I’ll be honest — sometimes I struggle with consistency on one platform, and aside from that, there have been so many things happening offline that have kept me from sitting down and just pouring out. But another truth: I probably needed to dump and write sooner than I expected. It’s been a whimsical and demanding whirlwind start to the summer, and I’m excited to share all the deets with you.

Where we left off

Last time we chatted, I was in the beginning stages of the untitled Black dance documentary I am so eager to tell. I’d started doing research and having pre-production meetings to lay the groundwork for the story I want to tell. And shortly after kicking things off, I had the bright — yet fruitful — idea to pitch The Coca-Cola Company.

Rewinding for transparency

Let me back up a bit, because I need to get this off me. I was part of a media layoff on January 6th. The date is ironic, right? That layoff has since been swept under the rug, but truthfully, it wasn’t kind to my mental health, my esteem, or my life. I was laid off at the very top of the year, and let’s not even get started on what I endured the whole time I worked there. To be curt and frank: it was not a pleasant experience, and if I’m being honest, many across the industry already know it.

Yet, I was blessed to acquire amazing relationships, build quantifiable career skills, and ultimately leave a lasting impact on my client and partner relationships.

From layoff to launch

One of those relationships happened to be with the account I poured so much time and patience into: The Coca-Cola Company. So when I found myself building my own agency and working on an event, I gathered my strength and pitched. My former client, delighted and proud to hear I was moving forward, quickly made it possible for me to launch an event and share some storytelling in honor of America’s 250th celebration.

From there, my team and I got to work feverishly on a marketing campaign and event activation: Creative Connect, a networking brunch for creatives to mix and mingle. In late May, we started shooting photo and video content honoring and featuring Black creatives in NYC (some of it’s already up on our IG). Then on Sunday, June 13th, we took over Deià in Flatbush and hosted Creative Connect, with sounds by DJ Dottie Womack and bites curated by EatWithLove NYC. We’ve since kept posting content in honor of the campaign, and the work continues.

The part I haven’t said out loud

Here’s the truth underneath all of it: I never really gave myself time to heal or grieve the position I lost. I went straight from being laid off into building, pitching, and launching, and somewhere in that momentum, I skipped the part where I actually processed what happened.

And even with a successful event under my belt, even after launching something I’m genuinely proud of creatively, imposter syndrome still shows up. I still catch myself scared. That’s human. I’m learning that doing the thing and feeling settled in the thing aren’t the same, and I don’t have to pretend they are.

Routine: chasing it, losing it, chasing it again

I’ve also been thinking about routine. How I build one with such intention, and how quickly it falls apart the second life gets hectic. It’s not that I abandon it on purpose, it’s survival mode kicking in. But I’m learning that getting back into a routine doesn’t require starting over from scratch or beating myself up for the gap. It just requires starting again, and always being honest with yourself first.

What I’m most grateful for, through all of it, is that I’ve always had movement. Even when everything else fell apart, the routine, the plan, the sense of control, movement was the one thing I could always come back to. There’s real power in the pivot, and I think dance taught me that before life ever had to. You can’t dance and stay stiff. You have to be willing to shift your weight, catch yourself off balance, and keep going.

My friends joke that this is just who I am at this point. They’ve watched me pivot my career more times than either of us can count, and every time, someone gives me that knowing nod, like, “there she goes again.” I used to hear that as chaos. Now I hear it as consistency, just a different kind. The through-line was never the job title. It was always the willingness to move.

That’s what movement does for me, literally and otherwise. Dance, or even just simple, intentional movement, shifts my mood and my mindset in a way nothing else does. When my mind is racing or my confidence is shaky, getting my body moving through teaching or taking a class, a walk, just stretching on my living room floor, brings me back to myself faster than thinking my way out ever does. It’s not a metaphor for me. It’s the actual practice. And it’s probably why, even in the middle of grief and imposter syndrome and a routine in pieces, I never fully lost my footing. I just kept moving until I found it again.

Pre-teen Sapphira

I think about pre-teen Sapphira a lot lately. That little girl watched her mom face breast cancer and somehow still got up, still showed up, still found a way to be resilient in a season most adults would’ve crumbled under. She didn’t have the language for what she was building back then, but she was building it: the grit, the faith, the refusal to stay down.

If she could see me now, running my own agency, closing a deal with Coca-Cola, standing in a room I pitched myself into, I think she’d be proud. Not just of the accomplishments, but of the fact that I kept moving. That the same resilience she practiced watching her mother fight is the resilience I’ve been leaning on this whole time, whether I realized it or not.

