Two months later, Alsobrooks and Representative Ritchie Torres introduced a bill that would stop banks from making customers’ citizenship or immigration status a condition of service. The bill is still pending. The hearing did not change banking rules, but it gave the senators a public record to build on.

That sequence says something about Alsobrooks’ first years in Washington. She has used committee hearings, negotiations and legislation to push on issues that affect households and businesses. Her record includes a housing law and a role in shaping the GENIUS Act. Other priorities, including bank privacy and maternal health, remain proposals. Her influence is growing, though the effects of that work will depend on what Congress passes and agencies put into practice.

A Seat Across Four Committees

Alsobrooks arrived in Washington in January 2025 after serving as Prince George’s County executive. She became Maryland’s first Black senator and its first woman senator since Barbara Mikulski. Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester joined her in the Senate that year, marking the first time two Black women had served there at once.

Alsobrooks sits on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Environment and Public Works; Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; and the Special Committee on Aging. Her Banking subcommittees cover financial institutions and consumer protection, housing and community development, and securities and insurance. Those assignments place her in debates about credit, housing, infrastructure and financial markets.

Committee membership brings access to hearings and negotiations. It does not set the agenda by itself. Republicans control the Senate, and committee chairs and party leaders decide which proposals advance.

Alsobrooks has described her Banking subcommittees as a chance to advocate for ordinary people. What that platform delivers will depend on whether she can turn attention into support from colleagues, including across party lines.

These subcommittees provide a platform to fight on behalf of everyday people. — Angela Alsobrooks

Housing Is Her Clearest Legislative Win

Housing offers the clearest example of Alsobrooks helping move a priority into law. She voted for the ROAD to Housing Act in March 2026, then supported the revised 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. The measure became Public Law 119-101 on July 11.

Her office said she worked on four parts of the package, including community investment, whole-home repairs, the HOME Investment Partnerships program and appraisal modernization.

The law updates federal housing programs. It has not yet shown whether it can bring down rents or help more families buy homes. That will depend on implementation, financing, construction costs and local decisions about where new housing can go.

Alsobrooks often connects housing policy to her own family. Her parents bought a modest home in their twenties. She has contrasted their experience with the later age at which many Americans now purchase a home. The story gives her position a personal dimension; the law’s eventual results will have to speak for themselves.

High housing costs also reach beyond households. Rent leaves workers with less to spend on transport, childcare and savings. Employers can struggle to recruit when staff cannot afford to live near work. In that sense, housing supply and affordability shape the local economy as well as family finances.

A Stablecoin Law, Plus a Bank Privacy Proposal

Alsobrooks’ most notable financial-regulation achievement so far is the GENIUS Act, a 2025 law that creates a federal framework for payment stablecoins. She was an original cosponsor and says she negotiated language to preserve state consumer protections and protect community banks.

The Senate passed the bill 68–30; the House approved it 308–122. It became Public Law 119-27 on July 18, 2025.

The GENIUS Act covers payment stablecoins, not every type of digital asset. Its provisions are scheduled to take effect by January 18, 2027, or earlier after federal regulators issue final rules. As of September 2026, the Federal Reserve had proposed implementation rules but had not finalised them. The statute is in place; the rules will determine how the framework works for banks, issuers and customers.

The Financial Access Protection Act is at an earlier stage. Alsobrooks and Torres introduced it on April 30, 2026. It would restrict federally regulated banks from collecting or disclosing customers’ citizenship or immigration status as a condition of service. The bill went to the Senate Banking Committee and has not become law.

The proposal speaks to a larger question about who can use the banking system. A business account helps an owner receive payments, run payroll and build a credit history. Black-owned employer businesses recorded $249 billion in receipts in 2023, according to the Census Bureau. That figure measures revenue, not profit, and excludes businesses without employees. A separate 2022 survey found Black-owned firms seeking loans, lines of credit or cash advances were among the groups least likely to receive full approval. 

Changing bank privacy rules would not close that financing gap. It could, however, affect the terms on which some customers approach financial institutions. The bill’s prospects remain uncertain.

Where Her Agenda Has Stalled

Alsobrooks has also tried to advance a working-family priority through the budget process. In April 2026, she offered Amendment 5294, a deficit-neutral reserve fund intended to support future legislation that would increase childcare funding. That later legislation could have capped family costs at seven percent of income.

The Senate rejected a motion to waive budget rules, 47–51, and then sustained a point of order. The amendment fell. No new childcare funding followed from it.

Other bills she has introduced have not yet moved far. The Social Determinants for Moms Act, co-sponsored with Senator Richard Blumenthal, would create a federal task force to study how housing, transportation and nutrition affect maternal health. It was referred to the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

In June, Alsobrooks joined Republican Senator Dave McCormick to introduce the Regional Export Promotion Act. The proposal would test a partnership between the Export-Import Bank and local economic-development agencies, community development financial institutions, minority depository institutions, chambers of commerce, community banks and credit unions.

