Meet the Man Championing the African Jersey Movement
"People are taking more pride in where they’re from." A chat with Paakow Essandoh, founder of MIZIZI.
For context, read my last post about the cultural significance of the African country jersey. As always, thank you for reading and if you appreciate these stories, please upgrade to a paid subscription today.
Let’s start at the beginning. What is the meaning of MIZIZI?
MIZIZI means roots in Swahili. I say we are the official sportswear brand celebrating, representing and connecting the entire African diaspora.
One of the first few friends I made [in college] was a Kenyan [George] who’d traveled straight from Nairobi to Tampa. He was kind of the one who pushed me towards entrepreneurship. I always had different businesses as an only child [raised by a single parent] so I’ve always been pretty independent, but he was one of the first people my age who I’d seen do it successfully, so that pushed me to start something. When I was going through a list of words related to the African diaspora, we got to “roots” which he translated and I was like okay!
In your Forbes interview, you mentioned getting the idea to launch with the African baseball jersey because it was trending at the time. This was also when the African dad trend was taking off online and you saw this desire from people of the African diaspora to insert themselves in pop culture.
Do you still see the African jersey as a trend? How has your perception changed over the course of doing MIZIZI?
Yes, but not a trend in the sense of a fad. I think it’s here to stay. With the growing population of African immigrants not just in the States but worldwide, there’s a growing hunger for cultural artifacts and our items help represent those cultures. As these communities continue to grow, it’s only going to expand.
I also have a hypothesis that all the anti-immigration [rhetoric] within politics in the last decade has pushed people to lean into their culture. People are taking more pride in where they’re from.
With that in mind, who are your customers? Are they mostly people from the diaspora or has it expanded to include, say, white or Asian or South American people?
We do have white and Asian customers. I posted an Asian customer wearing our Wakanda jersey on Instagram. Originally, our brand was designed for primarily the first, second or third-generation [African] diaspora, typically aged between 18 and 34. It has since expanded, so if I break it down, I guess you could say there are three major groups: African-Americans, first and second-generation African immigrants.
African-Americans tend to purchase more jerseys; they don’t necessarily always have a direct connection to home, but they are aware of Africa’s impact, or they just want to represent because they simply love Africa. So they tend to buy jerseys from all the countries, whereas the first or second-generation immigrants buy jerseys connected to their specific homeland.
Fun fact: Florida is our fourth top-selling state probably because of the island culture there. Our Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago jerseys were very popular there. We used to sell more island shirts, but have since discontinued to focus on the heavyweight countries as they produce more sales for us.
How do you feel about non-Black customers wearing African jerseys?
I feel like it's appreciation because why else would you buy the jersey right? Unless you’re blatantly disrespecting the country or wearing it in an offensive way. Every time I’ve seen a white person wear a jersey, they’re usually pretty hyped about the country and they’ll tell you how much they love the culture.
I want to go back to your time in Tampa, where you felt like you didn’t quite fit in the mainstream African-American culture. What did you mean by that?
Growing up in Texas, I was surrounded by a lot of second or third-generation Nigerian, Ethiopian or Eritrean friends so I became used to the culture. Then when I moved to Tampa I didn’t know about reggae or dancehall for example. I wasn’t familiar with island culture so it was hard to fit in with the Caribbean culture club. When I went to the African student association club, I didn’t feel like I fit in either because a lot of them came directly from the continent so I never felt African enough. I was very much American to them. And when it came to African-American culture, I couldn’t relate to the culture of sports, like doing hoops or the other ways they bonded with each other. Although I’d grown up surrounded by Black people, it was hard for me to find my own little space.
When you say that each jersey design is woven with cultural motifs of the country, can you tell me how this shows on the Ghana shirt for example?
So the Ghana shirt has the kente print and in the baseball jersey specifically, we added the print along the sleeves. We also added the Gye Nyame (an Adinkra symbol) to reference the supremacy of God, plus the independence year 1957 on the back of the jersey. I wanted each piece to be a conversation start, so people could ask about the symbols, what they mean and educate themselves on the culture.
How well have the shirts sold over the years?
We’ve sold over 15,000 jerseys today.
What is your process when coming up with new designs?
I get really obsessive about countries and their cultures. I try to find all the little cultural nuances. I call them Easter eggs. I don’t look at them from a war-torn context, say like The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I find WhatsApp groups and talk to members of the communities and really envelop myself in the culture, so that whatever we roll out—from design to marketing visuals and copy—reflects the dialogue.
What niches do you still have yet to tap into?
There are so many freaking countries *laughs*. At the end of the day, we're still a business so we have to lean on what's profitable. For smaller countries sometimes it’s just hard to make the numbers work but we still want everyone to feel included, so we’ll go with general designs that capture this sense of representation, [from a music, pop culture or historical standpoint]. I’d say that’s been the biggest challenge, juggling designs for countries with the largest diasporas and finding ways to make the smaller countries feel included if we don’t have a specific jersey for them.
What’s next for MIZIZI?
I've been focused on developing our B2B pipeline in two ways: the public-facing collaborations like what we’ve done with Marvel and the Wakanda baseball jersey, and doing white labeling whereby we’d manufacture uniforms or merchandise for organizations like schools, college sports boards or ERGs (Employee Resource Groups).
That’s really smart. Big picture, how do you hope MIZIZI helps change stereotypical perceptions of Africa?
We’re the grassroots force that’s influencing the way people are perceiving Africans from the continent. I hope that MIZIZI has opened up people’s minds by showing that Africa isn’t a monolith, that there are so many countries with diverse and unique nuances about them; it’s not just a giant land mass.
Then the biggest thing with MIZIZI is that I don't want anybody to feel as lonely as I did when I first went to Tampa and wasn’t able to make friends. I want people to be proud of the different aspects of their identity and to build community while showing that off, being able to form those friendships when they go to church or events.
To order your jersey, visit MIZIZI.
Until next time,
Shelcy