In xoNecole's quarterly series Dope Abodes, we tour the living spaces of millennial women, where they dwell, how they live, and the things they choose to adorn and share their spaces with.
It's a warm summer's day when McKenzie Renae invites us into her home.
Upon entering, the young creative has an instantly inviting aura that her space also reflects. Soft candles are lit, and on her speaker is the new H.E.R. record that just dropped, providing the perfect ambience to her undeniably dope abode. Whether it's for her hair or her sense of style, McKenzie has made waves on the internet as a woman to follow. And as we take in a tour of her place, we are reminded that the Atlanta-based multi-hyphenate (who also contributes to xoNecole from time to time) is the host of a wealth of knowledge on styling, a fact that effortlessly lends itself to her overall decor aesthetic.
McKenzie Renae
Photo By: Sanniyah Sloan Photography/xoNecole
"My favorite thing about my home is that I feel like it's me," McKenzie shared with us. "I've lived in two different apartments and I was finding my style, but I really feel that this is really a reflection of who I am, and I feel really good about walking home every day. It's just a feel-good feeling. I don't have a favorite piece, it's just the feeling I get when I come home."
In addition to an apartment tour, xoNecole was able to see the full extent of the magic behind her eye for flair while getting some backstory on the pieces she chose to live with her in her Buckhead condo.
Something Blue
Photo By: Sanniyah Sloan Photography
"I styled everything [in my apartment] around this one sofa. I knew I wanted a royal blue tufted sofa. That's what I wanted, and I searched high and low for it. That's the first thing I started with and everything else I designed around that one sofa. I love it. I got it from Arhaus. It's my one investment piece in the entire house," she laughed. "And then everything just kind of came around it."
Barbie Dreams
Photo By: Sanniyah Sloan Photography
"These Barbie dolls on the wall are actually vintage Barbies that I got in New York when I went for my birthday this year. They had all different kind of layouts, like Barbies on the beach, and it's all vintage," she recalled fondly. "I thought it was kinda cool because he had black Barbies."
Off the Wall
Photo By: Sanniyah Sloan Photography
"I bought this Michael Jackson piece at American Signature Furniture. I thought it was really cool and I really wanted a big piece of art. Big art is expensive and I'm a newbie at figuring out what my taste in art is, so I thought this was cool. The graffiti on top of Michael and the crown - I really liked it. It was a great deal and I just had to have it. It was perfect for the wall. I want to say I got this table from Overstock.com. And I think I got the chair from the same website."
Tunnel Vision
Photo By: Sanniyah Sloan Photography
"I wanted my vision boards to really speak to me - not just be thrown up there. Visuals are everything to me, so it needs to look nice, look neat, and make sense. I have it organized in certain ways on the vision board, and different words that stand out to me, and the gold that's on there - just to kind of make it look more like art so that it's not so temporary. Because I feel like your visions can last, it doesn't just have to apply to one year," McKenzie reflected.
BOSS
Photo By: Sanniyah Sloan Photography
"I love my desk area the most. My desk in my office is actually a vintage desk that I redid." She continued, "It's comfy in here, it's quiet in here. I write in here a lot. I read in here a lot. I like to create vision boards and stuff like that. I create my jeans in here. I take a lot of my product shots in here when I'm doing reviews. It's also my guest room when I have guests over."
Keep up with McKenzie by following her on Instagram.
Click through the gallery below to tour her dope abode, as well as some of the intimate details that make her apartment feel like home:
Coffee Table Finds
Photo By: Sanniyah Sloan Photography
Photos By Sanniyah Sloan Photography for xoNecole
Originally published on April 6, 2019
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While an evolution is a natural progression that happens as businesses grow, a rebrand is a total change. Lola tells xoNecole, "A total rebrand is necessary when a business’s current reputation/what it’s known for is at odds with the business’s vision or direction.
"For example, if you’ve fundamentally changed what your product is and does, it’s likely that your brand is out of alignment with the business. Or, if you find your company is developing a reputation that doesn’t serve it, it might be time to pump the brakes and figure out what needs to change.