Alsobrooks’ office says the Export-Import Bank has provided more than $1 billion to Maryland businesses over the past decade. That is a historical figure, not a commitment of new money under the bill. The proposal’s value will depend on whether smaller companies can use those local connections to secure export financing.

She has used hearings to raise other concerns, too. At a June Banking Committee hearing, Alsobrooks argued that artificial intelligence should expand opportunity for families and small businesses. Her Environment and Public Works assignments give her another place to press for Maryland’s roads, ports, water systems and transit. Those roles create a platform. Funding and enforceable protections still require action from Congress and federal agencies.

Representation and the Work that Follows

In a PBS interview with Blunt Rochester, Alsobrooks described what it means to serve alongside another Black woman in the Senate. She also spoke about the ordinary support they give each other in a demanding workplace.

You don’t know whose life you’re touching or impacting by being of service, but that’s really what this moment is about. — Angela Alsobrooks

The quote offers a more personal view of representation than a tally of historic firsts. Alsobrooks took office 32 years after Carol Moseley Braun became the first Black woman elected to the Senate. Her presence changes who gets to ask questions and take part in decisions. She and Blunt Rochester do not have to share the same agenda for that change to matter.

Alsobrooks’ record is taking shape in laws, negotiations, hearings and proposals. The housing law and stablecoin framework are enacted. The bank privacy, maternal health and export bills are not. That distinction is central to judging her power.

So far, she has shown she can use a Senate seat to put issues before regulators, negotiate parts of legislation and work with a Republican colleague on a business proposal. Whether that amounts to a lasting shift will depend on what she helps pass and how the resulting policies affect people beyond Washington.

FAQs

What committees does Angela Alsobrooks serve on?

She serves on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Environment and Public Works; Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; and the Special Committee on Aging. Her subcommittees cover financial institutions, consumer protection, housing, community development, and securities.

What housing law did Angela Alsobrooks support?

She voted for the ROAD to Housing Act. The revised 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became Public Law 119-101 on July 11, 2026. Its effects will depend on implementation.

Did the Financial Access Protection Act become law?

No. Alsobrooks and Representative Ritchie Torres introduced the bill on April 30, 2026. It would restrict banks from collecting or disclosing customers’ citizenship or immigration status as a condition of service. It remains pending.

Why is Angela Alsobrooks’ Senate election historic?

She became Maryland’s first Black senator and its first woman senator since Barbara Mikulski. Her election alongside Lisa Blunt Rochester also marked the first time two Black women served in the Senate at the same time.

How can a freshman senator influence national policy?

A senator can question witnesses, conduct oversight, negotiate bills and seek support from colleagues. Committee assignments help, but party control, committee leadership and Senate rules also shape what advances.

What does Alsobrooks’ agenda mean for Black businesses?

Her work touches credit access, housing and infrastructure, all of which can affect business growth. The policies do not guarantee financing or remove disparities, but federal rules help shape the conditions businesses face.

The post A New Power on Capitol Hill: How Angela Alsobrooks is Reshaping the Senate appeared first on Black Elites.

Her research with computer scientist Timnit Gebru turned that question into evidence companies and policymakers could examine. The work did not solve AI bias. It changed the conversation around who gets to decide that a system is accurate, and what proof those claims require.

What Gender Shades measured

In 2018, Buolamwini and Gebru published Gender Shades, a study of three commercial gender-classification systems. The highest error rate for darker-skinned women reached 34.7%. For lighter-skinned men, the highest rate was 0.8%. These figures apply to the systems they tested and the task of classifying gender. They do not describe every facial-recognition product. The researchers also found that two widely used benchmarks contained far more lighter-skinned faces than darker-skinned ones. The study showed how the choice of test data can leave performance gaps hidden.

Personally, I have had to resort to literally wearing a white mask to have my face detected by some of this technology. — Joy Buolamwini,

For a company buying or selling facial technology, a good test result can be misleading if the test does not reflect the people who will encounter the product. A system may pass internal checks and still make more errors for some groups. That can become a costly problem when a customer uses it for identity checks, surveillance or access to services.

Buolamwini calls the human assumptions built into technology the “coded gaze.” People choose the data, define what the system should do and set the threshold for acceptable performance. Those decisions shape the product before a user ever sees it.

The study gave researchers and advocates specific questions to take to vendors: Which groups did you test? What errors did you measure? Does your benchmark resemble the people who will be affected? Those questions did not force companies to change their products, but they made general claims about accuracy easier to challenge.

Bringing the issue to lawmakers

Buolamwini founded the Algorithmic Justice League, an organization that combines research, advocacy and public education. It aims to give advocates evidence and draw attention to the people most affected by AI systems.

