Today we’d like to introduce you to Young Africana
Hi Young, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I believe that my path to doing hair and makeup for a living was truly predestined before I was even born. As the youngest of 5, 2 sisters and 2 brothers, you would think one of my sisters before me would have been named after my mom; but God specifically appointed my mother’s name to me. So yes I am technically a junior, just minus the jr being legally put on my birth certificate.
As an immigrant moving from Ghana, West Africa to New York City my mother has always been strongly Intune with her entrepreneurial spirit. One of them just so happened to be a successful hair salon when she was living in Nigeria for 10 years. Now fast forward about 13 years after I was born, that spirit was now ignited in me. From being in the mirror for HOURS before and after school with hair all over the floor to having my first sew in client as a freshman in High School. I wasn’t the best starting out, but I was determined to be the best. It was me, my sewing needles, and my mama’s basement against the entire world! Throughout my entire high school career I always had a flow of clients for both hair & makeup which allowed me to always have money in my pockets and buy the things I’ve always wanted.
I finally entered college in the fall of 2016 to go study Business Administration and within my first semester I got my first big girl refund check. This decision of what I did with the check changed the entire trajectory of my life. The choice was between getting new expensive bundles for myself or invest in a ring light to start my YouTube Channel. At this time I never knew YouTube to be lucrative and honestly started it just to show what I do, but I sure was wrong. My channel grew extremely fast and I was able to get my first 100K on YouTube within 1 year of starting. Seeing this growth opened my mind to a whole new world of possibilities outside of doing hair & makeup for others.
As I was inching towards the finish line of college in 2020, there was a huge void that I felt being in school and within my last year of school I decided to drop out to do influencing full time. Ironically, this was around the time of the pandemic, and with the times of the world quite literally forced me to drop school, hair & makeup clients and helped me isolate to focus solely on my brand and channel. I locked in and created something that was way bigger than me. Long and behold this drastic decision, with no degree or Plan B, and a lot of disappointment from loved ones ended up being the best decision I ever made for my career & life. I have now been doing this full time for the past 5 years with many accolades I have accumulated and I will never look back. I am so happy I always betted on myself and struck gold each time.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
When I decided to drop out of college to do beauty influencing full time, I actually got into a car accident about 3 weeks after making that decision (and 1 week before my birthday). I had a huge project launching for Valentine’s Day which was called “The Love Series” and I had to cut, color, install, do make up, edit, and produce the entire thing myself. It was a lot of movement and work and unfortunately I had an internal injury where my back would lock up on me frequently. It was a painful experience and I was already traumatized by the accident, but I made a promise to myself that I would get it done. Through my persistence, is what caused me to grow my following by 50,000 on Instagram in 2 weeks! That project was the leading point to now being referred as “The Darkskin Muva of Color”.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a full time Content Creator across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. I specialize in hair (specifically lace wigs & weaves) and make-up. I am most known for my teaching tutorials on hair & makeup as well as wearing vibrant colored hair as a dark skinned woman. What I am most proud of is consistently testing & disrupting the status quo. I do not have an ordinary career and have only worked for myself my entire life. So I have been trained all my life to bet on myself and be stubborn and resilient about my craft, and I win that bet every single time. So what sets me apart from others is having that high level of trust within myself in situations where people would have easily folded. Being a full time creative is very spiritual and not for the weak minded!
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Authenticity is the highest frequency any one can obtain! In any & everything you do you must know who you are and not shy away from that. So standing in your truth unapologetically is what gets you to your highest level of success!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/youngafricana?igsh=MWx6NWFwcWhjYnVsYg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@youngafricana?si=nTC-5e5WtK4VsN1h
