We were lucky to catch up with Nzingha Samuel recently and have shared our conversation below.
Nzingha, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
E+Z stands for Evans and Zing, named after my husband and I. We pride ourself on being family-owned and are extremely passionate about the work we do. Our business not only sustains our family but supports families in the United States and at least 50 families in Ghana. E+Z is a company steeped in love, family and community.
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?
What started off as a routine afternoon walk with my son around Stone Mountain took a drastically different turn when we were met with an armed standoff at the base of the mountain blocking our way forward. If you’re from Georgia or just happen to know anything about Stone Mountain, then you already know… Stone Mountain serves as a symbol of Atlanta’s complicated history with racism. The whole ordeal was deeply infuriating and stoked the fire within me. Not before long, I found myself emailing the Mayor of the area who passed me to Dr. Alan Peterson. I was leaving for Ghana soon after we connected and we planned to meet once I returned home.
I was flying back and forth to Kumasi, Ghana every 6 weeks and building a home there with my fiance, Evans Owusu. Now, a quick back story on that, Evans and I met 20 years ago. I would come to Ghana and stay for months at a time at our godfather’s home and we quickly became fast friends. Evans and I stayed in contact over the years and we decided to try something different in January 2020. The rest is history.
I flew to Ghana in November 2020 and was welcomed by Evans’s smiling face and a newly built 3-bedroom home. I was beyond excited! Our home felt like the answers to my prayers. As we were building, I would post short videos of the house’s progress on my Instagram which started to create some buzz. People started asking me about the process and Evans and I helped to facilitate their land purchase as well. Friends and family came to visit us in December of that year and the word spread even more. This was when it became crystal clear that we needed to form a community and it was building itself before our eyes.
Every time someone has stayed at our house, they end up purchasing a plot. Evans and I’s 5 star- hospitality aside, I would owe it to Ghana’s raw and alluring energy and how it has positioned itself as a safe haven for Black people all over the diaspora. I remember when I first visited Ghana at 19 years old. I immediately felt at home and formed an instant connection with the people and culture. I’m so grateful that I’m now able to create experiences for other people and expose them to all the magic Ghana has to offer.
As of today, we have 20+ residents from all over the world who own a collective 25 plots of land in our community. We also began hosting tours to the major attractions and hidden gems in Ghana and offering short-term rental stays in one of our premiere homes in the neighborhood. Additionally, Dr. Peterson and I reconnected between trips and we put together a Sister-City relationship between the city of Stockbridge, GA and the Afigya Kwabre South District of Kumasi. This is one of our biggest accomplishments to date! We’ve also received a significant amount of media attention around E and Z and have been featured in publications such as Ebony, Essence, Travel Noire, Black Enterprise, and more.
I’ve worn many hats in my life but this venture has felt the most personal to me. Watching our community take off has been an absolute whirlwind and inspired me to do so much more. Evans and I would like to open more businesses, create initiatives, and launch industries to support Ghana’s socio-economic development on an even larger scale.
Have you ever had to pivot?
My career thus far has been all about pivoting. I think I’m living my 10th life at this point. From completing a Fulbright program in Bahia, Brazil to teaching preschool Chinese kids for a year at Disney English to founding a K-12 private school to working as a Senior Program Manager at a tech startup, my professional experiences thus far have been quite varied and unique. Every couple of years, I reinvent myself. I’m the self proclaimed Queen of Starting Over. I’ll gain a glint of inspiration from a song, an article, or a movie and I set off to do the thing. My journey to becoming a social entrepreneur was no different. Seeing the standoff at Stone Mountain deeply inspired me and motivated me to pivot once again.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
Our community members are from all over all the globe– US, UK, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and the list goes on. We inform everyone about important updates through our quarterly newsletter and check in regularly about the progress of their house build through WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a lifesaver for us especially since many of our members live outside of the US.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.enjoilife.co
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eandz_co/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/E-Z-Star-Culture/100083151469572/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGHGdPDl9xzF_s0_sL6i2sg