Essence Isn't Over - But I Hope the Bashing Is!
If you were online during Essence weekend (and for far too long afterwards), you already know the story. The lines. The logistics. The "is Essence over?" thinkpieces that were half-written before anybody's flight even landed. By Sunday, the timeline had held a funeral, picked out the casket, and moved on to the repast for our beloved cultural institution that is Essence Fest. Just like last year.
Some of it was fair. I am not in the business of defending a mess just because it is Black folks' mess. When people spend their money, book their flights, and show up in New Orleans in July heat (HEAT!), the experience should be worth it. Where it wasn't, that critique is earned.
But while we are being honest, let's be honest about the comparison too. Essence is free. You do not pay to walk into that convention center. And yet we keep holding it up against conventions and conferences that charge hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars at the door, and then act surprised that a free event pulling a hundred thousand people has a line. Free and massive is exactly what makes the crowds people complain about. That is the tradeoff for keeping the door open to everybody, not just the people who can afford a ticket. And here is the part nobody wants to sit with: if Essence started charging tomorrow to smooth out the logistics, that same social media timeline would light it up for pricing us out. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'm a door-open type of gal, and I'm glad Essence organizers are too.
I was there this year. And the festival the internet buried is not the festival I was in.
What the timeline missed
The festival I was in put me on the We Love Us stage, in front of a room full of Black women, to talk about the thing we almost never get taught in public: how to build wealth you actually keep. Not a side hustle. Not a tighter budget. Ownership. Equity. The kind of money that keeps working after you stop.
The festival I was in sat me across from people brave enough to stand up and pitch their business cold. No warning, no polish, no slide deck. They volunteered on the spot because they wanted real feedback, and I watched them get sharper in real time, because somebody finally told them the truth instead of something nice.
The festival I was in had me browsing dozens of Black-owned brands and buying earrings from Gwen Beloti, a designer who built a gold jewelry house on the radical idea that luxury should be reachable. Not to mention, hugging people I have loved for years in the middle of a crowd of a hundred thousand of us.
That is the part that doesn't trend. And I have started to wonder why (sike, I know why, but still).
The mess is always the story. The mastery never is.
Here is what I keep coming back to. We will write ten articles about a long line and not one about the woman who closed a deal in the lobby. We will argue about whether a festival is "over" and walk clean past the fact that it is still, decades in, one of the only places on this earth where Black women gather by the hundreds of thousands to celebrate, to spend, and increasingly to build.
The story of us is always messy. It is rarely about the money. And almost never about the mastery. The mastery is the whole point. Black women were building and mastering in real time at Essence, and that should be the story.
The conversation I actually came to have
I was over the moon to speak at Essence about investing, because it's not a common conversation in a room full of Black folks. The wealth gap in this country is not proof that we don't work. We work. The median white family holds around $285,000 in wealth. The median Black family, around $44,900. But the gap is more about ownership than income. It is the difference between earning through your hours and earning through the things you own. Wages stop when you stop. Capital does not.
That is the entire reason I stood on that stage. I want us to stop being taught to earn more and start being taught to own more. Stocks. Real estate. Private companies. The same vehicles that built every dynasty this country likes to pretend was self-made.
I co-founded a venture fund because I kept meeting brilliant Black women who were ready. Who had the mind. Who sometimes even had the money. And who had never once been shown the door. I speak at things like Essence to hold the door open.
Who benefits when we believe it's over
Audre Lorde told us the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. I think about that line often, because while I do not believe that capitalism will save us, I do believe that for our safety, our advancement, and our happiness in America, Black people must build wealth. Essence is a good example of using the tools available to us to build in that space. The constant chatter that puts the mess before the mastery and happily tears down something that was built for our betterment serves only one master - and it isn't the Black community.
And I will give you my critique, because I love this thing enough to want it sharper. Essence should make more room, real floorspace outside the Marketplace, for Black brands to show up and activate. A booth in the Marketplace is a gift, but it is not the same game when you are a Black-owned company that is not CPG and does not have Coca-Cola money to sponsor a stage. The brands that can pay for the big activations should not be the only ones the culture gets to see. Give more of our companies room to be discovered, and the whole experience gets richer, for the brands and for every woman walking that floor.
Also, it goes without saying that everyone, especially the hard working Black people who help make the conference possible, should be paid - well - for their work.
But do not let anybody convince you that a gathering of a hundred thousand Black women (and men) is a failure because the FREE line was long. I was there. I saw the mastery. And I am going to keep telling that story beyond the headlines.
Anyone who wants to gleefully "kill off" Essence Fest has to take that mess somewhere else.