She continues, "Sometimes you’ll see companies (especially startups) announce a name change that comes with updated messaging, visuals, etc. That usually means their vision has changed or expanded, and their previous branding was too narrow/couldn’t encompass everything they planned to do."
Feature image courtesy
The Brand Doula was born in 2019, and its focus is on putting "the experiences, goals, and needs of women of color founders first," as well as brands with "culture-shifting missions."
According to Lola, culture-shifting is "the act of influencing dominant behavior, beliefs, or experiences in a community or group (ideally, for the better)."
"At The Brand Doula, we work with companies and leaders that set out to challenge the status quo in their industries and communities. They’re here to make an impact that sends ripples across the market," she says.
"We help the problem solvers of the world — the ones who aren't satisfied with 'this is how it's always been' and instead ask 'how could this be better?' Our clients build for impact, reimagining tools, systems, and ways of living to move cultures forward."
The Brand Doula has worked with many brands, including Too Collective, to assist with their collaboration with Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty and Balanced Black Girl for a "refresh," aka rebrand. For businesses looking to rebrand, Lola shares four essential steps.
1. Do an audit of your current brand experience — what’s still relevant and what needs to change? Reflect on why you’re doing the rebrand in the first place and what success would look like after relaunching.
2. Tackle the overall strategy first — before you start redesigning logos and websites, align on a new vision for your brand. How do you want your company to be positioned moving forward? Has your audience changed at all? Will your company have a fresh personality and voice?
3. Bring your audience along the journey — there’s no need to move in secret. Inviting your current audience into the journey can actually help them feel more connected to and invested in your story, enough to stick around as changes are being made.
4. Keep business moving — one of my biggest pet peeves is when companies take down their websites as soon as they have the idea to rebrand, then have a Coming Soon page up for months! You lose a lot of momentum and interest by doing that. If you’re still in business and generating income, continue to operate while you work on your rebrand behind the scenes. You don’t want to cut existing customers off out of the blue, and you also don’t want so much downtime that folks forget your business exists or start looking for other solutions.
While determining whether the rebrand was successful may take a few months, Lola says a clear sign that it is unsuccessful is negative feedback from your target audience. "Customers are typically more vocal about what they don’t like more than what they do like," she says.
But some good signs to look out for are improvements in engagement with your marketing, positive reviews, press and increase in retention, and overall feeling aligned with the new branding.
For more information about Lola and The Brand Doula, visit her website, thebranddoula.com.
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Feature image courtesy
In episode 124, aptly titled "BLAIR UNDERWOOD," the Three Women star detailed his more-than-30-year career journey, the male heroes who have helped shape who he is in his masculinity, being the "good guy" versus the "bad guy" on screen, and walking into the most recent chapters of his life with an unapologetic demeanor that comes with wisdom and age.
Blair also played coy when asked to rank himself among the quintessential fine 90's Black men like Morris Chestnut and Shemar Moore. "I can't quite answer that. That's not really for me to answer," he said in the podcast. Sure Blair, sure.
The actor has had more than 30 years in the game with his fair share of leading man roles alongside actresses like Jada Pinkett Smith and Julia Roberts has also showcased versatility in villainous turns in his portrayals in films like Madea's Family Reunion and the thriller Just Cause. The duality of the types of complex roles Blair has taken on as an actor can sometimes be so far removed from who he is as a man and how he defines his masculinity.
Blair credited the "male heroes" in his life, like his father, Sidney Poitier, and his pastor for helping him understand what masculinity looked like to him and in turn what he brings to his characters on-screen. "It's not just being strong physically," he said when talking about masculinity. "It's not just being...even 'strong' in a relationship, it's about being able to listen and hear. Hear your partner, hear your family, hear your kids."
Blair also touched on some rumors that started to swirl since his private life had become the talk of public fodder. For much of his time in the public eye, he was married to Desiree DaCosta from 1994 to 2021 when news of their divorce was made public. The couple shared three kids (two sons and a daughter).
