The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Abdul Karim Abdullah On The Evolution Of 'AfroFuture' Festival, Black Innovation, Community + More

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Abdul Karim Abdullah On The Evolution Of 'AfroFuture' Festival, Black Innovation, Community. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and search I Heart Women's Sports to listen now. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

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Morning everybody, it's DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy, we are the Breakfast Club, Lauren the Rose is here as well, we got a special guest in the building. Yes sir! The founder and CEO of Afrofuture, Abdul Abdullah. Welcome brother! Pleasure to be here with y'all. How you feeling? I feel real good, and thankful to God.

Man, tell people what Afrofuture is for us. Yeah, Afrofuture is a cultural immersion platform that we created in Ghana to celebrate African culture and also to just break it down to people in a way that's direct. We celebrate food, fashion, art, and obviously music as well. In my opinion and our team opinion, we feel like equal parts of all of this gives you a clear understanding of what it's like to visit the continent. And that's what we've been doing for the past eight years, inviting people back to Ghana.

And for the first time ever, we're showing up in Detroit. So looking forward to it. I was at the last Afro-Chela. Yes, you was. You was at the last one. Yep, and that's when y'all announced it was gonna be Afro-Future the next year. That's correct.

It was an opportunity for us to really kind of grow beyond what we've been. I mean right now we know that one in ten people by 2050 is gonna be African. Africa is the youngest continent. There's just a lot of opportunity and there's been so much misinformation about Africa for so long. I grew up here. I'm like at my house I'm the American kid but when I went out to school I was the African kid. So the best way I could do to school, I was the African kid. So the best way I could do is just kind of bring the worlds together, and that's what we've been trying to do with this festival.

Why did y'all change the name, from Afrocelli to Afrofuture? I mean, I think that obviously there was a lot of, there was a lot of issues that we had. They sued you, like they sued everybody who used the cello. They sued me, but I mean, beyond that, it was just an opportunity for us to like, kind of grow beyond where we were

This gives us an opportunity to let people know that there's a lot happening on the continent And you should be a part of that right as far as creativity entertainment as far as business You know there's so much happening on the continent that everyone should be a part of and I for future kind of speaks to that Journey, but people don't come for the name they come for the event That's exactly right and the experience that we've been creating, we've done that without any corporate partners. So that's just like a team of people who was really invested in seeing the entertainment business of the continent grow,

for us to create opportunities for people on the ground, to change the economy in our own country. But also just to kind of showcase some of these talents. When we started in 2017, they weren't playing any Afro Beats music on the radio. 10 years later, you can't go to a party, you can't go to a spot in New York without it. And for us, one of the best accomplishments

is like a lot of people were able to visit the continent because of our experience. They started in Ghana, but they've grown since to South Africa, to Nigeria, and Ghana was just at that entryway. That's crazy to hear. I'm sorry, Gorgia. Why Detroit for the first stop in the US?

Why not New York? I mean, New York, I feel like I'm from New York. Everyone that needs to know about what we're doing on the continent is aware. This is like a culture melting pot. We have a restaurant here. People know what's going on in this side of the city, but one of the things that we've learned

is that there's an opportunity, Detroit being one of the most creative places, also one of the blackest cities in America. And we could build that bridge between Detroit and the continent, like there's no saying where things can go and that's the opportunity there. And then also we have an amazing partner in Bedrock that's promoting opportunities and business in the city.

So we're looking at it as an opportunity to kind of grow our audience and not just kind of speak to the same people. That's crazy to think that y'all don't have no sponsorships. No, we have sponsorships. Oh, now you're talking about they started off without. So when you were there a few years ago, did y'all have?

When you were there a few years, we had some sponsorships. What we don't have is a corporate sponsor. So we never had like a Live Nation or any of those brands behind us. We literally built this from the mud. And as far as sponsorships, we've had some of the first ever. So when META wanted to first come to the continent, they showed up to our festival,

we were able to work with them. When YouTube wanted to announce shorts, we were able to like build the playground in our field. Audio Mac, we brought the CEO of Audio Mac to Ghana. We ran this program called the Rising Star Program. And now Audio Mac is now the number one downloader app in West Africa, you know? So we were able to be that conduit for a lot of brands

that wanna come to the continent and we've been doing business like that since. But those aren't considered corporate sponsors, even though they're corporate sponsors? They are corporate sponsors, but you can't build an event with corporate sponsors because you're probably not gonna get the money till after the event is over.