In 2019, Buolamwini testified before the U.S. Congress about facial recognition and civil rights. She raised concerns about the consequences of inaccurate systems in policing and called for stronger limits and oversight.

Mistaken identity is more than an inconvenience. — Joy Buolamwini

The distinction between facial analysis and facial recognition matters. Facial analysis classifies features or estimates attributes. Facial recognition compares faces to verify or identify someone. A wrong attribute classification and a false police match are different failures. The risks depend on what an organisation does with the result.

That last decision belongs to the buyer as well as the vendor. An agency chooses where to use the software, how much weight to give its output and whether someone can appeal. A technical error can have very different consequences depending on those choices.

Different systems, different risks

The National Institute of Standards and Technology tested 189 face-recognition algorithms from 99 developers in 2019. Its analysis used 18.27 million photographs of 8.49 million people. NIST found that demographic differences varied by algorithm and task. For some one-to-many searches, it reported higher false-positive rates for African American women.

A false positive occurs when a system wrongly identifies someone as a match. A false negative occurs when it misses a true match. Neither figure alone tells a buyer whether a product is suitable. A phone that fails to unlock and a police search that returns the wrong person call for different safeguards.

Several technology companies changed their policies in 2020. IBM said it would stop offering general-purpose facial-recognition and facial-analysis software. Microsoft said it would not sell facial-recognition technology to U.S. police departments until federal law grounded in human rights was in place. Amazon introduced a one-year moratorium on police use of Rekognition, then extended it indefinitely in 2021. The policies differed in scope; none created an industry-wide ban.

Researchers, employees, civil-rights advocates and lawmakers were all pressing companies at the time. Buolamwini’s work formed part of that wider pressure. The available evidence does not show that her research alone prompted each company’s decision.

The problem reaches beyond facial recognition

Automated decisions now appear in areas such as hiring, lending and health care. The technology changes, but a few practical questions remain: what is the system predicting, what data shaped it, and can a person learn why it reached a decision?

U.S. employment law applies when employers use software or AI to make or inform hiring decisions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has explained how employers can assess whether a selection tool disproportionately excludes people in protected groups. This is existing civil-rights law being applied to new tools. It does not show that Buolamwini’s work directly produced the guidance.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has made a similar point about lending. Lenders must give applicants specific reasons when they deny credit, even when a complex algorithm makes those reasons hard to identify. The model’s complexity does not remove the lender’s obligation to explain its decision.

Health care provides a striking example of how a system can predict the wrong thing. Researchers studied an algorithm that used expected health-care costs to estimate patients’ need for extra care. Because the health system spent less on Black patients than on equally ill white patients, the algorithm assigned lower risk scores to many Black patients. The study estimated that correcting the bias would raise the share of Black patients identified for additional care from 17.7% to 46.5%. The system predicted spending, but spending was a poor measure of medical need.

That distinction has direct consequences for people. An automated decision can affect whether someone gets an interview, a loan or additional medical support. Companies may gain speed or reduce costs through automation. They still choose the data, the goal and how much influence the system has over a person’s options.

What regulation can require

Research can expose a failure. It cannot ensure that every company publishes test results or that every person harmed by an automated decision receives a remedy.

Washington state’s 2020 facial-recognition law sets requirements for government agencies using the technology. Agencies must prepare accountability reports and consult the public. The law also requires meaningful human review for certain significant decisions and provides for independent testing of performance differences. Its reach is limited to government use in Washington; it does not regulate every private use or every kind of AI.

There is no single technical fix for algorithmic discrimination. A system can fail because its data are unbalanced, its target is a poor proxy or its buyer uses it in a setting the developers did not test. Regular evaluation helps only when someone responds to the results. People affected by important decisions also need a way to question them.

Buolamwini’s research did not remove bias from AI. It helped make one set of failures measurable and harder to dismiss. Her influence lies in that shift, from a user’s complaint to evidence that companies and policymakers had to address. Whether AI systems improve will depend on what their builders and buyers do with that evidence.

FAQs

What did Joy Buolamwini find?

Facial-analysis software failed to detect Buolamwini’s face during an MIT art project until she wore a white mask. Her later research documented accuracy gaps across skin-tone and gender groups.

What did Gender Shades show?

The 2018 study tested three commercial gender-classification systems. Error rates reached 34.7% for darker-skinned women and 0.8% for lighter-skinned men in the systems tested.

Are facial analysis and facial recognition the same?

No. Facial analysis classifies or estimates facial attributes. Facial recognition compares faces to verify or identify someone. Their errors can have different consequences.

The post How Dr. Joy Buolamwini is Saving Artificial Intelligence from its Own Biases appeared first on Black Elites.

