Real Queens fix each other's CRWNs.
“Don’t touch my hair! “ Many of us have heard Solange Knowles sing about it, but Lindsey Day co-founder of CRWN magazine is doing something about it. Lindsey launched CRWN, a hair and lifestyle magazine for black women, with longtime collaborator, Nkrumah. It’s no secret that women of color go to inexplicable lengths to transform their natural hair to Caucasian standards of beauty. It’s an arguably negative cycle of self-denunciation with a great financial and cultural burden. However, in this age of information saturation, there has been a surge of natural hair influencers on social media and a boom in Black hair care products. Both Nkrumah and Day felt compelled to contribute to this movement, finding that the one thing missing was “a premium magazine documenting the phenomenon, or authentically portraying our narrative”(Day). And thus, CRWN magazine was born, a culturally aware art platform that prides itself on showcasing only NATURAL Black hair.
Day is no stranger to running magazines, uplifting social morale, or being on the cusp of innovation, but the road to her existential success was not direct. She landed her first full time job at Interscope Records, while also editing a blog called “livelevated.com” with collegiate friend and creative director Nkrumah. At the time they were working in the corporate music industry and found a little haven in this side project. During Lindsey’s six years with Interscope, she witnessed the economic crash and the corporate industry flip inside out due to expanding technology. This uncertainty drove Day to crave ownership. And in 2009, she co-founded “Made Woman,” “an online magazine that helps young professional women connect and learn from each others’ careers.”
She quit Interscope, worked full time at MW, and took some freelance gigs along the way. One of which turned into a full time position with Intern Queen, doing content, business, and project management, honing in on her digital marketing skills.
As she was approaching 30, the wordsmith needed a change. She reconnected with Nkrumah on a Brooklyn rooftop in 2014, where they reflected on ownership, career, and voids in the marketplace, but most importantly “what life would look like if we could sustain ourselves by serving our people.” That was the beginning of CRWN.
CRWN is a quarterly print magazine with an e-commerce offering. It is 100% independent and self-funded, and has built successful advertisement relationships based on its ability and promise to stay true to its core message of authentic Black culture. This authenticity is what drives the owner. Lindsey says it’s her “love of my people, and the work,” it’s about seeing “a woman or girl flip through CRWN and her eyes light up…or when a sister confides in me about her hairstory and how CRWN is a place where she can finally see herself…These are the reminders that CRWN is so much bigger than Nkrumah and myself.” A profound feeling that most of us hope to evoke at some point in our life.
CRWN is culture. It is the Black musicians, painters, photographers, writers, activists, and visionaries of a culture that have never been honestly represented in the media, nor maybe even to it themselves. It is healing Black people in America by saying ‘it is beautiful to be you.’ The team at CRWN feel a moral obligation to tell their story and document their culture. In years to come, Lindsey sees CRWN growing into a “true media platform and hub for the culture,” where creatives and business people alike can come and “cut their teeth,” as she says.
CrwnMag Issue no. 01; CrwnMag Issue no. 02.
The co-founder's ability to show up, persevere, work hard, and trust her gut instinct, has brought her to a place of ownership, pride, humanitarianism, and cultural revival. She has created a tangible change in the Black community, and most importantly, an awareness of truth and self-love. In a world where African Americans have been systematically misrepresented, discredited, and traumatized throughout the course of history, Lindsey Day and CRWN have created a haven of acceptance, beauty, self-love, and open conversation. The powerhouse tells it like this, “This is the first time in my life I’ve known I’m walking in my true purpose.”
Arianna Schioldager is Editor-in-Chief at Create & Cultivate. You can follow her @ariannawrotethis.
