As the sun continues to shine on trouble in mind, Regal Roots presents Crowns a new exhibition and artistic collaboration debuting at the upcoming Black Boy Art Show at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. This national showcase of Black male artist and creatives from across the diaspora offers a groundbreaking platform to experience a diversity of voices, mediums, and lived perspectives. For Regal Roots, this moment marks a defining chapter-one grounded in resilience, creative sovereignty, and ancestral memory.
Founded by Malcolm Jamal Jackson, Regal Roots is a luxury lifestyle brand rooted in the principles of Afrofuturism and African diasporic tradition. Jackson is an interdisciplinary artist and creative director originally from Cleveland, Ohio, with deep personal and professional ties to Louisville, Atlanta, and Brooklyn. He studied Journalism at Long Island University's Brooklyn campus, and has worked across multiple fields including editorial fashion, performance poetry, event curation, and brand development. As an artist-in-residence in New York, his work draws on lived experiences, heritage, and storytelling to inform both his personal practice and the vision behind Regal Roots.
Regal Roots began as a creative studio and apothecary brand that popped up in a brownstone in Brooklyn. Focused on sacred aphorisms, intentional design, and fusing decor and modern functionality into a new as well as Afrocentric perspective. The vision is now expanding with the launch of the Regal Roots Atelier, a dedicated space for production, community engagement, and education. The Atelier will serve as a hub for artist and visionaries rooted in African legacy and spirit, offering a place to create, gather, and prosper.
To support this next phase, Regal Roots will officially launch its Kickstarter campaign on Sunday, June 22, 2025, during the opening of Crowns, co-created by Jackson and Nigerian artist Olademeji Alabi of The Art of Alabi Studios. The collaboration is the result of a creative kinship built on mutual respect, cultural alignment, and a shared commitment to honoring African identity through art and representation.
The two artist originally met at Moshood Creations, the iconic Brooklyn fashion house known for its pioneering role in African fashion and cultural representation of Brooklyn. In 2024, for Moshood's 30th anniversary, Regal Roots collaborated to produce over 30 original home decor pillows for the celebratory runway showcase. Despite heavy rain, the event was a flooded with brooklynites who did not hesitate to place orders immediately following the close of the show. Cultural leaders, community members and to experience what often happens in the shop an intergenerational moment of artistic experience of black excellence.
With the Regal Roots Atelier now preparing for its official launch, the Black Boy Art Show becomes the first public activation, a declaration that the work has begun, and that we are forwarding ahead on the journey regardless of the obstacles faced.
Regal Roots previously operated out of The Sixth Street Community Center in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Unfortunately, during the time of tenancy, the brand experienced unsanitary and discriminatory conditions, coupled with a breakdown in leadership and respect. Despite the adversity including a hostile threat of eviction within an inhospitable "community center". Regal Roots emerged intact, guided by unwavering principles and a spiritual sense of direction.
This summer, as the Atelier prepares to open its doors, the Regal Roots team remains committed to uplifting creative expression and keeping the momentum alive and the mission clear. Creative workshops and clinics, talks and panels around cultural knowledge, and collective healing. The space will serve as a site for workshops, clinics, and collaborative projects. Programming will include hands-on-creative sessions, such as those previously held at various different intensive workshops led by Regal Roots at the historic Weeksville Heritage Center, where participants created custom herbal bundles, candle making, and learned about the cultural and medicinal properties of plants, scent, and ritual tools.
The official public launch of the Atelier is being envisioned as Black August- a tribute to political prisoners, revolutionary thinkers, and freedom fighters who have been mostly noted in public as the martyred or outcasted by systems of oppression. This dedication is not symbolic, but structural:Black August will serve as the foundation for how the Atelier defines its commitment to liberation, artistic freedom, and cultural accountability.
Regal Roots supporters, community members, and fellow artist are called to the front of the congregation. Join us at the Black Boy Art Show, support our Kickstarter campaign, and follow the journey as we build a space that honors the past, lives in the present, and dreams for the future.
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Kickstarter Launch: Sunday, June 22, 2025
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