But like if you have have a festival partner, we're still an independent festival in that we eat what we kill, basically. So you started off with 4,000 attendees. Did you expect it to be this big as a concert series or was it one of those things where it was more like a smaller... Well, I just wanted a place for us to connect.

There were so many people in the diaspora that were doing amazing things, whether it was in London or it was in America, but we just could to connect. There were so many people in the diaspora that were doing amazing things whether it was in London or is in America but we just could never connect. We just came to Dirty December and we just partied and went away. So with the festival it gives us an opportunity to really kind of showcase what the amazing people on the continent are doing but also like how we can help and how we can add the sauce to it as well. But I did think we were gonna be big. I didn't think we were gonna be big as fast.

So we started in 2017. Year one we did 4,000 people, year two we did 12,000. And then year three was the year of return. So it kind of forced us to scale faster than we were ready to. And then I think the rise of Afrobeats, because the year I was there, y'all had Burn a Boy headline.

Yeah, that was two years in the making. Yeah, we've had almost, we've had all of them perform for us. So we've had Wizkid, we've had Davido, we've had a Shaqay, we've even had Rema for like one of our side events that we did. You know, we did a fashion out experience with IG, Instagram, and we had Rema there performing.

So we've pretty much been the launching pad for a lot of people. Uncle Waffles, probably one of the biggest DJs right now. We were one of the first people to fly out of the Southern Africa to Ghana, put on the Billboard. She performed at our show. We've done that for a lot of artists. I mean, a lot of our piano artists

through the pandemic, we broke in Ghana. 4,000 is still a lot for the first festival ever. So that's amazing to go from 4,000 to 41,000 is, I mean 4,000, yeah, 4,000 to 41,000 is amazing, but for the first time, 4,000 is still a lot. Yeah, we actually shut it down. Yeah, the first year? Yeah, we were afraid that it was like,

people were not gonna be able to have as much fun, or we weren't gonna be able to control it, so we wanted to be able to still make sure people had a good time. So we actually shut it down when it got to a certain limit. We wanted to make sure we had that good premium experience. Did you have any problems that first year? No, no, that first year was just,

it was a learning experience, it was accomplishment. I remember like, you know, being very happy that we was able to kind of see our vision through. But we didn't really have that many experience issues that first year at all. I was gonna ask, what's the hardest thing you faced doing these shows? Was it sponsorships?

Is it people? Is it employees? I think there's a combination of all of that. You know, our first time was just really just kind of understanding the business. We had no idea how to throw a festival. We knew how to do parties, but we didn't know how to do festivals. The second year was just more of our scale, right? Just understanding like logistics and how to deal with people moving from like what

was a polo field to a stadium. The third year was just kind of scaling where our company wasn't just ready to kind of get all of those people coming in for the year of return. But also Ghana's tourism wasn't quite ready for the amount of people that came into that year of return. So yeah, there's a combination of money, there's a combination of just kind of learning, opportunity, capacity building in the space. Equipment is one of the things that we don't necessarily

have much of in the continent, so the expense is high. Now we're dealing with cost of talent, right? So like all of those things are different. At different points, there was this different heart thing. I don't even like going outside, but I remember when I first went to Ghana, everybody was like, yo, Ghana's nightlife is incredible. And I remember thinking Ghana's nightlife?

Man, me and my wife and our team was outside every night. Yeah, very important. People on the continent know how to have a good time. And in December, everybody's off. It's like a vacation for everybody. So the reality is you can go out every night. The restaurants, the clubs, it was in Silver Fox. Yeah, you can have a vibe from morning to morning.

