Identified Royalty is about perseverance, identity, and pride in your family- no matter where you come from. For founder Tommie Love, Jr., the constant striving and questioning for better is etched in his DNA and his story, just like his literal thumbprint is etched on the Identified Royalty brand logo. Tommie grew up in the East Bluff neighborhood of Peoria Illinois, raised by a single mother who worked two jobs to make ends meet. They weren’t the richest, but they weren’t the poorest, and his mother and grandmother worked hard to make sure the big guy never skipped breakfast. In high school he loved to read and excelled at athletics; he was en route to a college football scholarship when the hood caught up with him. At just 19, the allure of fast money landed Tommie in a prison bid that changed his entire life. While serving a 4-year bid, the one thing Tommie had was a lot of time to think. Always an avid reader and questioner of conventional truths, Tommie began to ponder the road that brought him here: Why does America connect poverty and slavery with the Black lineage? The concept extended past just Black Americans; How much do we not know about where and whom we come from?
“What if in my family lineage there is royalty somewhere? I was sitting in prison forced into an identity that came from slavery,” says Tommie.
“We never had the chance to trace our roots. We don’t know where we come from… There’s freedom in that- there’s an equal chance I come from rulers, leaders, and intellectuals as anything else.”
“I want my kids to know that they’re not stuck in a box. They are writers of their own destiny,” says Tommie.
“Identified Royalty” designs are conversation pieces, engineered to spark questions about identity.
“Who’s to say I’m not royalty?”
