New York Avenue

Takoma’s business drive, its elan, and even its stubbornness – its conviction to ride things out, regardless, was honed in the fires of days and weeks with Mr. Saafir Rabb, who, besides his other many accomplishments, has been very loyal to our founder, Malik’s family. It is to this latter gesture that we are most excited to share Saafir with so much more of you. 

For more than three years, every three weeks or so, Malik spent one full day in the cockpit as it were, sitting with Saafir, ingesting all he could see and hear and understand. To hear Malik tell it, it was a master class: 

“I’ll never really be able to put into words what that experience did for me. It skinnied me, forced me to stand on what I truly know, and nothing else. It dropped out the notion of canned understanding and the need to be in a room and inwardly acknowledge that one knows nothing. My time with Saafir revealed the complex machinations and considerations that go into all important human interactions – whether on the street or in the boardroom – particularly when trade is involved, and the multilevel and multivalent web of intents, intentions, ethics, morality, gamesmanship, respect – and most shockingly of all beauty – that create true narratives. I learned from Saafir a healthy respect and admiration for, and curiosity towards, the world of trade as almost a natural phenomenon, an awe that has never left me, an awe largely curated by sitting at his table. I feel very blessed to have been able to sit courtside as it were, and see someone like him, at the height of his powers, do his thing, day in and day out.” 

Suffice to say, Takoma has been heavily influenced by Mr. Saafir Rabb. Thus we are proud to announce two very special events we’ll hope you’ll join us for. 

The first is a conversation with Saafir and our founder, Malik, on November 25th. You won’t want to miss this wide-ranging, deeply personal interaction between these two men, and you’ll gain richly by being able to delve more deeply into Saafir’s poetics of understanding, spiritual outlook, and cultural, political, and moral understandings. The event is co-sponsored by our financial imprint, New York Avenue, which focused on trade, business, and markets. The event will take place at Takoma House at 6pm.

The second is the making of a small biography/monoscript, BWI, available to the public. on December 15th. The result of a series of 6 interviews done with Saafir over the course of 6 months, they are a window into the rich worlds he hearkens from. BWI provides clues to the personality of the man we have come to know, and has lessons for how the sweetness of youth must be both converted and preserved, sealed tightly and opened up widely. 

Yusef Kassim has been a critical support to Takoma and an advisor of the most important rank. A college schoolmate of our founder, Malik Wilson, and hailing from Washington, D.C., Yusef has accomplished that all-too-rare thing – a kind of dignity in the boardroom and at the street level that remains uncompromised. 

Yusef’s melding of principles from different places is not simply a professional accomplishment, it is a personal, moral, and spiritual success of the highest order. First detailed by Malik first in an article for The Daily Pennsylvanian more than 30 years ago, the knitting together of wildly different strands into one coherent whole is reason Yusef’s has influenced us so much. 

This fall, we have the distinct pleasure of hearing directly from Yusef himself in a wide-ranging discussion with Malik on many key topics – how to preserve what is culturally good and wall off the rest, how to ‘climb the ladder, wherever and however that should be, and how to make sense of the challenges, traumas, and challenges of the past.