Dreka Gates is making a name in wellness through authenticity and innovativeness. Although we were introduced to her as a music manager for her husband, Kevin Gates, she has now carved out her own lane outside of music as a wellness entrepreneur. But according to Dreka, this is nothing new.
In a xoNecole exclusive, the mom of two opened up about many things, including starting her wellness journey at 13 years old. However, a near-death experience during a procedure at 20 made her start taking her health more seriously.
“There's so many different levels, and now, I'm in a space of just integrating all of this good stuff that I've learned just about just being human, you know?” Dreka tells us. “So it's also fun because it's like a journey of self-discovery and self-mastery. That's what I call it. So it's never-ending.”
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If you follow Dreka, then you’re familiar with her holistic lifestyle, as she’s no stranger to promoting wellness, self-care, and holistic living. She even lives part-time on a Mississippi farm, not far from her grandmother and great-grandmother’s farm, where she spent some summers as a child.
While her grandmother and great-grandmother have passed on, Dreka reflects on that time in her life and how having a farm as an adult is her getting back to her roots. “So the farm was purchased back in 2017, and it was like, ah, that'll just be a place where we go when we're not touring or whatever,” she said.
“But covid hit, and I was there, and I was on the land, and I just started remembering back to going to my grandmother's during the summertime and freaking picking peas and going and eating mulberries off the freaking tree in the bushes.
“And she literally had cotton plants. I know some people feel weird about picking cotton and stuff. She had cotton plants and I would go and pick cotton out of her garden. And she had chickens, and I literally just broke down in tears one day when I was on the farm just doing all the things, and I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh. I'm literally getting back to my roots.”
I literally just broke down in tears one day when I was on the farm just doing all the things, and I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh. I'm literally getting back to my roots.
You can catch glimpses of Dreka’s farm life on Instagram, which shows her picking fruit and vegetables and loving on her animals like her camel Eessa. Her passion for growing and cultivating led her to try and grow all of her ingredients for her wellness brand, Dreka Wellness. However, she quickly realized that she might be biting off more than she could chew. But that didn’t stop her from fulfilling her vision.
Watch below as Dreka talks more about her business, her wellness tips, breaking toxic cycles, becoming a doula, and more.
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RELATED
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."
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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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Do you know that one story where God literally strips everything away from Job? That is what the start of my summer of ‘24 felt like. While everyone was enjoying Juneteenth celebrations, I had to rally the troops to pack up and move all the items in my apartment and accept my new normal, sleeping on my friend’s couch while I looked to figure things out and get back on my feet.
Firstly, I don’t know what I would do without the community I’ve built here in Atlanta. Secondly, I had to learn to humble myself and ask for help, a sentiment foreign to me as the first-born daughter and the one that folks usually rely on for help, advice, or simply a listening ear.
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Maybe I should back up and tell you how I got here.
In second grade, I discovered my love for writing, and my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Joyce Simmons, planted the seed that a career in the field could be in my future. I’ve always loved the way writing makes me feel. It’s something about putting my thoughts down on paper that really gets me going. By the time my senior year in high school rolled around, that love for writing had developed into a love for storytelling. Before I knew it, I was headed to Virginia Commonwealth University to pursue a degree in broadcast journalism.
Fast-forward to 2019, after losing my maternal grandmother in November 2018, I didn’t want to sit around any longer, waiting for life to happen. After a spiritual fast at the top of the year, I gained clarity and set my sights on moving to Atlanta to become the journalist I have always felt I was destined to be.
A few more leaps of faith and betting on myself later, I fully immersed myself in the world of freelancing. While life as a creative entrepreneur (something that I never anticipated) looked promising, things took a turn for the worse as events like the Hollywood Strike took place, budgets at outlets began diminishing, and the bills never ceased amid it all.
When I had to choose either to continue to struggle to try to make rent at my luxury apartment in Atlanta’s Vinings neighborhood or accept my friend’s offer to sleep on her couch until I figured things out, I had no choice but to choose the latter.
While it didn’t seem like it at first, this turned out to be a life-altering decision in the absolute best way, leading me to my very own Eat, Pray, Love summer visiting friends back home in Richmond, Virginia, the DMV, and rounding out the last few weeks of the season with my childhood best friend of 20+ years in Columbus, Ohio.
Here’s what it taught me about community, faith in God, and learning to let go of material things.
You Cannot Do It Alone.
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While social media often promotes isolation and “me against the world” think pieces, one of the biggest lessons this summer taught me is the importance of sisterhood. Without my girls, I would not have made it through this rough patch, period. Whether it was catching up over cocktails or poolside deep dives, my friends gave me all of the TLC that I never knew I needed over the course of the nearly 100 days that make up the summer season.
God Will Speak To You Through Others If You Take The Time To Listen.
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I turned in the keys to my apartment on Friday, June 21, 2024, the very first day of summer. Feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, and downright sad, I drove away and completely forgot my meal at Chick-fil-A as I headed to my new temporary home with my friend, Damoneke.
What’s more, I scheduled an interview for a story that day, which is absolutely insane in hindsight, but as a freelancer, there is no such thing as PTO, and I needed the money. Late to the call, due to leaving my food at the drive-thru window and Atlanta traffic, I rushed onto the Zoom call, and what transpired moved me in a way that I still can’t fully understand.
The conversation went like any other interview, but at the end, the talent, The Voice season 12 winner Chris Blue, asked me to stop the recording because he “wanted to share something that God had put on his heart to tell me.”
Keep in mind that this was an audio-only Zoom call, so he could not see my face. Blue told me that God sent him a vision while we were on the call, and it was one of me lying on a couch with boulders on my shoulders.
“God is telling you to let it go,” he said. I was frozen in my chair because how would Chris Blue, whom I’d never met or spoken to, know that I had just transitioned from my apartment to my friend’s couch?
After I burst into tears because I didn’t have 24 hours to allow what had just happened to sink in fully, he continued to pour into me before ending with, “God also told me to tell you not to be afraid to dream again.”
It was then that I decided to live my life unapologetically for the rest of the summer, going where the love was and garnering inspiration to make my love for writing fun again.
Material Things Are Cool, But Lived Experiences Are Even Better
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From whirlwind (and short-lived) summer romances, including riding on a stranger’s motorcycle in a foreign city (sorry, mom), to becoming the middle-school-aged version of myself again during the weeks spent in Ohio with my bestie Courtney, having a night out with my siblings, followed by matching tattoos with my sister, attending a cowboy-themed party with my mommy and more, I quickly learned that life is much more than material things.
At the start of this journey, I was so sad and distraught, and if I’m being honest, embarrassed that I no longer had my own space. Now that summer has come to a close, I’m dreaming again. My writing is healing me. I’m reconciling my relationship with my father, and I feel more grounded (and still free) than ever before despite still navigating this nomadic journey.
My biggest lesson this season is that life’s circumstances do not have to define me. Yes, the economy still feels horrific. Yes, I still have a few overdue bills, but overall, I am slowly but surely learning that sometimes freedom isn’t something that you find. Sometimes, you’re forced into it, and that’s okay.
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