“Whether I’m poor or rich if I can help any way I feel successful.”

– Emeka Alams as told to Kendrick Daye

Emeka Alams is a designer and art director I’ve followed the moment I saw his work with fashion label 21 MC. The vibrant, pattern heavy designs with bold colors that respectfully borrow from African culture while not ridiculing it fit with everything that was going on in fashion and music. At the time M.I.A. was all anyone could talk about. A line later Emeka Alams is ready to give people what he wants with his new line Gold Coast Trading Company.

“It’s African inspired design but it’s from the perspective of the Africans,” Emeka tells me. “It’s not some random dude from Brooklyn coming up with some afro-centric stuff, it’s based on what’s going on in places like Nigeria, or South Africa or Uganda, really it’s just me trying to showcase what I’ve seen in Africa.”

21 MC became an overnight success. Everyone from M.I.A. to street wear lovers in Brooklyn were wearing pieces from the line. Despite the success, 21 MC didn’t live up to the vision Emeka originally had for it.

“A lot of people know me from [21 MC],” Emeka tells me when we speak over the phone recently. “There were certain goals that I set out to fufill and it never came true to what I wanted.”

“It was cool to do African inspired designs, but it really should have been taken much further than that, so with Gold Coast Trading Company it’s basically me pushing the idea forward of not only knowing where we’re from and who we are but going and seeing and learning about all these different movements that are going on in Africa when it comes to style and music and all this stuff,” he later explains.

For Emeka, who moved to Africa for the first time when he was 17, this wasn’t enough. The goals he wanted to accomplish was for his line to be more than just a brand.

“The idea was always to be more than just some street wear hype brand,” he explains. “We wanted to stay away from that, and we ended up doing more or less the same thing.”

The only way to live is to learn and Emeka has learned from his unreached goals with 21 MC how to make Gold Coast Trading Company work for him. He’s created an informational front to the brand that is just as important as the brand itself.

“The big part is really information,” Emeka explains. “The clothing is like a bonus.”

Gold Coast Trading Company has a pretty well designed “Brand Zine” which features bloggers from all over the diaspora including, African Boy.

“I wanted to pull from that culture, and put it in display in a way that’s more accessible to ones in Europe and to show what our inspirations are,” Emeka says. “But of course making good looking clothes attracts people to what I’m doing.”

Good looking clothes is an understatement. In terms of design, Gold Coast Trading Company takes off where 21 MC left off. The 2010 Spring/Summer collection is as vibrant and fitting for the times as 21 MC was.

“This line took a lot of time,” Emeka says. “At first I started making patterns, I made 10,000 designs based on the colors and textures of the fabrics in Africa. I kept designing until I felt like what I had is good enough, I was trying to capture that boldness, kinda craziness and liveliness of Africa but keeping it simple. I feel like it’s what everyone’s going through right now, simplifying. Things are always simple there.”

Fate works in funny ways. The last interview Emeka did as a designer and team member of 21 MC before they split was with Art Nouveau Magazine back in 2008.

“The last question you guys asked was ‘I know it must be really hard working as a team, how do you guys stick together’,” Emeka recalls with a laugh. “We didn’t stick together, I haven’t heard anything from them I’m kinda in my own space doing my own thing.”

Emeka isn’t totally turned off to working with a team now that he creates Gold Coast solo. As long as it’s the right team.

“If you have the right team then it’s great,” he says. “Before it was me doing everything from the business to design and it was a lot for one person to do but I’m the kinda of person that I can handle what you bring to me, If I don’t know, I’ll figure it out.”

Emeka’s new team is smaller, but he says “a lot more driven” and also because they’re all African have the same kinda stories and goals.

“We’re all first generation in America and we’re all still very connected to Africa and we have the same goal. It’s great that I have people that share the same vision,” he says.

When looking to the future Emeka doesn’t ask for money or fame, unless that’s going to help Africa.

“Designing clothes is great but there are so many more important things like family, relationships,” Emeka says. “me being successful is being in a place where I have good relationships and a successful line and hopefully being in Africa and using whatever the line may bring me as far as monetary means to put it directly back into Africa. Whether I’m poor or rich if I can help any way I feel successful.”

For everything Gold Coast Trading Company & Live From The Coast click here. Check out Gold Coast Trading Company’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection below.

[View with PicLens]

ANM: When did you know you were an artist?
Mia: I’ve been scribbling and drawing ever since I was 2, so there was never any question in my mind that I would be anything else. When I learned to read and write, I added ‘writer’ to the list of things I wanted to be when I grew up. Though certain professions came and went on that list, ‘artist’ and ‘writer’ are the two that remained. And the visual arts always took precedence.

