“We’re all online anyway, why not look at people that you know?” That’s the mentality of Celso White, Campus Cutie and founder of Kuumba.tv. Kuumba features documentaries of WashU students doing their thing whatever it may be: dancing, creating fashion, printmaking, designing t –shirts, etc. The site gives you access to some of the most creative people on campus that you may not know and it’s definitely something Collegiettes should check out! HC tracked down one of the men behind the camera, Junior Celso White, to find out the process behind this great work of art.
HC: What does Kuumba mean?
CW: Kuumba is the Swahili word for creativity. The site is filled with short documentaries customized for WashU of students expressing themselves creatively. We wanted to create a network of these cool creative people so other students could see what their peers are up to.
HC: Is Kuumba one of a kind?
CW: Well, it is for WashU, but there are two other similar sites, one at Northwestern called massive.tv, and one at Brown called maingreen.tv.
What motivated you to start one here?
I’ve always been interested in these national blogs of all these people I looked up to. And one day I saw my friend Ben Millstine post a link about massive.tv on my Facebook and I was like I want to start one! I’ve been involved with the creative community here on campus and I’ve always thought students need to see it and we just need to get it in one place.
How did you start it?
Kuumba started at WashU the weekend of Fall Wild. I just emailed all of my friends that I thought would be interested and then it just grew. Since then we’ve grown to a team of about 15 students.
What’s your team like?
It’s a really great group of people. We all are very different, which is awesome. We hold our meetings every Sunday and that’s when we brainstorm subjects. Each member of our team has the opportunity to become a creative director of any profile if they feel so inclined. For instance, one of our members Jessica Spraos came up with this great idea for a LookBook of all the fashions at WashU. She just ran with it and it looks really cool, it’s coming out soon.
Where can people check you guys out?
You can visit our site at Kuumba.tv and we’re also on WUTV, so you should check it out.
How often do you update your site?
Once a week, definitely, but lately it’s been every other day.
How can people get involved?
People can nominate a subject on the website. Just send us an email and it’s as simple as that. We do faculty profiles on the blog and keep the videos for students.
Any requirements?
The videos are 3 minutes max and are all WashU students. People have talked to us about doing St. Louis, but we want to keep it within the campus.
What’s one of the coolest things about Kuumba?
All these creative, talented people are right around us. I mean you can just check out the website and then see the subjects walking around in the DUC café.