EP01 | Your Side Hustle Might Be Your True Calling

In a small stall in Burma Market, there were two sewing machines, two large cutting tables, a mirror, and a makeshift changing room made of curtains. From that space, a woman called Betty dressed some of the most recognisable women in this country. Catherine Kasavuli. Christine Ngugi. Women whose faces were on television every evening would come and sit on a small wooden stool, flip through magazines, choose a design, and she would make it. And when anyone asked what she did for a living, she said she worked at the Ministry of Water. Clerical officer, Maji House. The fashion was just something she did on the side. Her son sat in that stall on Saturdays, drinking the big soda, watching everything. He was nine years old when she died. In 2001. Before she got to find out what the thing she loved could have become — because towards the end, she had started thinking about leaving the government job to do it properly. She never got the chance. That son is Brian Babu. Today he is one of the most recognisable names in East African fashion. He has styled Sauti Sol, Bien, Nameless, Fena, Nick Mutuma. But when you ask him whether he has been finishing his mother's career, he says no. Clearly. Without hesitation. He built something else entirely. And that is what makes this conversation worth sitting with. Because he did not inherit a business. He did not inherit money. He inherited something far less visible — a sensibility. An eye. A comfort around fabric and cut and the way clothes make a person feel. He grew up around tailors, around clothes, around a woman who lit up every room she entered and had a laugh he now carries himself. None of that appears in a will. All of it shaped everything. #BuiltDifferent #FindingPurpose #BrianBabu #NaboCapital