ANM: Describe your work to someone who has never seen it.
Mia: I’d say ‘you need to see it because I can’t describe it to you’ (and that’s why I’m an artist first and a writer second!) To put it even more vaguely, I’d tell you that it’s figurative, surreal, symbolic, very detailed, and filled with stories and little worlds.

ANM: Tell me about your background in the arts. When did you know you were an artist?
Mia: I grew up scribbling, then perfected that to more controlled lines, but had no formal art training until I took a couple of figure drawing classes over the summer when I was 15. I graduated from high school a year early so that I could attend art school as soon as possible, and graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in 2007.

ANM: You have a background in Creative Writing. Will you be releasing any books that you’ve written and illustrated anytime soon?
Mia: 
I have several stories going on in my head and in journals and sketchbooks all at once, but none are completed. My mind works very similarly to the dynamic in my paintings—there are multiple energies and stories going on at the same time. But of course—it’s my dream to write and illustrate my own stories, so I know I’ll find a way to do it someday.

ANM: Most of your subjects tend to focus on women. Is there a reason for this?
Mia: 
Being one myself, it’s a subject I tend to gravitate towards. I recently did a piece based on the Lord of the Flies, so the subject is a boy, but I had something I wanted to say about that particular story and didn’t hold back based on who the main character was.

ANM: Would you ever incorporate men or animals even in your work?
Mia: 
I’m 23, so I like to think that I’ll be trying all sorts of things during the years that follow. That being said, if inspiration strikes again to paint a male subject I’ll do it again gladly. My thought process is rather spontaneous, and I let it have control. Same with animal subjects…if I am struck with an idea for a painting based around an animal, I won’t hold back. In the meantime, I do weave some of both into the narrative surrounding the female.

ANM: What theme if any does your work explore?
Mia: 
I’m interested in the complexity of life and the world we live in—there are endless facets to who we are, the situations we deal with every day, and the layers and meanings in the stories we read. Because of that, I like to paint more than just the subject– I want to hint at her story, her thoughts, the things around her. And of course there are even more hidden layers beneath what I show you, so it can go on and on. My interest in all this complexity stems from my wish to see every person discover his or her own inner complexity when they contemplate the complexity of my characters.

ANM: Who are your creative influences?
Mia: The list is constantly expanding and fluctuating, but here are some that come to mind: Gustav Klimt, Arthur Rackham, Walt Disney, the Old Masters, silent film stars, nature.

ANM: What’s your process of creating a piece? How do you know when you’re done?
Mia: There is usually a trigger-idea that I write down—whether it’s a line out of a poem, a mental image, or something I’m learning about…I make a list of anything pertaining to that idea and come up with a story and a character. Then I research images for inspiration, and make a series of rough sketches. My sister critiques them, and I make corrections based on our conversation. Then I’ll do a tight drawing and scale it up to final size. Next, I transfer the drawing to my panel and start blocking in colors. I don’t have time to do color or value studies (which I’d love to do if I could), so I start working on sections that I have a good idea about in terms of color, and just go from there. The painting generally stays true to the drawing, although there are times that I remove or change certain elements depending on how the painting presents itself.

Usually my deadline determines when I’m done. There’s always more I could go back to tweak, rework or just get rid of, but I tend to come to a compromise with the piece—it gets to do what it wants, and I get a certain level of detail and tightness in every section that tells me it’s done.

ANM: What’s on your Music Playlist lately? Does music influence your work?
Mia: 
Yes, music influences my work, and so do podcasts and audio-books. If they don’t inspire ideas, they at least keep me happy and learning new things. Here are some I have on right now: big band and jazz music, David Bowie, Mariee Sioux, some Broadway musical showtunes, Radio Bastet (vintage belly dance music), a Psychology class podcast and one on Anthropology, BBC World Service Documentaries, Chasing Hermes, PRI’s The World in Words, and a couple of audio-books too.

ANM: If you couldn’t paint, what would you be doing right now?
Mia: Writing one of my stories, or drawing.

ANM: What’s your favorite color to incorporate in your work?
Mia: 
Interesting question: I don’t really think of colors in that way, probably because I’m naturally a drawer, so I think with lines. When it comes down to it, I’d have to say that naples yellow and naphthol crimson have to be in there somehow. I like how those particular colors mix with the others, they just make it easier to paint warm colors for me.

ANM: What’s next for you?
Mia: 
I just finished up my largest piece to date, which is 4’ wide x 3’ tall. I probably won’t do another one like that in a while, but I do like painting big now. I’ll be showing one painting and one drawing in a Mark Murphy-curated group show at Art Basel Miami this December, and I’m working on a couple of small/medium-sized commissions. 2010 is booked to the hilt and 2011 is  just about filled up, so that’s exciting. I feel extremely fortunate to be doing this for a living.

ANM: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Mia: Thanks for interviewing me!