A divorce after 30 years can be shocking, but what made the split controversial was Blair's second marriage to his long-time friend Josie Hart that quickly followed. Blair and Josie married on June 24, 2023. When asked how he navigated the divorce from his first wife, Blair revealed, "You know, I've found in life, in this industry, in this business, but especially in marriage that you have to be so often intentional. Be specific, particular, and intentional about what you want to accomplish."
"My ex-wife, at the time of the divorce, what we wanted to accomplish was for us to be in a healthy place, coming through a divorce, and most importantly, our kids would be in a healthy place," he continued.
"So, what was intentional was how we speak to them. Once we had decided that it was time, that our marriage had kind of come to a natural conclusion, and we both agreed that, you know, after 27 -- 30 years together, 27 years of marriage -- it was time."
Blair Underwood and Desiree DaCosta
Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Tyler Perry Studios
Blair shared that he felt the pandemic further punctuated the fact that their marriage had come to an end. He would later detail in the same interview that he felt he and his ex-wife stopped growing together in their marriage in 2012 when he went to New York to do Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire. The bottom line was, who they were in the present no longer aligned. They were different people.
They decided on the divorce together and then decided how they would tell their kids. Their solution was to write "almost like a script" where each of them handled different aspects of breaking the news of their decision to their kids.
He called it one of the most difficult conversations he has ever had in his life. "These are my children. These are my hearts," he explained. "These are my hearts beating outside of me." He recalled their kids needing time to process before coming back to the table and having another heart-to-heart where they answered questions openly and honestly. Blair said he didn't care about the "tabloid of it all" as much as he cared about his "three human beings" and "the integrity to my ex-wife."
"There was no screwing around, no behind-the-scenes stuff, so I could hold my head high because I honored that relationship and I honored my three kids," he shared.
Blair lightly addressed some of the rumors swirling out there about him and his current wife's relationship, saying, "What everyone else might speculate or think, because my wife now, we've known each other for 43 years. We've been great friends. But you can be great friends... You can be friends without having to cross that line."
Even though Blair admitted that he and his ex-wife were on the same page about getting a divorce, they didn't take the decision lightly. The former couple sought counseling and prayer. "The therapy was about, let's see where God leads us. If there was another answer to stay together, I wanted that answer. If the answer was, it's not meant to stay together, I wanted- that was the answer I got. But we both came to that answer."
Fast-forward to today, Blair was aware of the narrative of him supposedly leaving his ex-wife to get with his best friend but allowed it to just fall off his shoulders. As far as he was concerned, he knew the truth. His kids also knew the truth. His ex-wife knew the truth. And for him, the truth was what mattered most. Not the tabloid rumors.
He also knew the collective disappointment the public might have in him for having a marriage that lasted so long and a marriage that might have been upheld to a certain degree as "goals." But he had to live his life for him, not for the public. "I'm not playing a role. This is my real life," he said.
Blair revealed he had no idea that another marriage would be on the horizon for him, let alone a marriage to his great friend Josie. He was open. "It was her," he stated simply of his revelation. At that point, he had been dating for six months and Josie had been divorced for seven years.
"Four decades of friendship, of family, of understanding each other, you know? We're- she's godmother of my son. I'm the godfather of her daughter. My brother's the godfather of some of her kids. You know, we have nine kids between us so there's history in the friendship. I see her ex with all her kids and the grandkids. You know, we're cool.
"It's taken time and process. But the reason that can be now is because there was such a history before. But most importantly -- and what I do want to say for people to understand this -- most importantly... it was important that I honor everybody in the process. I honor my ex-wife in the marriage and in the divorce. I honor my children. So you can hold your head high when you've done those things."
He repeated his reasoning for getting married so quickly after a divorce, "It was her." He listed more things that revealed her to him as his second wife. She knew him before he was Blair Underwood when the actor was 16 and had no fame. "She knew me and has known me. And I consider our relationship- I categorize it as a 43-year unfinished conversation."
Watch the full episode of the podcast below:
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Featured image by John Lamparski/Getty Images