Like, you know what I mean? And people do it and I love that for people. And depending on the type of experience you wanna have, you can have that party track, you can have the tourist track, you can have the wrestling track. It's really your choice. Now I will say, the only thing I will say about Ghana

is the service. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Restaurants, you will wait for a long time. But that's an opportunity. I mean, we see it as an opportunity because you gotta think about a capacity building, right? Ghana is very young to tourism, whereas a lot of Caribbean countries

have been getting tourists for hundreds of years, Ghana's only been free since 1957. So, and then the tourism sector really just started, I would say a boom after the year of return. So we're still learning how to do that. So there's an opportunity. So if people wanna start a service-based business, I mean, I'm inviting you to Ghana to do that.

I was saying to myself, I wanna go to Ghana outside of December, which I'm going to do, but. Absolutely. Because I want it, like how was it throughout the rest of the, which I'm going to do, but. Absolutely. Because I want it, like how was it throughout the rest of the year? No, you can have, what you see in December is not foreign to people.

People do this weekly in Ghana if they want to. Like, you know what we see in December? I know a lot of people is a surprise to them, but this is, some people do this weekly if they want to. But like, you can have a great time in, you know, during Easter, you can have a great time in the summertime. It's just not as packed with foreigners, right? But the experience is still the same.

You can still have fun at the restaurants, the clubs are still packed, people are still having a good time. And we just had a change in government this year in Ghana as well. So the economy is coming back to where it's supposed to be and I think people are getting more, there's more consumer confidence.

How many people reach out to you? Cause we had the CEO and chairman of Richie McDennis Festival. I was like, that would be dope to do like a Friday night Afro future at Essence of Let It Go. You really want to piss people off now. Nah, I mean. I don't understand the conversation,

but people are mad about the whole Africans, you know, the whole Africans versus black American argument. And black Americans have been complaining that African culture is different than black culture. And they felt like Essence was trying to force it on people. Yeah, I mean, I think at the core of it is all about misunderstanding. And we just really are not speaking to each other.

We're speaking past each other. And the reason why our festival exists is really to just kind of demystify it, really make you understand. If you're African American and you've been to the continent, you know that people love you, right? Because this is all they consume, your content, the music, the art, everything. And then I'm also a child that's like, was born here in America. So part of my life is an African American lifestyle. I went to high school here, I went to college here.

So I think really it's just kind of making sure we understand and respect each other at its core. On the continent, if you grow up there, all you see is black people. Versus where you grew up here in America, you go to college, you go to work, there's these microaggressions and things that you have to face. It's a very different understanding for everyone, right?

So think about hierarchy of needs. On the continent, the need is just, we need to eat. So it doesn't matter if I'm dealing with a little bit of racism because at the end of the day, I gotta eat. Whereas here, I need to survive, I need to live. So that racism, that's oppressive, that takes away from my joy, you know what I mean? And I think that just really respecting

everyone's perspective on their need at that point is really what I think needs to happen. But I also think that we just need to learn about each other a little bit more and we can find those synergies. We said that- Speaking of Eden, Joel Loughrice or Jamba Liar? So we actually did that event.

My boys and I did that event, right? Even when we're upset about it. No, I don't think that they should be mad at boys and I did that event. Right? No, I don't think that they should be mad at us. I think that it's really just understanding why we did it, right? So Jumbulaya is a version of what Jalof would be, or like a rendition of it. So I don't know if anybody here has seen High on the Hog,

but talking about food origins, really we were just trying to connect people. Our goal is not to make it a competition, and we didn't compete against the rice. It was really just kind of like let you know if you're African this is an opportunity for you to learn about jambalaya. If you're American this is your opportunity to taste some jaleof rice and that was just a way of us trying to connect the culture and connect people through basketball or sport that people love and then also through food and just kind of build that connection. I think we could probably could have did a better storytelling opportunity of just kind

of the connectivity between Jumbulai and Jalof and I think that's great feedback but I don't think of it as a way for us to erase anybody's culture or like you know Africanize anybody's culture. Our goal is to be respectful. We should be respectful and I think that that's the goal that I'm learning. Absolutely, if you show up and you hungry, I want both. I don't give a damn about where it's come from.

I want both. Yeah, my guy, Chef BJ, Benjamin Dennis, he was on high on the hog. And he's from Charleston, South Carolina. Exactly. So if you're from Charleston, South Carolina, where I'm from, I'm 97% West African. So it's like a lot of the things that we eat and stuff are rooted in West African culture.

