In 2019, sisters Rechelle and Sophia Dennis saw the need to adhere to Generation Z within the Essence Ventures brand. Persuading other millennials within the company to join in on the idea, the group developed a publication that would change the legacy magazine forever. Essence Girls United puts young people of color at the forefront with every opportunity, article and experience. Today, GU has a following of 109,000, a developed blend of influencers, celebrities, college students, high school students, readers, social media lovers and more.
“There was always the talk of like, ‘we need to speak to this next generation to this younger generation in a way that essence can’t speak to them,’” says Rechelle. “It was really about our response to the fact that the world is constantly changing and understanding that Essence needed to be a part of that change. GU is the birth from a community of young women that wanted something like Essence or wanted Essence to be that version for themselves. That’s really how Girls United was born”
Since its inception, GU has written over 3,000 articles spanning across news, politics, sports, trends, fashion, beauty and shopping. The brand also curates major events throughout the year from the GU Office Hours, to the Holiday Party as well as the most coveted experience the GU Disruptor Summit. Last year, the brand made it’s debut at Essence Festival through the Creator’s House activation, which hosts notable celebrities and influencers to chat about a range of topics to help attendees form their digital footprint. Alongside Creator’s House is the Kickback party. A nighttime event where up and coming artists hit the GU stage to perform their popular and viral hits.
“Essence has always been intergenerational,” Dennis says. “It’s always been something that speaks to what we call the aunties or the moms, but what’s so important about that is that we’re starting to lose recipes here. We’ve now created these spaces or have had these spaces that were in our heads only for aunties, who are one of the biggest proponents of influencing us. It’s very important that Essence caters to creating those online spaces for the nieces that our moms once had.”
The GU Creator’s House and Kickback returns to the 2024 Essence Festival of Culture with a new theme, The Next Era, which Dennis describes the meaning as, “that next era of women, girls and non-binary folks that really can’t be defined and are creating the world how they want it to be, rather than waiting for the world to be created for them.” This year, the team has brought in “always going viral” talent including Uche, Clarke Peoples, Karlae, Pour Minds and more for worthy conversations and former City Girls rapper JT to headline the Kickback day party. Everywhere within the Sugar Mill plans on being an Instagram-worthy spot to grab content and be the ultimate influencer for the weekend.
“I think it’s exciting,” says Dennis. “I think that there’s a lot of learning from last year to push the team to be more intentional in how we showed up this year. As always, we’re looking forward to building and expanding.”