Outgrowing Home: Creativity, Ancestry, and the Call That Took Me to London
I Left America to Find Alignment
This essay marks the beginning of a new chapter in my writing.
It’s about leaving home before I had the language for it. About creativity as inheritance, not hustle. About Ghana grounding me, London refining me, and Africa shaping everything I’m building.
This is not a story about escape. It’s a story about alignment.
Thank you for reading—and for growing with me.
Outgrowing Home Before You Have the Words
It was a week before my departure to London. I was still in grind mode, focused on making the last bit of change I could off UberEats and DoorDash—I was motivated to the very last minute. One eerie evening, I stared around my room and had a flashback.
I thought back to the time I moved into my dad’s house during COVID-19. I thought of the night when I was four years old and my parents woke me up to use the bathroom so I wouldn’t wet the bed. I thought of the Christmas where everything seemed perfect and I got a glow kit. I thought of getting dressed for school every morning in elementary, my mom ironing my clothes and telling me to put on an A-shirt. I thought of the old computer desk that once sat where nothing now stands. I thought of how this house used to be carpeted, but is now furnished with wood. I thought of all the pain and baggage I carried here—and how I had to shrink myself every time I came back home.
The Call to Leave
I woke up on the morning of September 29 ready to make the journey to London. I looked around my room one last time. Everything was packed. All of my furniture was wrapped in plastic. When I arrived at the airport, I was ecstatic—walking into a reality I had planned for an entire year. It didn’t feel real. I felt like I was asleep, like at any second I might wake up.
Sitting at the terminal gate, I drifted back into childhood once more. I asked myself, What does it mean to outgrow a place before you have the words for it? In that moment, it meant leaving home—becoming independent. I was ready to grow up and prove to myself that I was capable of achieving whatever I set my sights on.
I had no words for my hometown. It made me feel small, shriveled, stagnant. I had long outgrown Pearland, Texas—before I ever had language for what it means to outgrow a place. It’s a feeling. A feeling of your body being anchored down while your spirit and mind drift freely. It’s akin to what I imagine W.E.B. Du Bois meant by double consciousness—something I can’t fully explain, only feel.
London was more than a relocation. It wasn’t me running away from home. It was a spiritual call—a shedding of my boyishness. I saw London as a place where I could be a child again. It offered fresh air, creative opportunity, and most importantly, a playground to rediscover myself.
When I first visited London in December 2024, I felt an immediate connection to the city and its people. What I love most about London is its immense African and Caribbean diaspora. As a Black American reclaiming his roots, being surrounded by first-generation diasporans felt like an entry point into a life I never knew. London boasts a thriving afrobeats and amapiano scene, as well as one of the world’s largest carnivals. I felt part of a living moshpit—a hodgepodge of Afro-Caribbean cultures.
Here in London, I wear being a Nigerian-Jamaican descendant with pride. The city became synonymous with a portal—a gateway to the Motherland.
Creativity After the Layoff
When I was laid off in February 2025, my intentions crystallized around one thing: building an empire that would make me independent of governmental agendas. I didn’t seek another corporate job. I knew I was disposable to the system—furloughed, terminated, erased under the guise of “organizational restructuring.”
I took up writing so my creative spirit wouldn’t go idle. I started vlogging, blogging, re-installed Pinterest. I was finally in an environment conducive to deep work. Slowly but surely, my appetite for creativity began to outpace where I was in life.
One major ceiling pushing me toward London was my father. After returning from Ghana, he told me, “You’re about to be 25. You need to get your life together. I expect you to be moved out by your birthday.”
Little did he know, that was the counter-motivation I needed.
From that day forward, I did food deliveries up to sixteen hours a day, saving for the move. London was no longer an option—it was the only choice. Creatively, I had few alternatives. I could have chosen New York City, but it felt inauthentic, trendy. I knew I had to leave before I caved to the familiar pressure of getting a job at the chemical plant.
During this time, I rediscovered reading. One author who captivated me was James Baldwin. I became obsessed with his life abroad. I romanticized London as the beginning of my Baldwin era. In America, Black people are taught how to survive. In Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, I found Black men who soared abroad—men transformed by cultural exposure. That became my North Star.
Ghana: The Homecoming
It was 8:00 a.m. GMT when I landed at Kotoka International Airport. As I deboarded the plane, I cried. I was a child again. I was returning to a mother ripped from me at birth.
My first impression of Ghana was airport security. As our eyes locked, we exchanged the Black man nod. That nod reassured me I was safe. I was no longer hiding beneath the Veil.