It was an unusual launch for a Nike shoe. Customers were not walking into a store to browse. They were chasing a limited opportunity, with little time to act once they found it.

Nike had the factories and distribution network behind the shoes. Corteiz brought the crowd. That difference helps explain how a London label founded in 2017 became a partner to one of the world’s biggest sportswear companies.

The World Clint Ogbenna Built Around Corteiz

Clint Ogbenna was a university student when his family faced eviction. In his first interview with Dazed, in March 2023, he recalled returning from his grandmother’s burial in Nigeria to find an eviction notice. He went to stay on his sister’s sofa. It was there that he started Corteiz.

“I was 20, in my third year of uni, and I came home from my grandma’s burial in Nigeria to an eviction notice saying we had a week [to leave].” — Clint Ogbenna

The Dazed interview also offered a more complicated picture of Ogbenna than his online persona suggested. The writer had heard people describe him as abrasive, arrogant and conceited. In person, Ogbenna laughed often, took time to think and gave long, winding answers. His public image did not tell the whole story.

Corteiz began small. Hypebeast reported that the first drop sold 16 hoodies. The brand’s Instagram following grew from 50 to 10,000 in 18 months. Those early figures offer a glimpse of its growth before the large crowds and major collaborations.

The label also built its following without some of the promotional tools often used by fashion brands. Hypebeast described Corteiz as growing without outside investment, sponsored posts, targeted advertising or influencer giveaways. Ogbenna relied on the clothes, the brand’s online presence and the people who chose to follow it.

Corteiz’s Alcatraz logo made the label easy to recognise. Its “Rules the World” slogan gave it an attitude. In the Dazed interview, Ogbenna described the prison imagery as a metaphor for a society that tells people how to live. The logo, he said, represented breaking free from that mindset.

For customers, then, the clothing could stand for more than a label on a hoodie. Wearing Corteiz signalled a connection to a brand that kept its releases hard to access, explained little publicly and operated outside the usual retail routine.

Scarcity Was Part of the Appeal

Corteiz made the act of buying its clothes part of the experience. Before some online releases, customers needed a password. For physical sales, the location could appear on social media shortly before the event. Followers had to pay attention; miss the post, and the release might already be over.

The audience helped carry the news. Customers shared clues, posted locations, filmed crowds and passed information between accounts. A drop could reach people who had never seen an advertisement for the product. The uncertainty gave followers a reason to keep checking.

In 2022, Corteiz staged “Da Great Bolo Exchange” in West London. Customers could trade expensive puffers from established labels for a Corteiz Bolo jacket. Euronews reported that hundreds attended. The collected coats, valued at £16,000, were later donated to a local charity supporting people without housing.

The event put Corteiz alongside better-known labels while giving customers a way to get a new jacket without paying its full price. The donated coats gave the exchange another purpose. It was a product event, but it also involved something people could take part in and discuss afterwards.

A separate sale in Shepherd’s Bush drew even more attention. Corteiz offered cargo trousers normally priced at £125 for 99 pence at market stalls. Euronews reported that more than 2,000 people turned up, though only a small number could buy them.

That kind of turnout creates powerful images. It also has a cost. A crowd shows that people want to be near the brand, but it cannot tell us how many would pay the usual price or return after missing out. Some customers may leave excited; others may leave frustrated.

“I hate the word ‘marketing’. It’s just natural. I never thought it would go viral. I’m not going to act like I know what the exact outcome will be. Everything to a degree is spontaneous. Everything is last-minute.” — Clint Ogbenna

Ogbenna describes the work as instinctive, and the events often look improvised from the outside. But the business still has to make the clothes, move stock and organise the people involved. A last-minute reveal may create uncertainty for customers. The operation behind it still needs planning.

From Nike’s Oxford Street Wall to the Air Max 95

The partnership followed a legal dispute over Corteiz’s name. In 2021, Nike sought to invalidate Ogbenna’s registered “CORTEIZ RULES THE WORLD” trademark, citing its “CORTEZ” mark for footwear. The UK Intellectual Property Office’s decision invalidated Ogbenna’s registration. His appeal failed in September 2022, and the appointed person ordered him to pay £2,650 toward Nike’s costs.

The ruling concerned the registered mark. It did not close the clothing business.

By January 2023, the two brands were preparing to work together. Corteiz projected its logo onto Nike’s Oxford Street flagship in London, prompting speculation about the display. Nike later confirmed the collaboration,

The Air Max 95 was a natural fit. The shoe already had a following in London street culture, where people commonly call it the “110.” Corteiz was not introducing an unfamiliar design to its audience. It was adding its own identity to a sneaker with an established place in the city.

The collaboration produced three colourways, including the green “Gutta Green” pair listed in the Corteiz release archive. Nike and Corteiz held limited releases in London, New York and Paris. In London, customers took part in a football crossbar challenge. In New York, buyers followed a location reveal. Each launch had a local setting and activity.

