Today we’d like to introduce you to Lee Chery.
Lee, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Coming from immigrant parents, I’ve always been a kid who stood out from my peers. I was born in Brooklyn, New York to a single mother. When I was around 2-3 months old, my mother moved to Miami, Florida which I consider my first home. It was here where I discovered my passion for Hip Hop and Fashion. Growing up, my mother worked two jobs to make ends meet. She always loved to shop and of course, for me being her only son at that time before my little brother was born, she always purchased the nicest clothes for me to wear. She instilled in me to always look my best. When I was attending middle school, I always struggled to keep up with the latest fashion trends. It was only so much my mother can do being only the head of the household. My father was never able to shop for us. I can remember when all the kids use to wear Girbauds, Akademiks, basketball jerseys with the matching dickies, or if it was the long dickies pants, the kids use to tie their chuck Taylor’s onto the pants they were wearing. When it came to Hip Hop, my parents were not accustomed to it. My father was not a huge fan of rap, he believed that the genre was not appropriate for me at a young age primarily due to the heavy use of profanity and reference to drugs and other things. I fell in love with Hip Hop at a young age. The first tape I ever touched was “It Was Written” by rapper Nas. The first song I listened to was “The Message”, I can remember hearing the lyrics at only seven years old – “fake thug, no love, you get the slug, CB4 Gusto your luck low, I didn’t know till I was drunk though”. The rest is history. Even though I knew where my passion was, my mother had a different plan for me. Her dream was for me to become a doctor. Growing up in a Haitian household, its a common thing for children from first-generation immigrants from Haiti to pursue a career in the medical field. The issue was my passion was elsewhere and it was fashion and the Hip Hop culture. When I was fourteen, my mother heard about a place in Georgia where we can live and have a better life and perhaps a better future. Her brother advised her that it would be much better for her to move to a small town about 35 minutes south of Atlanta which was McDonough. This was around the time where Rick Ross was up and coming and had a hit single “Hustling”. He was making a huge impact in South Florida, This period was a crazy time for me. When we finally moved to McDonough, Georgia, I was culturally shocked. In South Florida, I grew up with mostly Hispanics and Blacks. Coming to Georgia, it was just Caucasian and African Americans. I attended a brand new High School called Ola. My first day, I experienced discrimination. I remember when I was the only few of the black people that attended, and I was being treated as an outcast. I was called “a stupid black kid” and for four years, I had to fight my way and graduate from school. In High School, I was known to always dress “fly” as my peers would say. At this time, my mother was in a better position and when it was time to attend college, I really wanted to go back home to South Florida to go to college and make her proud by getting a degree to be a doctor. When I went back to my old home in Hollywood, Florida which was about 8-10 minutes from Miami, I fell into a deep depression. I was 18 and I did not know what to do with my life. I first attended a community college for two years and I transferred to a private university called Nova Southeastern University and there I dropped out after working three jobs struggling to put money in my pocket. At one point, I was sleeping in my vehicle due to the loss of my childhood home. My uncle saw the situation I was living in and I made the choice to move back and finish my degree. When I came back, I enrolled at Georgia State University. I came back more determined and sophisticated and after two years, I finished my degree. Although my mother was proud there was a deep pain inside of me, I went through all of this to make her happy but I needed to make myself happy. After I graduated, I decided to create my own clothing company and I named it DISQUIZE. I created the name deriving from the word disguise, which means to give someone or oneself a different appearance in order to conceal ones identity. Growing up I realized everyone that use to wear the hottest clothes are hiding there true-identity by dressing either in a business sense, athletic sense, or just dressing their best-showing people they are part of something bigger or dressing to look prestigious, I came up with this brand to represent people who want to disguise themselves as something bigger than themselves.
Has it been a smooth road?
Being in the clothing industry, there is a lot of bumps and bruises people will not necessarily tell you about. Some of my biggest struggles has been getting the funds to market my brand at a huge scale. When I first started, nobody really gave me a straight answer as in where to get or how to source products/garments or anything of that nature. It also gets frustrating when the ones closest to you want to get stuff for free without realizing the work and energy you put to provide something of value which requires support.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the DISQUIZE story. Tell us more about the business.
DISQUIZE is a clothing company that provides consumers luxury streetwear clothes. I am known for labeling my brand as a Luxury Brand which can cause a lot of arguments in the luxury fashion industry. I consider my company a luxury brand that is affordable and also provides consumers the quality they deserve. What I love about my company is the creative energy that is put forth and creating content like photo-shoots and mini commercials. I enjoy working with the Hip-Hop artists and other creatives that help push my brand giving their own style to the brand.
What truly sets me apart from millions of other clothing brands is the love and support that we provide for up and coming Hip-Hop artist that we sponsor. We like to work with artists who are original and authentic and we work and sponsor events for them and support there dreams by attending shows and promoting them through our brand.
Being a teacher before and witnessing how most young black men want to pursue a music career, we provide aid to young rappers who dream of creating music videos.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Since fashion is always changing and Hip-Hop is a forever evolving genre, I can see that in the next ten years, there will be a huge shift in style and how artist wear clothes.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.disquize.com
- Phone: 404-399-6779
- Email: disquize18@gmail.com
- Instagram: @disquize
- Facebook: You Wouldn’t Understand
- Twitter: @LExpozed
Image Credit:
Twan Kanon
Quan ATL
Joshie The Goat
Uncultured Media
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