Source: Ghetto Gastro / other
The good folks over at Ghetto Gastro have something special planned for Black History Month.
Last year, if you missed the James Baldwin t-shirt, they dropped in honor of the celebratory month–no worries because they re-upped in good faith.
The highly acclaimed activists and author’s face is featured on the black shirt, with a red background and green shirt which nods to the Pan-African flag. The right sleeve even nods to Baldwin’s Bronx routes with a graphic that reads “Dewitt Clinton Class Of 1942.” Dropping Wednesday, February 10, the New Studio-designed shirt will retail for $87 here.
Source: Ghetto Gastro / other
But that’s not all Ghetto Gastro has planned– the collective is also sticking to its food roots with the release of a new knife, known as an OGÛN Blade. Not only is the knife beautiful, but it was created with African ebony and Japanese steel and was inspired by Yasuke, the first African Samurai in Japan.
Source: Ghetto Gastro / GHETTO GASTRO
“Being Black in America, we find ourselves working to connect the dots of our passage from the motherland to the new world. The initial source of inspiration for this project was the Bronze and Iron Age in Benin and other West African civilizations,” Jon Gray, co-founder of Ghetto Gastro, said. “OGÛN is the Orisha of Iron, and in the OGÛN state in Nigeria, there is a deep history of indigo dyeing. With the indigo, iron craft, and innovation in common, we saw Yasuke [ the first African Samurai in Japan] as a muse and started imagining a modern Afroasiatic aesthetic— creating this futuristic fantasy rooted in excavating the history of our ancestors and their travel. The blade is imagined through the lens of stolen Africans searching hidden pathways home.”
The swagged out knife is blacked out save for a silver blade and will run you $497.
Source: Ghetto Gastro / GHETTO GASTRO
For those looking for content over merch, you’ll be happy to know that Ghetto Gastro is bringing back its newsletter, which will cover relevant creatives, diaspora-related news, and even get to pre-order products before everyone else.
