We first published this list in February 2021, and it has stayed one of the pieces we are proudest of. Five years on, the people in it are still worth your attention.
Cannabis is one plant among many that people have used to feel more like themselves. It sits inside a much older set of practices, most of which have nothing to do with us and were never ours to claim. Vodou, astrology, ancestral conjure work, affirmation, sound and music are all healing traditions with their own histories, many of them carried forward by Black practitioners through periods when doing so openly was dangerous.
These five weave spirituality, self care and empowerment into everything they do. We are not selling you anything in this piece. Go and find them.
Jessyka Winston of Haus of Hoodoo
A Vodou priestess based in New Orleans, Louisiana, who owns an apothecary and botánica offering conjure fixed candles, ritual baths, oils and spiritual consultations.
What makes her work matter beyond the products is the teaching. Through video lessons and both virtual and physical spaces, she has built somewhere her community can learn the real history of Vodou and Hoodoo, and understand the impact those practices can have. Two traditions that have been caricatured relentlessly in American popular culture, taught properly by someone inside them.
What We Love MOST from Jessyka: Conjure Fixed Candles
Instagram: https://instagram.com/hausofhoodoo
YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCbodFzqtzDbIe60MeAOp32g
Bernard Velasquez, @authenticberns
"I said to myself, Self! My self said, Sis?" If you have ever come across one of his short videos, you know the cadence before you know the name.
Bernard's gift is compression. In under sixty seconds he can shake genuine confidence loose in someone who logged on feeling like nothing, and then push further, amplifying their voice and their sense of what is actually in their highest good. Affirmation work gets dismissed as lightweight. Done at this level, on the days when someone needs it most, it is not.
Instagram: https://instagram.com/authenticberns
TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMedRw42f/
Lizzy Jeff of Zen and Kush
Rap that feels mystical, sensual and high powered. Lizzy Jeff, the Rap Priestess, also known as the Westcoast Wave Goddess, uses plant medicine and creative expression to empower her community.
She is the clearest answer on this list to anyone who still treats spirituality and pleasure as opposites. The work is celebratory and grounded at the same time. Start with Goddess Code.
What We Love MOST from Lizzy: Goddess Code by Lizzy Jeff
Website: https://lizzyjeff.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/lizzyjeff
Bandcamp: https://lizzyjeff.bandcamp.com/
King Soon of Orun
King Soon writes mantras built to be used daily rather than admired, calling in protection, strength and abundance. The money tree line has lived in a lot of people's heads rent free.
What stands out is how he holds the community around the work. He replies constantly, and those replies create the actual safe space where conversation and healing happen. The mantras are the doorway. The responsiveness is the room.
YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCqxhp6i9epbhZ_Bhi__jp_Q
Imani Cohen, The Hood Healer
But like, what is your star sign?
Imani Cohen, better known as The Hood Healer, is a psychic clairvoyant offering daily astrological guidance, sharp humour and a community that keeps it real. The part of her work we keep coming back to is that she does not stop at telling people what their intuition says. She teaches them to trust it, and to understand that it is leading them towards safety, abundance and growth rather than away from them.
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thehoodhealer
What these five have in common
Not a modality. They work in Vodou, astrology, affirmation, music and conjure, and those are genuinely different practices with different histories and different demands.
What connects them is who they built for. Every one of them chose to do this work publicly, in community, for people who have historically been served badly or not at all by mainstream wellness. That industry has a long habit of borrowing from these traditions while leaving the people who carry them out of the frame and out of the money.
Listing five people in a blog post does not fix that. Following them, paying them, buying from them and learning from them does more.
Keep reading
If this is the part of our work you care about, the companion piece is Black Leaders Creating Real Change, and everything we have filed under Social Responsibility sits together in one place.
And if you came here for us rather than for them: we make bath bombs, gummies, lubes and topicals, and you can find all of it in the Kush Queen shop. None of the people above is affiliated with us or paid by us. We just think they are worth knowing.