In order to understand our history, we must have access to it. Lymari Media was created by Chicago Bears star Christian Jones and his wife, Liz, to bring more people into the rich history of Africa through various storytelling avenues.

The NFL superstar and his longtime wife enjoy African history but have often struggled with finding dynamic content that can both capture their imagination and be deeply rooted in truth. To fill this need, the power couple launched Lymari Media, which will bring untold stories of historical African characters, societies, and culture to life through platforms that range from comic books to documentaries to animations and short films. 

“African history is everyone’s history – you find its impact and influence woven in various cultures across the world,” said Lymari Media co-founder Liz Jones in an official new release shared with AfroTech. “Our content is created with a purpose of gaining knowledge and understanding, which are key to transforming  lives and building stronger connections to one another across continents.”

The way in which the world consumes media is ever-evolving, so the Joneses believe that there is a huge opportunity for them to lead the charge on sharing authentic, history-driven African stories through their multimedia company.

AfroTech caught up with both Christian Jones and Liz Jones via email to discuss the importance of their media company, the vision behind their first project, and using technology to advance the culture.

1. AfroTech: Why is now the time to launch a media company of this caliber?

Liz: While there have been strides made in the representation and amplification of non-traditional voices across media, there is still a significant gap in who is deciding what stories are being told to audiences. As of December 2021, only 4.3% of media executives are Black and we wanted to create another place where we can decide on and produce the stories we want to see.

2. AfroTech: Can you share the vision behind your media company, specifically about 'Queen Amani Renas, Protector of Nubia?'

Christian:  Queen Amani Renas – Protector of Nubia has been a labor of love. We conducted hundreds of hours of research at cultural and academic institutions to ensure our story was as historically accurate as possible. This reaches every aspect of the project, including character design and costume, artifact cross-references, script evaluation, timeline grounding, and more. Additionally, we’re working with top-class comic creative artists that have deep experience working with all the mainstream comic brands to bring this to life.

3. AfroTech: How will Lymari use technology as a vital way to share stories?

Liz: We are showcasing various museum collections that explore the history of Nubia via our social media pages and content in actual pages of the series using actual collection numbers, the tagging system that Universities and Museums use to track artifacts.

With our hashtags #findingnubia and #findingamanireans, we are creating a virtual artifact guide for readers to explore online and even at the collections themselves.

Additionally, we have created Queen Amani Renas NFTs that we have to share with our readers as well.