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

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...

The Ayo Edebiri Playbook: Build Skills before You Need Them

Ayo Edebiri’s most revealing career move didn’t happen in front of a camera. During “Fishes” — the season two episode of The Bear where Sydney Adamu doesn’t even show up...

Tanzyn Crawford Stopped Chasing Acting Roles. She Did this Instead.

Here’s the thing everyone kind of glosses over: six months into auditioning, Crawford figured out something most actors take years to accept. Sometimes the problem isn’t you. It’s...

Alton Mason Figured Out the One Thing Most Models Never Do

The scene includes Rome. A room, no music. Alessandro Michele sitting there, presumably deciding whether this kid from New York is worth a contract. And Alton Mason — broke, tired of castings...