AfriKin this week, we built the simplest possible front door. For $1.99, download any single page from our collection of 99 coloring portraits of remarkable people from Africa and the diaspora. Print it on your kitchen table. Color it with your children. Let it start a conversation that no screen at a fan festival ever could.

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Pick any portrait from 99 remarkable Black icons. Download instantly. Print at home. No subscription, no commitment.

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Upcoming AfriKin Events

Culture is not a complement to what happens on the pitch. Culture is the reason any of this matters after the final whistle. AfriKin will be here for all of it.

The exhibition is open. The Art Fair call is live. The Blue Sharks are still in the tournament. And Taste of AfriKin on Labor Day Sunday is coming faster than you think. Come in. Show up. Let us keep pressing forward together.