Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Yebaoh.
Mary, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Along with the help of my long time classmate/close friend, Rambendu Yarnlay, we have initiated to launch our long time dream store called “Drippin In Culture”. Drippin In Culture is a store focused on connecting the diaspora through a collective line of African clothing, skincare, and natural beauty products. Through this, we hope to unite Black people from all around the world and open a new perspective on our differences. As a Ghanaian born West African who grew up in Atlanta, I saw the two distinct worlds of what it meant to be Black. During the day, I will walk through my predominantly African American high school, and by the evening, I will walk through the doorways of my African house. As someone growing up exposed to the two worlds, I became intrigued by the ways those two communities intertwined in many idiosyncratic ways. The more I experienced the two worlds, the more I grew conscious of how obscure our differences were. Whenever I will come across divisions and fighting amongst the two groups online, I will always watch in disappointment as I saw how divisive those conversations were. From the sidelines, I was always the friend inviting my African American friends to try our homemade Ghanaian food as they invited me to try theirs.
So who exactly am I? Well, my story is very complex to the extent where I often don’t even know where to start or how to even start it. But I will begin here! I am your average West African girl, who like many others relocated to the states when I was very young (nine years old). As of today, I am currently a rising sophomore at Emory University. Despite where I live or even go, I seek to add something valuable to my mind through the new environments I encounter. I consistently urge myself to learn from the many unknowns around me while knowing I do not know of the things that are unknown to me. Regardless of wherever I find myself or whatever questions bemuse me, the term Blackness and its many regal formalities have always baffled me in so many ways. It was until this summer when I began to dissect and unravel my own understanding of those pieces of what it means to be Black. For once in my life, I finally began to formulate an interconnected and homogeneous picture of how close we are as Black people despite our many differences. I like to use poke dots as an example: despite their different colors, they complement and blend in with each other to formulate a big abstract picture. The more I exposed myself to the different walks of the Black experience, the more my obsession to unite and fuse the many walks of it grew.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The journey to uncovering my fullest dimensions was complex. As humans, we find comfort in titles. We feel as though we have to enclave a part of us in order to actualize and become our fullest self. What we fail to discern is that you cannot become your fullest self if you are limiting and excluding other strengths of yours to fit society’s expectation of what you should become. I have never really confounded myself in any label. That is why when people ask me about who I am, I often lack the words to explain such notions. I am the girl who those from my music class will refer to as the “guitar girl” or “singing girl”. I am the girl who those from my volunteering activities will refer to as the “optimist girl”. I am the same girl my entrepreneurship friends will refer to as the “Drippin In Culture” store girl. I am the girl others will refer to as the future “doctor”.
Despite what the perception or lens placed on me by others, I can completely say I, Mary Yeboah, is a multifaceted girl who aspires to use her many talents to morph the world in a way that fits her own diacritic views. The road to wanting to start my own business started with me realizing my actual potential and abilities. I had to alleviate society’s lens and expectations placed on me. Getting there was a struggle because it requires you as an individual to unravel what the world has told you to be. Once I sat down with myself and reflected on my own abilities, I began to ask myself questions like “what is stopping you?, “Why are you not doing that?” and “why not?”. The more I dig, the more I realized that most of my own limitations were internalized and interjected on me by my own vulnerability to falling for what society has made me believed to be acceptable. To get to where I am today, I had to alleviate those burdens from my shoulders through self-reflection, deep thinking, questioning after questions, and finally hugging my monsters.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Drippin’ In Culture – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
For the past years, my classmate, Rambendu Yarnlay, and I have dreamed of starting our own business. A business that is focused on African clothing, natural skincare oil remedies, and natural beauty supplies for people in our Black communities. We have done countless research, planning and have gotten our legal business documents situated. Overall, this idea came about when we were in high school. As current college students, we still cannot believe how closer we are to the dreams that once walked with us along the hallways of our South Atlanta high school. We will be stocking our new items in Mid-September. The goal of dripping In Culture is to connect the diaspora through our shared history to the African continent. We will be making culturally inspired clothing with a touch of modernized styles. We will be doing African Proverbs t-shirts and many other shirts that connects people in the diaspora to their roots.
Our store is an online Shopify store. Through it, we plan to use our creative skills to bring the latest cultural clothing, natural skin care remedies, and natural beauty that are all influence by African cultures to educate and connect those in the diaspora and on the continent as well. More about us can be found on our Instagram page. Our Instagram account is @drippininculture.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Our future goal is to become a big store with many employers. We want to ship globally as we connect more people to their African roots. Our goal is to see a united diaspora. We want Black people from all around the world to be connected. We want Black people whose African roots were stripped away from them to have a new lens of understanding towards their African roots. We want people in the diaspora to see that we are way similar than we thought. Our difference should unite us and not divide us. Because together, we can all Drip In Culture!
Contact Info:
- Email: drippininculture@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drippininculture/
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