Yeah, that's some of the things that we want to do. We want to tell more stories about food and the origins. Because if you look at a lot of food that people are eating here in America, across the Caribbean and across the continent, there's so many similarities, but there's barely any places that you can go and find that. If you were born here in America, like first is we know about, I know about Jay-Z's history from beginning to the end. And like I follow all of his albums

and I know the next story is gonna come on the next one. We don't necessarily have that about our Afrobeats artists. I think there's an opportunity for us to tell those stories. And that happens for all categories. The same thing in art, same thing in fashion, same thing in food. We need to tell those stories. And that's why our platform exists to be need to tell those stories and that's why our platform exists, to be able to tell those

stories and buy into that. We all loved Black Panther when it came out, although it's not real. We all loved Woman King when it came out. But we need more shows, more movies like that because if somebody is sitting here in America and all they've been taught is that Africa is full of poverty, and as an African, I know a lot of young Africans that didn't wanna associate with that either. So it kinda makes sense but now if we can tell you with the internet penetrating at 40 or 50% in Africa

right now, Africans are able to tell you in real life who they are and what they do and the type of lifestyles that they live and vice versa. Man, I've made it my business to take my family to somewhere on the continent at least once a year. Yeah. So I've been to Johannesburg, I've been to Zanzibar in Tanzania,

I've been to Ghana, I'm going to Cape Town this year. Amazing. When you see these places, you like, wow. Yeah, very surprising. I say it all the time, they lied. Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. I'm 100% innocent.

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the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you.

The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there a curse?

Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. American history is full of wise people. us. American history is full of wise people. Well women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they loved to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom

our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than to do it. Listen to American history hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Show me how good it can get today, God, and show the rest of the world what we already know.

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Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's about the opportunity. Yeah. And just beyond that, like I was on Kamala's, the group that went to the continent when she went to Africa. And for me, it's very important for everybody to if the whole

world is fighting for a piece of Africa, why aren't you looking at that as an opportunity for yourself? And our festival is a way to introduce it, right? You know, something that you're familiar with, come to the continent, experience the food, experience art, experience fashion, experience the music in real time with the people on the ground, smell and feel the place.

And then, you know, use that as an opportunity the next time you come to see how you can help, how you can work with somebody to make something really dope happen. That's our goal. You said that tourism is new for you guys. So when people experience all of that, what is the one thing at the end of the day

that you feel like people still miss that you're like, man, I wish y'all would have gotten this though? I mean, one of the things that I mentioned earlier is that, you know, we're a small business still. Although we've gotten all the dispress in these bylines and a lot of people from America have come to our festival 40%, there are still growing pains that we're going through to build infrastructure.

We need to build infrastructure around touring. You see most African are, they're not touring around the continent. The cost is too high. We need to build infrastructure just around education. You know, Year of Return taught me that we booked Ari Lennox and she came to Ghana and she was so happy about her experience, but she received comments that didn't really make her happy. And that's because there's so much learning that we have to do and unlearning that we have to do as well.

So it's just kind of those kind of things that we need to be better. We have to be better at service. Like you mentioned, I think that all of those things have changed. So if you've been to Ghana in 2019, if you go today, those things have drastically improved. You probably won't recognize it from the last time you went. And those are the learnings that are happening on the continent. I think in the next couple of years,

you're gonna see a lot more happening. The continent is just getting younger and people are getting wiser and the internet is penetrating at a very high clip. You know, Bill Gates said that he wanted to give 99% of his $200 billion fortune to healthcare and education in Africa. Where would you tell him specifically?

You need to put that in. I mean I would say like you know healthcare is a great opportunity. You know research is one of the major platforms that we do right here in America. I think there's an opportunity on the continent for us to kind of invest in research. I would say agriculture is a very big component. A lot of people outside of South Africa are really importing their food. So it makes the cost of food higher.

If we can invest in that infrastructure of agriculture and agritech, I think there's an opportunity. Entertainment has been one consistent way that people are making money on the continent right now. A lot of the skit makers, a lot of the artists, a lot of the content creators, you know, we all saw the rise of Elsa Majumbo.

