Shopping With Purpose: Inside aspireTV’s Visit To The 2025 Essence Festival’s SOKO MRKT
aspireTV dropped by the 2025 Essence Festival of Culture to shop with purpose and met some pretty dope Black entrepreneurs along the way.
Along with enjoying the activations on the ground, we enjoyed live music from a diverse lineup, including Maxwell, Babyface, Jill Scott, Nas, Master P, and more. We also had the opportunity to support Black-owned businesses and explore the SOKO MRKT, which was set up at the convention center from Friday to Sunday.
Meet The Entrepreneurs.
“It actually means the world,” said Stanzel Jackson, co-owner of Fruition Hat alongside Bryan Chatman. “We look forward to Essence every year. It affects us greatly. We get to be exposed to people we haven’t met before, and in the past, we made friends with our clients. They become clients and friends, and it’s so awesome.”
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Encouraging their patrons to step out in style, Fruition Hat Company offers everything from chic new arrivals to timeless hats, as well as essential accessories. When asked about their contribution to the Black dollar, Jackson proudly states that it’s a no-brainer for their business model.
“We’re very conscious about it. All of our designers are Black designers, or the lead designers, rather, and so we still get to have a heavy hand in that space, really openly and boldly,” he shared.
For F&W Style owner Alexandria Alli, entrepreneurship was destined for her through her mother, who was a designer in Lagos, Nigeria.
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“I saw how she ran that business, and how she also brought so much joy to women,” she told aspireTV. “And I knew I wanted to do that in some capacity, and then when we moved here to the States, I worked for a while, and then decided I wanted to start my own line. And I didn’t just want it to just be handbags, I wanted it to be handbags that had some purpose, to have function, that made women feel good.”
She added, “That’s what we try to do, is bring luxury at an affordable price for women.”
Tropical Express founder Crystal Thomas married her love for planning with vinyl records in a one-stop shop in Atlanta, Georgia. She shared in the excitement of this being her first year as a vendor at Essence’s SOKO MRKT.
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“My love for plants came from my father, and I just got my first plant from him, and he also gave me my collection of vinyl records,” she recalled. “When I had my plant shop, I was like something’s missing. I ran into a friend who had a record store, we started to collaborate, and she owned a whole record store with her father, who passed away just like my father. We came together, and it just feels like home.”
“Even in our shop, we have a wicker chair and a couch because we want it to feel like home for everybody else, because everybody seems to resonate with some type of plant from their family or music that their family has given to them, so that’s just what we like to create.”
The Importance Of The Black Dollar.
Since 1995, Coca-Cola has been at the center of celebrating Black culture as a proud sponsor of the festival. Fast-forward 30 years later, the brand held a fresh take on the traditional panel, meant to celebrate Black women-owned businesses and HBCU entrepreneurs, through its “Who’s On the Block” activation.
“Our mission is to refresh the world, to make a difference, to create opportunities and pathways within the Black community, and here at Essence, and with our partnership of more than 30 years, that’s exactly what we’re setting out to do,” said Stephanie Eaddy, Cultural Marketing Lead for Coca Cola. “The SOKO MKT is how they pour into and invest in the entrepreneurs, and we’re taking a similar approach.”
Maryland Governor Wes Moore echoed the same sentiment just hours before hitting the Global Black Economic Forum stage to discuss the power of Black love and the Black dollar.
“I love this because it becomes a great opportunity not just to celebrate, but also to educate, right?” said Gov. Moore of the event. “So, we want to come out here, and we want to be able to make sure we’re celebrating our culture and celebrating Black love and celebrating our music and celebrating our food and everything like that. But we also want to remember who’s making it, who’s building it, who is the next generation of entrepreneurs, who are the businesses that we should be supporting, even when we go back home. I love that this event is also just a major showcase of the talent that we have, and to your point, we have got to be intentional about our ability of lifting these creators, and know that it can’t just be the benefit of a weekend, but it has to be the benefit of what this is going to mean for their careers and their legacies going forward.”
A Continued Commitment To Shopping With Purpose
Much like the energy of what was on the ground through this year’s SOKO MRKT at the Essence Festival of Music and Culture, the aspireMKTPLC is an online platform dedicated to helping consumers shop with purpose online 365 days a year, so we asked the founders what that means to them.
“I think it means a few things to me,” said Stanzel Jackson of Fruition Hat. “It’s important to be connected to the brand that you’re shopping with. To feel like it’s more than just a brand, that there’s some connection there, whether it be through the product or through the people that you’re purchasing with. I also think it’s important because it helps us to feel community-rooted, like it’s a nice thing to know that the purchases are going into the cycle and into the community.”
F&W Style’s Alexandria Alli added, “I feel like shopping with purpose means looking for a unique product that we make.”
Last, but certainly not least, Tropical Express’ Crystal Thomas says that shopping with purpose is “just giving back to the ones that are just like you, supporting them, letting them know that they can continue to thrive. That whatever their dream is, that you’re going to give to that because you know that they can do it.”
“Every business was started from someone’s dream, and so, to me, that’s what it means to inspire and give back and shop with a purpose,” she continued. “It’s just having an intentional purpose for your dollars so that that person, that family, that business can grow and create a future.”
Looking for more ways to shop with purpose and must-watch moments from Black entrepreneurs? Check out the aspireMKTPLC, and in the meantime, catch your favorite shows and movies on aspireTV —available now on Prime Video Channels, Xfinity, and RokuChannel! Stay connected and explore more stories with our latest Tribe Talks.