Legacy

None of this happened outside of where I come from. I’m the daughter of two award-winning NYC educators, a Brooklyn-born Black woman and a Haitian immigrant Black man, with roots stretching from Bolton, NC to Lane, SC to Haiti. A legacy of creatives, artists, and healers, on both sides. Growing up in this city, surrounded by that, I was blessed in ways I’m only now able to name.

That lineage is the reason I’ve spent my career in rooms, studios, and activations with some of NYC’s & America’s most incredible Black creatives. It’s the same lineage that showed up when I decided to pitch Coca-Cola a month into building my own agency, still raw from a layoff, still figuring out who I was without a title. From there, I brought in my teammates from @sundaybrunch.nyc, and together we built something real. At its core, the campaign is about us, the incredible people we’ve grown up with, worked with, and lived with.

So that’s the whirlwind, as honestly as I can tell it. A layoff I never fully sat with, an event I’m proud of, imposter syndrome that still visits uninvited, a routine I keep losing and rebuilding, and a pre-teen girl inside me who’s been resilient this whole time without ever asking for credit.

If there’s one thing I want you to take from all this rambling, it’s that you don’t have to have it all healed, all figured out, or all in routine to still move forward and build something real. Sometimes the pivot is the plan.

Keep moving… I promise it’ll bring you back to yourself.

Talk soon. I love you all.

The commitment to drop an entry weekly almost slipped into the abyss — swallowed whole by the beautiful, overwhelming momentum of actually doing the thing.

But here I am.

Sitting inside the Brooklyn Public Library, three new books added to my documentary research collection, waiting on a friend to link up about some upcoming projects for SASSBOXX and Sunday Brunch. And I am writing.

I’m doing it. All the things I said I would do, I am doing them. Fearlessly. And in the process, I’ve been learning what consistency actually looks like for me. Not the performative kind. Not the kind that looks good in a content calendar. The kind that feels like rootedness.

A few weeks back, I revealed that I was no longer holding back on an idea I’d been sitting on for years. As things began to crystallize or materialize, I knew that research, real, deep, embodied research — was necessary. Submerging myself into all things Black dance: vernacular, concert, the lineages, the legacies, the things that were taken from us and rarely credited back. I knew I had to go there fully.

And then something knocked me back into myself in the best possible way. I took it back to the old school way. Took a nice trip to the library.

I stepped into the Queens Public Library the other day, and the little 7-year-old in me remembered her way around the joint immediately. My parents are educators. My whole life was built on the idea that when you want to know something, you dig. You go find it. The QPL Central hub had gotten a bit of a facelift since my childhood, but my body remembered — the layout, the rhythm of it, the quiet authority of a room full of books. I found my section. I copied notes. I used the computer to locate titles within the building. I was home in the way that only certain places can make you feel.

On the way to QPL, I passed the Jamaica Coliseum and felt a quiet sadness settle in. Closed. Just sitting there. A whole landmark that held so much for so many. Thinking of the memories, culture, community, and now witnessing the shell of what it was hit me differently. That small moment reminded me of the importance to document everything before it disappears.

Later that day, I was on the phone with my best friend and we laughed recounting how we were always in the library in undergrad. We used it for studying of course, but meeting up and sometimes making up an 8-count, or just being was the way of life. It’s funny how we circle back to the places that shaped us when we’re in the middle of becoming something new.

Because that’s what this is. A becoming.

Also tucked into this season of research, I’ve been re-reading Blue Tights by Rita Williams-Garcia — and y’all, it is so good. It’s a coming of age story about a Queens girl, just like me. (She went to Cardozo, just like me and I have always loved that about the character). The way Williams-Garcia writes about a young Black girl navigating identity, body, and belonging through dance is …ever so reminiscent of the experiences I had growing up. It goes straight to the chest and I feel like I am reading it for the first time, again. In my heart of hearts, I want to turn it into a series the way Mara Brock Akil’s Forever has become. It deserves that kind of life. It demands it. My mother struck gold finding copies of this online, as it was hard and few afar to come by.

From archiving to collecting, from researching to writing and studying, even the way I’m showing up in relationships, in love, in presence — it’s all different. Quieter in some ways. More intentional. I adore the woman I am becoming in this chapter. Genuinely.

I carry a continued prayer: that God does nothing without me. That the moments don’t pass me by. That my vision stays intentional and clear. That my heart remains genuine, and that my Ori stays faithful, grounded, sure, and whole.

It’s not always easy. But God — it is a beautiful place to be.

Slower mornings. Good sips of lavender tea, matcha, or coffee. Lamb when I want it. Show love always, in all ways. Let nobody tek u fi eediat. & peace.

Also, go get a library card in every borough if you need! I am currently collecting them like infinity stones.