Nike brought its footwear platform and production capacity. Corteiz brought its designs, its audience and a release style its customers already knew. The collaboration exposed that approach to a much larger audience and gave Corteiz a route into footwear.

For Black founders, the deal raises a wider business question: when a smaller company partners with a much larger one, what does it retain? Manufacturing and distribution are difficult to build independently, especially in footwear. Access to a major partner’s resources does not automatically give a brand control over them, or guarantee that customers will stay loyal.

Corteiz arrived with an audience of its own. Its graphics, name and release style were established before Nike came into the picture. That gave the partnership an identity beyond Nike’s ability to make and sell the shoes.

The Brand’s Guardrails and Their Limits

Corteiz has kept much of its public identity close to Ogbenna. Direct releases, selective interviews and password-protected drops all reinforce a sense that the brand decides how customers get access. That approach has helped it stand out in a market where many labels compete for attention with familiar campaigns.

Limited supply can also benefit resellers. Customers who miss a drop may find the product on the resale market, where someone else captures part of the value created by the shortage. Those who travel to an event and leave empty-handed may not want to try again.

As Corteiz grows, it has to decide how much to produce, how often to release products and how to serve customers without losing the unpredictability that helped build demand. More stock could make its products easier to buy, though it might reduce the urgency around a drop. Smaller quantities preserve the scramble and leave more people out.

The business challenge is larger than creating another viral moment. Corteiz has to keep production and fulfilment working while giving customers a reason to pay attention when the next release is less surprising. The systems behind the label matter as much as Ogbenna’s instincts.

What “Out-Hyped Nike” Really Means

Corteiz did not become bigger than Nike. It did something more specific: it made a young London label central to the conversation around a major sneaker release. The collaboration paired Nike’s production reach with an audience Corteiz had built through limited drops, recognisable graphics and events people wanted to see.

The crowds showed attention, but they do not prove commercial success on their own. The harder test comes after a launch, when the stock is gone and the videos stop circulating. Corteiz still has to make products people want and decide how much access to give them.

Ogbenna’s achievement was not simply getting people to run for a pair of shoes. He built a brand with enough identity and following to make its partnership with a much larger company feel like a meeting of distinct forces. Whether Corteiz can keep that advantage will depend on how it uses the attention it has earned.

Frequently Asked Questions about Clint Ogbenna

Who is Clint Ogbenna?

Clint Ogbenna, known online as Clint419, is the founder of Corteiz, a London streetwear label launched in 2017. He built the brand through distinctive graphics, limited releases and surprise events while keeping a low profile in fashion media.

How did Corteiz build its following?

Corteiz paired recognisable designs with password-protected online drops, social media clues and in-person releases. Customers shared information and footage, helping the brand reach people beyond its own accounts. Hypebeast reported that Ogbenna built the business without outside investment.

What was the Corteiz and Nike collaboration?

Corteiz and Nike released three Air Max 95 colourways in 2023. The rollout included limited releases in London, New York and Paris. Nike brought its footwear platform and production capacity; Corteiz brought its design identity and an audience built around its releases.

Why is Corteiz considered an independent streetwear brand?

Corteiz built its identity around direct releases and a close connection with its audience. In a 2023 profile, Hypebeast reported that Ogbenna had built the label without outside investment. Its limited drops and distinctive public presence helped it stand apart from conventional retail-led brands.

What was the Bolo Exchange?

In 2022, Corteiz invited customers to trade puffers from established labels for its Bolo jacket at an event in West London. Euronews reported that hundreds attended and that the collected coats, valued at £16,000, went to a local charity supporting people without housing.

Did Corteiz actually out-hype Nike?

Not in size, sales or global reach. The headline refers to the attention surrounding particular Corteiz releases and its 2023 collaboration with Nike. Nike remained the much larger company, but Corteiz showed how an independent label could bring its own audience and cultural identity to a partnership with a global brand.

The post Inside the Secret, Chaotic Fashion World of the Man Who Out-Hyped Nike appeared first on Black Elites.

By 2025, the company had raised $90 million at a valuation just above $2 billion. Marshmallow said it had insured more than one million drivers. The valuation was what investors placed on the private company. It was not the founders’ personal wealth or Marshmallow’s annual revenue.

The business began with a gap in the records. A driver might have years of experience abroad but little British insurance history. The twins thought insurers were missing useful information when they assessed that person.

What the Kent-Braham Twins Saw in Insurance

Insurance prices depend on what an insurer can assess: claims, driving experience, vehicle, address and other details. New arrivals may have long driving histories, but those records can be harder for British insurers to use. Some drivers receive high quotes. Others struggle to find cover.

