TOOFLY NYC

Taking the time to pull together my last post before I devote my heart to my family this holiday week. I had a very short trip to New York this fall which made it super difficult to do everything I would have liked, and needed to do. Next time a 1-2 month stay in New York is about do! Promise. The goal this fall was to rock my first ever Toofly Holiday Pop Up Shop. As some of ya’ll have heard The Ladies Love Project is taking a mini break so we can try and switch things up for 2015. Unsure when we will return exactly but trust we are working on a fresh new twist for LLP. Until then I will be keeping the holiday spirit alive <3

For years now I’ve been building with our hommies from Rebelution Ink and Fresthetic who’s local owned businesses continue to hold it down in Williamsburg. These are the folks we gotta support these days so they can rise above the crude reality of gentrification. Rebelution Ink is a small silkscreening biz and boutique on 560 Grand St that is open to print, and share their space with independent artists and creative folks. Randy Quiles and his team do a great job on all the Toofly t-shirts, totes, and hoodies. I love this place! I dig the people that run it, as well as the people who come to the space to connect. They are a community of “true school” New Yorkers. Heads who share a common passion for their neighborhood and the rough changes it’s going through. They are here to support their hood, the local businesses, friends, and family who hold a tight grip to Bushwick. It’s hard not to vent about what’s happening all around them especially with people who identify with the change. We all came up together in this nitty gritty concrete jungle. A “dope world” back then of diverse energies and fly authentic vibrations. We sOoooo miss it!!! It’s why we are still here sharing them good ol’ vibes on a community tip. We genuinely care to be in each others company because it makes us comfortable. We can indulge in sincere conscious dialogue about the life around us because we truly do “relate” to eachother. I appreciate each and every person who came thru this past weekend because of this and much more. What you shared and brought to the space says a lot about why you came thru. That’s what it’s really all about folks. I don’t know how much longer we will have these kind of spaces and places. It’s important these days to show your support because like the destruction of 5Pointz, which hit us hard this past year, it can be here today but not tomorrow. True New Yorkers know the impact it has on our lives and the new generation when we lose “our” spaces in the city where all our dreams were planted. Fat Beats, East Village Radio, Pearl Paint, are no more. The luxury condo loving, glass encased, suburban lifestyle that is glued to a screen 24hrs a day, has taken over indefinitely. The illusion is thriving and making born and bred New Yorkers feel a certain type of way. It sucks. Just like everything else that’s no longer original to this city. Art, music, and even our local piragua man is being re-packaged and replaced by some hipster to sell multi flavored ice’s to the masses of uncultured transplants. It’s real out there son! and it’s wack how we let it all happen. Not much you can do about it now. So I’ll be back ( just to visit ) because this New York City sistah is a continent trooper now, and I belong to a immense universe outside that city bubble that inspires one to be young, wild, and freeeeeeeeee ready to kick brand new flava in ya ear!  

Photos by #LifeRoundHere and #TooflyNYC – Follow us on Instagram. 

Big ups to poet and actor Lemon Anderson who came thru with his lovely family to experience the Toofly Pop Up Shop. Looking forward to rockin’ a beautiful new marker piece on his walls with a fresh message:)

The Toofly Pop Up Shop will be up for one last week at Rebelution Ink 560Grand Street, Brooklyn NY. With T-shirts, Hoodies, and Prints! Last chance to cop that “limited” edition item for the holiday season. We’re down to the last of the “Love Warrior SKY” pieces. 

My future Toofly Pop Up Shop intern lil Ani! the youngest member of the Project Girlz. Time is flying:)

Building the Toofly New York Team! Shout out to Blanche for holding it down:) Thank you Teatulia Teas!

Shout out to Shiro for being an awesome guest artist!

THANK YOU for the product sales love! Happy artist happy customer:)

Congratulations to all the tote bag raffle winners! That was fun…

JILL DE BUSHWICK a Williamsburg true school local on the 1 & 2’s. Happy we got a chance to rock it on the last day.

THANK YOU NEW YORK CITY!!!

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another - Anatole France