We all see the rise of Kabi Lame. I think there's opportunity there. You know, this year, for the past two years, our business culture management group has been running entertainment for the Basketball Africa League. And we do halftime shows, we do all of their influencer management and booking their DJs and things of that nature.

There's an opportunity for entertainment on a grand scale. In 2028, we hear F1 is coming to the continent. There's so much happening that I just think people need to tap in. So, you know, I encourage people to get in groups. You know, let's buy property, let's build infrastructure, let's start a cotton farm, let's start, you know, a manufacturing company. There's so many things you can do on the continent

to create jobs, but also to give back and to be self-sustaining. I definitely invested in some property out there. I wanna invest in some more. I feel like the basketball African league is dropping the ball with the merchandise. I feel like you would, I would wanna wear in some more. I feel like the basketball African league is dropping the ball with the merchandise. I feel like you would, I would want to wear Ghana jerseys. South African jerseys, you know what I mean?

They're getting there. I mean, I would say that this is a growing league. There's just opportunity for them to be able to do more. They've only been around, this is the fifth season that we just came out of. So I think that they are going to do a lot more. You're going to see a lot more dope merch, you know, dope games.

If you come to the games, like, you know, it's, you won't miss anything from the NBA because we have all of the entertainment pieces in that experience. So the continent is growing and people can be a part of this growth. So think about, you know, if you had an opportunity to be a part

of the Harlem Renaissance, like what would that mean for you today? That Renaissance is happening right now on the continent. Art is selling at a higher clip. The artists are selling out stadiums. The fashion, everyone on the Met Gala was playing an African for the most part. Osweer Blatting and all of these people.

I think it's time for more black people to get involved and be a part of this growth. How do you think what Donald Trump is doing with the visas, how that will affect tourism and people just being able to come in and out and you for what you do with your festival. Yeah, I mean, we tend not to do well when he's in office. But I would say that one of the things that I would say is that he's been helpful in people

just kind of discovering themselves and who they are and what they can do. And I would say for the continent, I do see that as a value for that pride to be re-instilled and that you see governments speaking back, you see people pushing back and really wanting to build their own. And I just love, I don't love the divisiveness that comes with it, but I do

love the opportunity that people are seeing and just kind of looking into themselves and the opportunity there. It is definitely affecting us as far as tourism, people are not able to fly as easily, people are afraid and things of that nature, but you know, the goal is for us to continue to send those positive messages that continue to build our community. And the hope is that people find that comfort within the community that we're building.

That's why what happened with Ari Lennox was so sad because I felt like it was like a moment of self-discovery for her. And people thought she was like, I don't know if they thought she was trolling or what, but it was like they bashed her for feeling like I belong. Yeah, but that's internet, right? People say that's internet culture.

I don't necessarily know that that's the experience that everyone that was in there in real time felt, but I do see that there's an opportunity for us to do a lot of learning and unlearning. And what I meant by saying that everyone on the continent grows up seeing all black people. They don't see themselves as an other, whereas here, I grew up here, I, you know, I grew up here.

I went to school here, I worked here. I can understand what you mean when you feel like an other. Right? And so to somebody who is like starving or they're getting maybe less than $1,000 a month for their salary, for them to take care of their families, they see you as a wealthy person. They don't see that you have a lot of troubles.

And that's still a lot of troubles. And that's still a level of ignorance that we need to overcome, right? So that's all about learning, all about having empathy, all about just really just kind of unlearning a lot of things that have been taught to us that keeps us divided. If you're black and you've been to any place in Africa

for the most part, especially Ghana, you know exactly what Ari Lennox made. Yeah, exactly. Like my daughters were probably three and five, they were young, seven and five, and we went to seven and four, something like that. They noticed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What were they saying? They were like, where the white people at? Yeah. Literally, they were like, damn, there's so many black people. It's on the billboard, it's on the TV. You see everywhere. You see well, you see, yeah. black people. It's on the billboard, it's on the TV. It's everywhere. You see well, you see, yeah. And I think that's the beauty.

