We were lucky to catch up with Latoya Lashae recently and have shared our conversation below.
Latoya, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
When I graduated college ( over a decade ago ) I counldn’t find a job directly out of college. The hustler in me knew I had to do something to earn a living so I wrote down a few things I was good at. In college I sold dinners and desserts , so I decided desserts would be the best path to pursue. At the time I was watching a lot of baking shows, so I took some basic cake design classes at a local Michael’s Craft store. I quickly discovered that cake design came to me as easily as getting dressed in the morning. I developed some flavors and a pricing menu and BOOM, Kerry’s Kakes was born. I decided to pay homage to my late father by naming my business after him. My first clients were employees at the University of Penn Hospital because my grandmother worked there. After that, I started to gain new clients via word of mouth and Facebook. Eventually, I found a job but still baked as a hobby.
Within 3 years business began to pickup so I decided to take my first solo trip to attend a cake show. All the way in the United Kingdom. During that trip I discovered my real true love. Traveling. At the time I didn’t know travel vlogging was a thing, and I didn’t like writing enough to start a travel blog. Hell just finding the words for this article was tough. Almost every year since 2014 I’ve taken a solo internation trip taking many pictures to document my time. Sadly, I never did much with though pictures or video as I wasn’t social media savvy. Fast forward to 2021 I started to see more and more travel vloggers via social media. I was unaware that someone could get paid to create content while traveling. I started to study the various activity they would do and pictures they would take. From that moment on I started becoming more intentional with my content. I began focusing on the quality of my content and pictures. Now, I’m finally putting that content to use via social media and YouTube. My main goal over this next year is to land some travel brand deals to create content for businesses like travel boards, hotels and resorts.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Tough question, which industry do I start with. Initially I moved to Atlanta in 2017 to have the opportunity to gain a bigger audience for my cakes, but that all changed once I was settled here
Baking: I’ve touched on this in previous question. I started Kerry’s Kakes as a way to earn income post college. Since I was familiar with making cakes I figured it would be the easiest way to make money, plus I loved the creativity involved with making custom cakes. As a self taught cake designer I have taught myself various techniques to perfect my cake design skills over the years. I provide custom cakes for all occasions such as Corporate events, baby showers, birthdays, and weddings. What sets me apart from other Cake designer is my corporate customer service skills. I treat every customer with respect and provide individualize attention. My proudest cake moment was creating a cake for Tip (T.I) Harris for the Trap Music Museum 1 year anniversary event.
Digital Content Creator: My love for traveling, dressing cute as a plus size woman, and taking pictures sparked my interest in content creation. Using my iPhone and a tripod I would take pictures and shoot videos for TikTok and Instagram Reels and edit them via apps like InShot, AirBrush, and Adobe Lightroom. I would get so much positive feedback that it made me want to dig deeper into creating content not only for myself to enjoy, but also for others to enjoy as if they were there too. In 2020 I created a PLUSH TINGZ LLC which includes unisex Athletic Apparel (Plush Tingz Apparel) that focuses on comfort, body positivity, and loving the skin your in. Covid hit during my 2020 initial launch so it was hard to gain momentum, however, by summer 2022 I regained my focus and the brand will be launching all new merch on 2.22.23 during Black History Month.
Also by summer of 2022 I finally got comfortable with recording video from my Iphone that I decided to purchase my first vlogging camera. I even taught myself basic editing tips using iMovie now that I was exporting the content from a memory card rather than a phone. YouTube helped a lot with that. I had gained over 12,000 followers on TikTok and by the fall of 2022 I decided to take my YouTube channel seriously after initially creating an account back in 2015.. I began posting detail videos of my trips like where I stayed the activities I participated in how I purchased those activities and the outfits I chose to wear. When people started to come to me with questions on how they can create their own content I knew I was on the right path. To get more comfortable with posting on YouTube and speaking into a camera I decided to participate in Vlogmas in December 2022. Vlogmas is when Youtubers create & post content on YouTube for 25 days straight from December 1 leading up to Christmas Day. This not only allow me to get more comfortable in the creative space but also gain over 200 new subscribers. My content involves lifestyle vlogging about my every day life, providing plus size fashion tips, and detailing my travel adventures. My goal for 2023 is to not only gain 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours in order to be monetized on YouTube, But also connect with like-minded individuals who enjoy the same things in life that I do, And hopefully inspire some of them to go answer their Contant dreams the way I am.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
My main goal driving my creative journey is to one day be able to create content full time while traveling all around the world. I want to afford the life I want without having to work a corporate job. Once I am established I want to start two scholarship funds. One of those being a ‘Plush the Creator’ scholarship fund to help new creators afford the necessary items needed to become a successful content creator or cake designer.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
The best thing society can do to best support artists and creatives is to stop gate-keeping. In today’s society the main way to obtain information in most cases is to pay an obscene amount of money to a particular person in order to get the knowledge they have. As a business owner I understand that time is money, and if one took the time to research the knowledge another should have to pay for the time it took to get it. However sometimes the price points are insane. Most creator are running off of a dollar and a dream.
The journey is hard, and once people achieve their goals I hope they never forget what it took to get there.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/Latoya.Johnson
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latoya.lashae/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@latoyalashae
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/kerry-s-kakes-smyrna-4?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
- Other: www.kerryskakes.com www.allplushtingz.com
Image Credits
Image credit: Latoya Lashae. I took and edited all the photos from my iPhone