On the streets of Accra, I felt seen. I was a beautiful Black man, smiling freely. For the first time, I felt authentic vulnerability. I let my guard down. I laughed with vendors, danced with market women, glowed like the sun. Ghana was my Zion. She missed her son.
Sitting in a sightseer’s hut, the wind shifted. The room grew cold. Time broke. I wasn’t in 2025 anymore—I was moving backward and forward simultaneously. I saw enslaved Africans marched toward the coast. I saw the Door of No Return. I saw my future—wealth, abundance, success. I heard my ancestors whisper.
Ghana awakened a king.
I saw beauty in my skin. I understood Africa’s global importance. I felt calm, dignified, clear. I wanted to share this feeling with the diaspora back home.
At the Accra Art Center, I saw myself reflected in the craftspeople. Baskets woven from grass. Carvings from old tree stumps. Mudcloth born from fermented earth. I realized then that my creativity was inheritance—innately African—not a side hustle. That’s when I began drafting Hotep Negus.
London: The Portal
I arrived in London on a brisk autumn day. The leaves had fallen. The city beckoned millions through Heathrow. Waiting for my Uber, a stillness came over me. I had followed through.
At my flat, I stood on a quintessential London street—Victorian townhomes, bikes passing, quiet order. The sameness of the buildings appealed to me. They stood tall, untouched, unwavering—how I felt leaving home.
London offered anonymity. People asked if I was a model or artist. I smiled. In London, you never know who you’re speaking to. Wearing sunglasses, walking with intention, acting as if—I manifested through belief.
Choosing London felt simple. More multicultural than New York. A city of first- and second-generation immigrants. A place where everyone is a freelancer, an artist, chasing their break. Spiritually, that challenged me. I had no choice but to rise.
Why an African-First Brand?
London became a creative portal. Surrounded by bespoke brands, I recommitted to my African-first fashion house. When I saw African aunties walking down the street, I imagined them in my garments. I doubled down on Hotep Negus.
Fashion has long been Parisian, Italian. In Ghana, I met designers dreaming of global recognition. I made it my mission to empower them and shift Africa’s fashion narrative. I was inspired by Christie Brown, Kwasi Paul, Selina Beb, and Woodin.
From this emerged a lifestyle brand rooted in ancestral alignment, modern royalty, and cultural curation. Hotep Negus is more than products—it’s a way of being. Fashion is only the beginning. Looking good starts with how you treat yourself. That’s why Hotep Negus blends fashion, beauty, wellness, and home.
African-first brands restore histories the world tried to erase. They return power through self-definition.
Ancestral Continuation
Creativity isn’t new to me. It lives in my lineage—traveling through the Door of No Return as music, folklore, beauty. Channeling it is reverence. Sankofa in motion.
When my mentor Joe invited me to Ghana again, I felt guided. Ghana reaffirmed my Africanness, my spirituality, my purpose. To be guided is to live in service.
The work I’m doing in Ghana and London is ancestral continuation—interrupted, not erased.
Immigrating to another land is not easy. I sacrificed birthdays, holidays, comfort, and familiarity. In Houston, I knew the rules. I moved with certainty. Everything was second nature. I understood the cost of leaving long before I boarded the plane—but something in me insisted I go anyway.
What I lost in proximity, I gained in clarity.
What Leaving Cost and Gave Me
Grounding myself in London expanded my sense of what was possible. Back home, I never would have imagined earning a living from an African-first fashion brand. I wouldn’t have been encouraged to write, photograph, or build a creative life rooted in intuition and ancestry. Here, those dreams don’t feel radical—they feel reasonable.
London positions me as a Black American creative with a global lens—one capable of capturing emerging markets, telling expansive stories, and building work that travels. Still, there’s a quiet tension in being from everywhere and nowhere all at once. I want to see every corner of the world, yet I am bound by time, money, and reality. That burden sits heavy on those who love the world deeply.
But it doesn’t discourage me.
More than ever, I’m committed to being cultured, fluid, and untamed. I see myself as a vessel. I don’t build brands for myself alone—I build them to empower communities. I don’t write and photograph to collect stories—I do it to share them with people who’ve been told they can’t dream that big.
I never left home.
Spiritual Alignment
Leaving America wasn’t about escape. It was about alignment. About finding the place where I could ground myself deeply enough to transcend. In Ghana and London, I resonate with the land and the people. There is a surety to my existence now—a quiet knowing that I’m walking the path meant for me.
My vision for an African-first lifestyle brand is an extension of my healing. A commitment to process. A spiritual reclamation in motion.
Some cities teach you who you are. Some teach you what you came to do.