For me, for the first four years, I didn't really get a chance to see the festival. So the only way I could live it is through how people told me it made them feel and how I saw their life had changed when they came back to the US. So it was beautiful to see people who had no ties to the continent, had no family there,

come back and feel home, feel welcomed, feel comfortable. I saw people walking the street. I see people in restaurants just literally having a good time, safe and sound and wanting to go back. You know, we started with 4,000, but like we've had that people have always come back with two or three more people. So that's how we were able to grow from 4,000 to 41,000 over those years.

I think what y'all doing is amazing, man. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I really do. And when is the show in Detroit? Detroit is August 16th and 17th. We have a lot of cool things planned in Detroit. So you put hip hop on there a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We gotta have a little bit of culture all over there, right? So there's a little hip hop, there's a little dance music, there's a little on my piano and then Afrobeat. Our goal is to really introduce Afrobeat to people who have not really had an immersive experience and also just to kind of give people some things that they're familiar with. But for us, our approach is really community. So we're partnering with groups like Black Tech Saturdays, we're Venture 313, we're doing a pitch competition

to give back to the community. We're talking to some of the business leaders, you know, and bringing them into our community. We're running like a bar business crawl just to kind of make sure when people come to Detroit, they know what businesses to support and how to support them. So we're doing a lot of things.

We partner with Pensu Lewis College, one of the ones I'm very excited about. Pensu Lewis College is a historical black college in Detroit that is focused on design. So they do design of footwear and apparel and also furniture. And we collab with them to design merch for the festival and giving students an opportunity to make some money.

So we're excited about that. That's dope. And y'all got, you got merch? I got some merch on the jersey. And you got Davido and Asake. Yes, I got Davido, Asake headlining, we have Kichonada. I know his chapter's name.

I know his chapter. Davido. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got Lyd Miller. I went into a lot of Asake. David O. Lyd Miller. You said Gorilla?

Lyd Miller. Oh, Lyd Miller, okay. Lyd Miller from Brazil. So there's a little bit of vibe for everyone. You designed these for the Bronx? Yes, for the Bronx. They should have been running shoes. Yeah, so the Bronx, we call it the Bronx Little Accra. The jerseys?

Yeah, we call it the Bronx Little Accra, and you can see a large Ghanaian population in the Bronx. My family is from there, we own a restaurant there called a Kra restaurant, been here for 38 years. Okay. And you know the shoe is really just kind of an ode to that culture. Talking about the color patterns, the you know the embroidery, we wanted to have something where you can dress up and dress down at the same time. There's some Odinqa symbols on there that just kind of speaks to community.

And, you know, one of the things that we like to say about the shoe is just kind of, we're separated by thousands of miles. We're united by culture. And although, you know, there's all this divisiveness, we know that when you see somebody doing something, you know that's culture. You can give it the head nod.

And pretty much that's what we try to do with the shoe. What size is this? That's a 12? That's a 12, that's a 12, that's yours. Is it UK? No, that's yours. It's a regular 12. Is it 12?

It says 10 and E. What size is yours? You know those new sneakers? No! That's why I ask questions. Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, I need a nod. That's because he always wearing sleds,

wearing water shoes. Yes, please go to Detroit.Afrofuture.com. You'll find all the information you need. We got hotels up there. We got a discount with Delta up there for you and you know we got the hotels that people can come out and have a great time and definitely look to your flights for Ghana in December. We're gonna have a very debt to you one. So is Detroit gonna be the city? Whole city area? Right now yes yes we are we're

doing Detroit we have a great partnership there we love the community there they're very you know their creativity and their welcoming attitude reminds me of what we were building when we started in Ghana, so we're very excited about that. But we do have smaller other activations around the US that we're looking to bring out. Houston would be another big one. I want to go to Charleston, South Carolina. Yeah, invite us, we'd definitely love to do a dinner out there, love to do some experiences out there.

We're working with artists, people who, you know, painters. We're working with fashion designers. We have some cool one. This is a young designer called Ija Bing. We just brought him to Senegal. That is really nice. So we wanna continue to, you know, celebrate the culture and bring people together.

That's where all my ancestry is. Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau. That whole Mali region. Yeah, that's a beautiful, Senegal is very beautiful. The beach is a beach town. I encourage everyone to just visit. Just go and experience it and I'm sure that you will love it and you'll see the vibe that we're talking about. All right, well there you have it.

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