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This past Sunday, I gathered an intentionally curated group of family, close friends, and trusted creatives, for our first pre-production meeting for the dance documentary. What I didn’t anticipate was how the room would reveal itself before I even got through my first slide.

As each person joined the call, something quietly extraordinary happened. All of our stories started connecting to each other, threads pulling across different lives, different cities, and different chapters. It was almost as if the project had already begun doing its work before a single frame was shot.

I opened with one question: How has dance shown up in your life?

Every answer came back with two things: gratitude and home, figuratively and literally.

And that told me everything.

I shared my themes and creative intent. And the room pushed back, in the best way. The consensus was clear: this shouldn’t be a documentary. It should be a docu-series and even bigger. I realized I was building an entire ecosystem with room to breathe, to go deeper, to live somewhere that matches the size of the story.

They were right. Because the story is big. Bigger than me.

My family is what I’d call a dance legacy family. My mother introduced her younger sisters to the arts, and one of them fell so completely in love with dance that she became a Broadway star. My brother Seth has danced his entire life. If you have danced anywhere from W145th street in Harlem to Hollis,Queens to just about anywhere on this end of the earth, dance related…I kid you not, you know Seth. For most of my life, I’ve been proudly introduced as Seth’s little sister, a badge I wear with honor. He’s masterfully trained amongst the greats and with the legends at Dance Theater of Harlem, Alvin Ailey, and many other institutions; and is now the Artistic Director of Columbus Dance Theater. Dance didn’t just shape him. It saved him.

And, me I am still close friends, creating, and at moments refining our technique with people I have been dancing alongside since I was 5, 10, and 13 years old.

This isn’t a story I found. It’s one I’ve been living.

My friend and co-managing partner of Sunday Brunch NYC, Kev said something that’s been sitting with me since: “Leave room for magic to happen.”

That’s the assignment.

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What this meeting made clear is that the real work begins now, research, real conversations, and a deeper excavation of what I truly want to say about Black dance culture. How it informs history. How it lives in the present. Where it’s going. And most importantly, the people who carry it forward.

The goal isn’t just a compelling story. It’s a document of preservation, something that moves people from education to action, and ensures this culture is never left to be forgotten.

And then the work went deeper.

Tuesday, I sat down with my good friend and fellow creative, Taj Rani — and what started as a conversation became a reckoning. She helped me see what I hadn’t yet fully named: that this story is bigger than my legacy. Bigger than my family, my friendships, my memories on a dance floor.

Taj helped me understand the cyclical nature of Black dance culture — the 360-degree way it moves through a body, a community, a generation. My friend Falu touched on it too, speaking to what it means for the Black body specifically. And when you sit with that long enough, the responsibility of this project becomes undeniable.

I’m also deeply inspired by the work people like Amar Smalls, of SMALLDANCE and Melany Cetano, Professional dancer & actress are already doing — preserving Black dance culture, teaching from their content platforms, and refusing to let this legacy be diluted or forgotten. They remind me that this work is already in motion. SassBoxx is simply adding our voice to a chorus that deserves to be heard everywhere.

This isn’t just a cultural record. It’s a global one. Black dance didn’t stay in one place — it traveled, it transformed, it became the backbone of movements and moments the world claimed as its own. To tell this story with honesty and depth isn’t just an act of preservation.

It’s an act of resistance.

Want to be part of the journey?

Subscribe to SassBoxx Studio on Substack and follow along as we build this project from the ground up, the research, the decisions, the pivots, and the moments that make it all worth it. This story belongs to the US. And the we deserves a front row seat.

Free subscribers follow the journey. Paid subscribers get a sneak peek in real time.

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— SassBoxx Studio

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I’m excited to return to writing. Still, most of this season has been quiet. The last three months have brought clarity—not loudly, but with precision.

A shift from doing to defining.
From output to intention.

SASSBOXX was never just a brand.
It has always been infrastructure.

This isn’t a reflection.
It’s a definition.

SassBoxx was never meant to be one thing.

The name stayed, intentionally.

Not as a container, but as a challenge to the idea of one.

A box, redefined.

Not as limitation, but as authorship and ownership.

The ability to define form for yourself.
To move across disciplines without permission.
To be layered, expansive, and specific—all at the same damn time.

Because for too long, we’ve been asked to fit into structures that were never designed for us.

SASSBOXX exists to build new ones.

The Evolution

SASSBOXX has evolved.

Yes, it’s a pivot.
But a precise one.

What once lived as moments, now exists as structure.

Curation. Community. Experiential.

Still present, now integrated.

SASSBOXX now operates as a studio.

One that builds through cultural architecture—not isolated campaigns, but connected systems.

Narrative.
Touchpoints.
Partnerships.
Experience.