The brothers heard the complaint from their South African acquaintance, then asked other newcomers about their experiences. They found the problem was not confined to one driver. A person’s record began elsewhere, and the local market had limited ways to read it.

Oliver had worked in leveraged finance at Investec. Alexander had worked as a hedge-fund analyst. After university, both joined Yoti, a digital identity company, where they met Goaté. They understood finance and software, but insurance required different expertise. They brought in Tim Holliday, an executive whose career included roles at the AA, Tesco and Zurich.

Oliver put the data opportunity plainly in an interview with Bloomberg:

We found that we were able to use data that other insurers aren’t using.

— Oliver Kent-Braham

Marshmallow was not proposing to ignore risk or offer automatic discounts. The company wanted insurers to consider more of each driver’s history. A fuller picture, the founders believed, could support a more accurate price for someone with limited British records.

The Model Had to Fit the Insurance Business

In 2020, TechCrunch reported that Marshmallow used data from outside Britain to assess drivers. Alexander Kent-Braham described the opportunity this way:

“We have the tools to offer insurance to customers that traditional insurers struggle with.”

— Alexander Kent-Braham

A model can identify a customer others have overlooked and still fail if the price is wrong. Premiums must attract customers and cover claims, staff and operating costs. Marshmallow needed underwriting partners willing to trust its estimates.

At first, it arranged policies that another insurer underwrote. In 2021, Marshmallow became a licensed insurance carrier, according to its company history. The move gave the company more control over pricing and product decisions. It also brought capital requirements and responsibility for paying valid claims.

The company looked beyond migrants as well. TechCrunch reported in 2020 that Marshmallow was seeking customers with fragmented address and credit histories, groups that insurers could struggle to price. The shared issue was a record that did not fit neatly into the data available to a conventional provider.

A Former Partner Took Marshmallow to Court

Marshmallow’s first reported outside funding was a $1.2 million seed round in 2018, backed by Investec and Passion Capital. Oliver had met Investec co-founder Bernard Kantor during an internship. The money helped the company build its product, but it still needed insurers to underwrite its policies.

That relationship became a legal dispute. Mulsanne, Marshmallow’s former underwriting partner, sued the company and its insurance subsidiary after the commercial relationship deteriorated. In February 2022, the High Court found breaches of contract and some misuse of confidential information. It rejected most of Mulsanne’s allegations and dismissed its passing-off claim. The ruling addressed liability; damages were left for later proceedings. The court judgment describes the dispute and the court’s findings.

The case arrived as Marshmallow was moving from broker to carrier. The company was building its own insurance operation while contesting what it could use from its former partner. The dispute put a practical question in view: how much control did Marshmallow have over the systems and information it needed to run independently?

Then came the pandemic. Lockdowns reduced traffic and driving. Bloomberg reported that Marshmallow’s growth had taken place partly during that period, leaving the return to ordinary driving conditions as a risk to watch. Lower traffic could not show how the company’s policies would perform when roads were busy again.

The British market is not a direct parallel to the U.S. insurance system. The financing issue crosses borders, though: who will back a company built for customers incumbents have not served well? Black Elites has examined a related challenge in Morgan DeBaun’s effort to build Blavity for an underserved audience. In both cases, the founders had to show that a customer group others viewed as narrow could support a substantial business.

Funding Rounds Tell Only Part of the Story

In September 2021, Marshmallow announced an $85 million Series B at a valuation above $1.25 billion. Its announcement said the company had sold more than 100,000 policies and raised over $100 million in the previous 12 months. Marshmallow had fewer than 100 employees at the start of 2021 and set a goal of hiring 400 over the next two years. That was a target; the announcement did not confirm that the company reached it.

In April 2025, Marshmallow raised another $90 million through debt and equity. TechCrunch reported a valuation just above $2 billion, one million drivers insured and a profitable annual revenue run rate of $500 million. A run rate annualises a recent pace of business. It is not audited revenue for a completed year.

Filed accounts offer another measure. Marshmallow Technology’s 2023 group accounts recorded £184.1 million in turnover, including earned written premium, and £54.8 million in commission and fees. The figures cover different parts of the business and should not be treated as interchangeable with the 2025 run rate. The filing history is available through Companies House.

A 2025 Business Leader profile reported that the Kent-Braham brothers still owned almost half of Marshmallow’s shares.

Marshmallow has added services beyond car insurance. Its current offering includes car and van insurance, home insurance and car finance. The company’s 2025 funding announcement also described international expansion and further product development as plans. Each new product brings separate underwriting, compliance and customer-service demands.

For founders exploring a market gap, customer behaviour can offer a starting point. Marshmallow’s early evidence came from drivers’ quotes and their difficulty finding cover. Turning that problem into an insurer required investors, underwriting relationships, claims systems and, eventually, the capital to carry risk.

