A Letter on Culture, Curiosity, and Adding GLOW to the World

My name is Aisha NajiNde and I am the founder of HUEZ.

I was born in the Bronx in New York City, raised in Japan, and currently based in Thailand. My father is Ghanaian with family roots in Burkina Faso. Growing up between these different worlds shaped how I see culture, identity, and the way people connect with each other.

Living across cultures gives you a particular kind of vision. You start noticing how traditions, aesthetics, and ideas travel across borders. You see how people interact with cultures different from their own, sometimes without even realizing it. And you also notice how much genuine curiosity exists. Many people want to understand cultures beyond their own. They simply have not always had the opportunity to learn.

Over time I began to notice something specific. Black culture is present almost everywhere in the world today. Music, fashion, language, art, and creative expression rooted in Black communities have shaped global culture in powerful and lasting ways. Hip hop is now one of the most influential cultural movements in modern history. Its sound, style, and energy have traveled far beyond the neighborhoods where it first began, influencing generations across continents.

Yet many people who encounter these cultural expressions every day do not know the deeper stories behind them. Not because they do not care. Often, they simply have not had access to the information.

This becomes even more visible outside English speaking environments, where resources about Black cultural history can be limited. People interact with the aesthetics of a culture without having easy access to the knowledge that explains its origins. This is not a failure of curiosity. It is a failure of access.

This reality also touches people who grow up between identities. As a mixed person myself, I have met many individuals who feel unsure about how to connect with their heritage. In places like Japan, it is possible to meet someone who is partially Black but raised entirely within Japanese society. They may look different from those around them while their life experiences, language, and family environment are completely Japanese. Sometimes their Black relatives are not present in their lives. Sometimes they do not speak any language other than Japanese. For someone in that situation, connecting to Black culture can feel confusing. There may be deep curiosity but not always a clear path to explore it.

These experiences made me ask a simple question.

How can we create more opportunities for people to learn about and celebrate the richness of Black cultures around the world?

That question eventually became HUEZ.

HUEZ exists to explore the many hues of Black culture around the world. It is a place for research, storytelling, cultural exploration, and celebration. It is also a place where people from different backgrounds can discover the depth and diversity within Black cultural traditions. One of the things I am most committed to is making cultural knowledge available in multiple languages. Many resources about Black cultural history exist primarily in English. By sharing stories and research in other languages, HUEZ hopes to make that knowledge more accessible to anyone who is curious enough to look.

For people who grew up between identities. For people who are curious about their heritage. And for anyone who wants to better understand the cultural forces that shape our world.

HUEZ is about contributing GLOW. Not through arguments or division, but through curiosity, discovery, and celebration. Because the more we understand each other's stories, the more colorful the world becomes.

With GLOW,

Aisha NajiNde

Founder, HUEZ