I Turned A Basketball Jersey Into My Canvas For A Night & I Would Totally Do It Again.

My canvas is constantly evolving…

Changing, shifting, growing.

Every time I get an opportunity to explore a new medium I find that it reveals another part of me. Or resurfaces a fire that once burned so passionately, that I temporarily smothered but never completely abandoned.

I love the game of basketball.

I love that the culture of professional basketball in America is moving in a direction that favors creativity and blends the arts with tradition, to curate a unique fan experience.

I get to be a part of the game in way that I couldn’t have imagined when I was 14 sitting in my room watching Home Team Hoops videos, from a cracked iPhone after high school basketball practice.

I thought that I needed to be in the jersey to mean something to the game. And when my physical capabilities fell short to my artistic abilities, I assumed the two couldn’t coexist.

I was terribly wrong, and it took me almost 10 years to realize it. (but that’s okay)

I’m only 23 years old. I haven’t even reached 1 year into my post grad life. I don’t know what my personal legacy will be or mean to the world. I only know how I feel right now.

And right now as I write this personal essay 24 hours after seeing a jersey I designed on the backs of an official NBA G League Team, in the same town as the HBCU I graduated from, I feel extremely blessed to now be a part of the Greensboro Swarm’s legacy.

This process began two months ago when the team reached out to me with the opportunity. Not a single thought ran through my mind before I decided to take on the challenge of designing the official 2024 game jersey for their HBCU Night. (It just made too much sense)

It started with a moodboard.

When tasked to create a conceptual piece I often like to break it down & approach it in it’s most elementary state. So on my moodboard you’ll notice there’s not much to it. I wanted my idea to be one that can be easily recognized, but also leave more than enough room to be interpreted, and hopefully inspire within our community to build upon.

I wanted to combine visual elements of Pan-Africanism with academia, to create a piece that would be compelling enough to stand out on the court, but also nod at the idea of black education.

If you are not already familiar, according to Britannica, Pan-Africanism is the idea that peoples of African descent have common interests and should be unified.

One of the easiest ways to show pride and belief for this unity is through color. Combinations of red, green, black, and yellow can be used to show pride in the entire African Diaspora. But I wanted to take it a step farther. So I turned down the hues to achieve a maroon, mustard yellow and forest green, traditionally associated with American academia. To me black unity + American academia = HBCU’s

Textures like the chalkboard and composition notebook, flooded to the front of my brain because when I think of the idea of education I think of the tools we use, & how so important it is to have access to those tools. I thought about how to this day HBCU’s are still so very underfunded. It’s a conversation that needs to be had at volumes that reach all 107 of our institutions and beyond.

When rounding out this moodboard I knew that I wanted to included some kind of figures or drawings. I remembered sitting class and often needing to doodle to keep my focus. I wanted to put pen to paper because lately I have felt like a slave to my laptop. This project served as an outlet to unplug and truly feel my ideas ooze out of me.

I drew inspiration from abstract figure drawings that reminded me of Petroglyphs. According to to the National Park Service, Petroglyphs are rock carvings made by pecking directly on the rock surface using a stone chisel and a hammerstone. And According to The Metropolitan Museum, rock paintings and engravings are Africa’s oldest continuously practiced art form. (read more here)

Once I gathered each of the points I wanted to hit, it to was time to take it to the jersey.

The version of the Pan-African flag I used as the focal point on the front and back of the jersey was sourced from the Zinn Education Project; an organization established in 2008 to promote and support the teaching of people’s history in classrooms across the country.

For the side panels I utilized the composition notebook print, because I’m a whore for composition notebooks & it somewhat reminded me of the infamous elephant print utilized by Nike in some of their most famous sneaker designs. Along with hand drawn doodles of the various aspects of HBCU’s.

On The back jersey there are 5 stars with graduation caps to symbolize the 5 basketball conferences that HBCU’s participate in; MEAC (Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference), SWAC (Southwest Athletic Conference), SIAC (Southern Intercollegiate Conference), CIAA (Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association), and GCAC (Gulf Coast Athletic Conference). Also I personally think that HBCU’s produce 5-star talent on & off the court.

Lastly to top off the shorts I added an HBCU “belt buckle,” because there’s nothing like finishing off a fit with a fye ass belt. And if you really be putting that shit on, you know that a good belt can take your outfit to the next level.