Black Elites

Founders. Startups. The making of enduring companies.

Playbooks, teardowns and interviews from the operators building the next generation of category-defining brands.

In Entrepreneurship

Who’s SwayvoTwain, the R&B Heir Cast as Biggie in the Snoop Movie?

For years, Michael Archer II kept his parents’ names out of conversations he didn’t have to have. Now, for his first feature film, he’ll be answering to a different name altogether —...

How Alvin Kamara’s Legacy Found a Permanent Home in Neyland Stadium

Alvin Kamara was heading into a rough patch when he decided to give something back to Tennessee. At 31, the New Orleans Saints running back was working his way back from a knee injury. His 2025 season...

Inside Zendaya’s Unstoppable 2026 Box Office Reign

Zendaya’s films have taken more than $4.1 billion worldwide this year. The number is remarkable, but the choices behind it tell the more useful story. Zendaya reached the first weekend of August...

10 Worst Business Advice Plaguing Black Entrepreneurs

Bad advice often survives because it once worked. A founder protected an idea until the patent filing was ready. Another built the first version with savings and kept full ownership. Someone hired a...

The Evolution of Jorja Smith: How the UK Soul Singer Redefined Modern R&B

By 2018, most artists in Jorja Smith’s position would have taken the label meeting. Drake had put her on two More Life tracks and brought her out on tour. She’d opened for Bruno Mars...

10 Harsh Realities for Black Entrepreneurs in the US—and the Fixes

The headline number is encouraging: Black Americans owned about 4.4 million businesses without employees in 2023. Those businesses brought in $128.7 billion, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau...

Doechii’s Rise to the Top: How the Swamp Princess Is Reshaping Modern Hip-Hop

Maybe the smartest thing Doechii ever did was decide a project mattered less than everyone assumed it did. By 2022 she was past the independent-artist stage — Top Dawg Entertainment and Capitol...

The Distribution Tax: Why Black Founders Can Build Great Products and Still Lose the Market

By 2015, Bevel had already cleared the hard part, or you’d think so. Customers were buying Tristan Walker’s shaving system — built for men with coarse or curly hair — and coming back for...

David Jonsson Is the New Black Panther — And the Internet Isn’t Ready

He barely moved up on that Hall H stage. No fist pump, no big wave to the crowd. Just a guy in his early thirties, born and raised in London, trained at RADA, standing there while two thousand people...