Designed to move together.

Because relevance isn’t built in a moment.
It’s built in structure.

What We Actually Do

SASSBOXX builds the infrastructure brands need to show up with intention.

Cultural Strategy
Defining how a brand positions itself within culture—clearly and sustainably.

PR & Communications
Shaping narrative across media, messaging, and partnerships with alignment.

Experiential + Campaign Architecture
Designing how brands are experienced—across platforms and in real life.

Narrative Systems
Building the through-line so everything connects, reinforces, and moves as one.

The POV

We don’t chase moments. We build systems brands can live inside of.

Moments create spikes.
Systems create positioning.

This is the difference between being seen
and being understood.

Between showing up once, and building presence over time.

Who This Is For

SASSBOXX is for:

• Founders who need alignment in how their brand shows up.

• Brands seeking cultural relevance, but lacking clarity.

• Those ready to move with intention.

Stay Tapped In

SASSBOXX is a studio.

Strategy, communication, and experience are built in alignment, not in silos.

Subscribe for ongoing perspective, frameworks, and insight. Paid subscribers will get deeper breakdowns, frameworks, and real-time thinking behind how this work is built.

And when it’s time to build, you know where to find us.

The Origin

In 2016, I started SASSBOXX because I saw what wasn’t being said, and more importantly, what wasn’t being built.

Our stories and brands existed, but they were often overlooked, underfunded, under-amplified, or misrepresented. I wanted to create something tangible. Something you could hold in your hands. So I built a box.

For years, that box became a vessel, spotlighting Black and Women of Color–owned brands, hosting brunches, curating conversations, and creating spaces where culture wasn’t explained, it was understood. What started as commerce quickly became community. What looked like a product was actually practice.

Because behind the scenes, I wasn’t just curating goods, I was learning how to shape narratives, build ecosystems, and move culture with intention.

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And then the shift happened.

I realized the box was never the destination.
It was the foundation.

SASSBOXX didn’t just grow as a brand, I grew as a builder and connector. I grew as a strategist, and eventually as a cultural architect.

From co-hosting and producing an award-winning podcast to developing award winning marketing campaigns and brand strategies that moved at scale, I found myself inside rooms where decisions were being made about culture, and I knew I had the language, the instinct, and the lived experience to influence them. I’ve helped shape ideas that touched millions, supported the growth of multi-million dollar business initiatives, and translated culture into something brands could actually understand and invest in.

But the truth:
I was never meant to just participate in those rooms.

I was always destined to build new ones.

The Shift:

We are entering an era where Cultural IP (intellectual property) is the only currency that truly compounds.

Not just what we create, but how we own it.
Not just how we show up, but how we structure it.

Everything I’m building now sits at that intersection:

• How we move.

• How we gather.

• How we tell stories that outlive us.

This next chapter is about intention. Integration. Infrastructure.

No more fragmented ideas. No more playing small with big vision.

Here’s what that looks like:

SASSBOXX Studio
This is the evolution.
A Cultural Strategy and PR Studio built from over 10 years of lived experience, where storytelling, experiential marketing, and communications don’t operate in silos, but as a unified growth engine.

I’m taking everything I’ve learned; every campaign, every room, every risk, and offering it to you: founders, brands, and visionaries building what’s next.

Not just to make noise, but to make an impact.

The Documentary (The Untitled Black Dance Project)
I am working on a documentary… I’ve said it on the internet so no turning back, now.

This isn’t just a film, it’s legacy, it’s my bloodline, and it’s preservation.

A living archive of Black dance culture as both art and infrastructure. We’re not just documenting performance, we’re unpacking the faces and untold stories behind it. The lineage. The influence. The business of it. The why.

Because if we don’t tell these stories with care and depth, they get erased, or worse, repackaged without us.

The Sunday Brunch Collective
This is where it all comes together—in real life.

Launching this Spring in NYC, The Collective is not about surface-level networking. It’s about alignment. Powered by my team at sundaybrunchnyc, we’re looking to connect, consume, and ultimately, collaborate.

Think: curated rooms, intentional energy, activation that reflect where you’re going, not where you’ve been, and access to Sourced, my new personal, curated guide to tools, people, and services that actually move you forward.

No fluff. No filler. Just proximity to what’s next.

The Invitation:

SASSBOXX has always been self-funded and community-backed. That’s not changing, but it is expanding.

By subscribing to the paid tier ($7/month), you’re not just supporting content, you’re funding creation. You’re helping bring the documentary to life. You’re helping build the Collective. You’re investing in a model where culture is not just consumed, but owned, protected, and scaled by us.

You’re not just a reader.

You’re a collaborator.
A witness to the shift, and a part of it.