The Real Test Starts After the Quote

Marshmallow has not replaced Britain’s insurance industry. It has challenged one practice within it: treating a lack of local history as enough reason to view someone as difficult to insure. Its broader use of data helped the company make offers to drivers whose experience was recorded elsewhere.

The company’s million-driver milestone and filed accounts show its growth. They do not show whether every customer received a lower price or how the model will perform as claims costs and competition change. In insurance, the relationship is tested when a customer files a claim.

The twins started with a mismatch between a driver’s experience and the records insurers could see. Investors later valued Marshmallow above $2 billion. Its durability will depend on the daily work behind that number: setting premiums that cover risk, handling claims and giving customers a reason to stay.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Are Oliver and Alexander Kent-Braham?

Oliver and Alexander Kent-Braham are British-Jamaican identical twins who co-founded Marshmallow in 2017 with software engineer David Goaté. Before launching the company, they studied at the University of Bristol and worked at Yoti, a digital identity business.

What Does Marshmallow Do?

Marshmallow is a U.K. insurance and financial-services company. It began with car insurance for people who had moved to Britain and had limited local driving records. It later became a licensed carrier and added other insurance and financial products.

How Did Marshmallow Reach a Billion-Dollar Valuation?

An $85 million Series B in 2021 valued Marshmallow above $1.25 billion. A $90 million funding round in 2025 placed its valuation just above $2 billion. These private-round valuations are not the same as revenue, profit or the founders’ personal cash.

What Made Marshmallow’s Insurance Approach Different?

Marshmallow used data that could include driving experience from outside Britain to assess customers with limited U.K. histories. That gave underwriters more information to consider. The company still had to price policies carefully enough to cover claims and operating costs.

What Was the Mulsanne Case About?

Mulsanne, Marshmallow’s former underwriting partner, sued the company after their business relationship ended. In 2022, the High Court found contract breaches and some misuse of confidential information, rejected most allegations and dismissed Mulsanne’s passing-off claim.

What Can U.S. Founders Learn From Marshmallow?

Marshmallow shows how founders can build around a customer problem that established companies have overlooked. Its British insurance model does not transfer directly to the United States, but the questions of customer demand, capital, ownership and operations apply broadly.

The post The Identical Twins Who Quietly Built a Billion-Dollar Empire by Fixing a Broken System appeared first on Black Elites.

Adams did not create hip-hop’s visual identity alone. The culture’s look came from many hands, including writers, photographers, performers, and designers. But as Def Jam Recordings’ founding creative director, he helped bring graffiti-influenced design into a label’s everyday work. His career is a reminder that the people who shape a movement’s images help shape how audiences recognise it, even when their names sit behind the artists on the sleeve.

Before Def Jam, Cey Adams Was Making His Name on the Street

As a teenager, Adams painted subway cars and murals, signing his work “Cey City.” At 19, he was represented by Graffiti Above Ground, a Lower Manhattan gallery. His early career unfolded in a New York scene where a tag could travel across a train line and become familiar to people who had never met its maker. That ability to make a name visible would serve him in music, though album design came with its own demands: an image had to live beside an artist’s name, a title and a label’s campaign.

Adams met the Beastie Boys before their mainstream breakthrough. His official biography says he designed the group’s first logo, T-shirts and singles, and later worked on its 1998 album Hello Nasty. He also created logos and merchandise for artists managed by Russell Simmons’s RUSH Artist Management, including Kurtis Blow, Whodini and Jimmy Spicer. The U.S. Department of State’s artist profile traces Adams’s path from subway graffiti into graphic design and album covers. 

When Adams joined Def Jam, he was not starting from scratch. He had already worked with musicians and managers, and he understood how an image could move from one format to another. At the label, he and designer Steve Carr established The Drawing Board, an in-house studio responsible for album artwork, logos, merchandise, and promotional graphics. That meant a release could need a whole family of visuals, not simply one cover.

Adams described the pace and range of the work in a 2019 interview with REVOLT:

Everything started with the album. And then from the album, you had singles; and then from the singles, you had advertisements that ran in magazines, and so on and so forth. Everywhere there was a visual or a graphic, I had to design those things. — Cey Adams

Different Artists Needed Different Images

Def Jam’s roster included artists with distinct sounds and public personas. Adams’s job was not to stamp one look across all of them. Boston University’s account of his retrospective notes graffiti-like lettering on early Def Jam releases by Method Man, LL Cool J, Redman and Slick Rick. Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys had their own visual identities. A design that suited one act could easily feel wrong for another.

Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, released in 1990, is a clear example of the designer’s role in a collaboration. Chuck D sketched the idea of a Black planet eclipsing Earth on a napkin. Adams and Carr developed the finished cover from that concept. Adams recalled the beginning of the image to Boston University:

Chuck D [of Public Enemy] literally sketched the concept for Fear of a Black Planet on a napkin… this Black Planet eclipsing the earth. — Cey Adams

The story gives proper credit to both parts of the work. Chuck D brought the central idea; Adams and Carr translated it into album art. For listeners, the cover could be the first encounter with the album. It also gave the group an image that could appear on a shelf, in a magazine, or on a wall.

The roster of Adams’s collaborators stretched well beyond that one project. His official biography lists work for Run-DMC, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, The Notorious B.I.G., DMX, Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige, among others. The artists were not interchangeable, and the designs did not need to be. A visual identity could help an act stand apart while still belonging to the larger world of hip-hop.

The Image Was Part of the Release

A cover could not make a record successful by itself. The music still needed distribution, promotion, and an audience willing to listen. But the cover, logo, and campaign gave a release another way to meet people. A shirt could carry an artist’s name beyond the record store. A poster or magazine advertisement could keep the image in view after the first listen.

That part of the business is easy to overlook because the performer is usually the face audiences remember. Designers often work behind the scenes, though the images they create can circulate long after a campaign ends. Adams’s work makes that contribution easier to see: the graphic art did not replace the music; it helped package and present it.

For Black audiences, who gets named in the history of a cultural movement is not a small question. The performer’s name may be on the cover, while a designer’s work becomes familiar without the designer becoming equally recognizable. Adams’s career offers a way to discuss that creative labor without taking anything away from the artists.

In 2019, Pabst Brewing Company announced a limited-edition Blue Ribbon can redesign by Adams. The company said at the time that the design was expected to appear on more than 150 million cans. That was a planned distribution figure, not a sales result. Still, the project showed the scale a commissioned design could reach through a product sold nationally.

From Def Jam to a Smithsonian Archive

Adams left Def Jam in the early 2000s and continued in graphic design, collage, murals, and fine art. In 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture commissioned his ONE NATION collage for its opening celebrations. Adams’s biography says the work became part of the museum’s permanent collection.

He also designed the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, a collection covering the years 1979 to 2013. Smithsonian Folkways describes the set as nine CDs, 129 tracks and a 300-page book featuring Adams’s original design. The anthology’s curatorial committee included Chuck D, MC Lyte, Questlove and 9th Wonder, alongside writers, scholars and former Def Jam executives. The project asked Adams to help package a broad history, rather than a single artist’s album.

That shift in scale is worth noticing. An album cover gives one release a frame. An anthology has to hold different eras, artists, and sounds together without suggesting that hip-hop has only one story. Adams’s experience in music design met a preservation project, and the resulting book placed visual presentation alongside the music and essays.

His work has also appeared in museum exhibitions. The Museum of Modern Art included Adams in Looking at Music 3.0, and Boston University’s 2022 show brought together more than 60 works from his career. In a gallery, visitors can stop and look at the covers, graffiti photographs, and other pieces as design. Many would first have seen some of those images in the quick rhythm of a shop, an advertisement, or a record collection.

The Designer Behind the Familiar Image

Adams’s career does not make him the sole author of hip-hop’s look. It shows something more useful: how one designer moved between street art, label work, commercial projects, and cultural preservation. At Def Jam, his designs helped give artists a visible presence across the formats used to promote and sell music. Later projects put that visual history into galleries and an archive.

The images mattered because they gave the culture a face people could carry, display, and remember. The names behind those images deserve to travel with them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Is Cey Adams?

Cey Adams is a New York visual artist and graphic designer. He is best known as Def Jam Recordings’ founding creative director. His work includes album covers, logos, merchandise, collage, murals, and fine art.

What Did Cey Adams Do at Def Jam?

Adams led visual work for the label, including album artwork, logos, merchandise, and promotional graphics. He and Steve Carr co-founded The Drawing Board, Def Jam’s in-house design studio.

Which Artists Did Cey Adams Work With?

His collaborators included the Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Redman, The Notorious B.I.G., DMX, Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige.

Did Cey Adams Design Fear of a Black Planet?

Adams and Steve Carr helped develop the cover for Public Enemy’s 1990 album. Chuck D sketched its central concept: a Black planet eclipsing Earth. The designers developed the finished artwork from that idea.

What Was The Drawing Board?

The Drawing Board was an in-house design studio co-founded by Adams and Steve Carr at Def Jam. It handled visual work for music releases, including album covers, promotional graphics, and merchandise.

What Did Cey Adams Design for the Smithsonian?

Adams designed the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, a nine-CD collection with 129 tracks and a 300-page book. He also created ONE NATION, a collage commissioned for the opening celebrations of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The post Meet Cey Adams: The Visual Genius Who Literally Designed the Look of Hip-Hop Culture  appeared first on Black Elites.