It all started when…
Naesthetycs started off as a blog under the name “Yungmalcolmx” on Tumblr. The founder, Nateya Taylor, started the blog at 19 yrs old, in 2017 as a sophomore in college, to discuss topics that were not being discussed on her predominately white campus. She released her first article, “What Year Did Slavery End?” on November 27th, 2017, and continued to write about topics she was passionate about to educate others. After a few years of releasing articles, she decided to transform the blog into a business: a multimedia production company now known as “Naesthetycs,” which is a combination of her name “Nateya” and the word “aesthetics.” Naesthetycs now aims to tell authentic stories and inspire activism not only through writing but various forms of artistic expression.
Mission
Naesthetycs LLC is a Milwaukee-based multimedia production company dedicated to challenging anti-Blackness and illuminating the multifaceted realities of Black life. Through authentic storytelling and intentional aesthetics, we inspire activism, shift narratives, preserve cultural memory, and contribute to the creation of more equitable Black futures.
About the Founder
Nateya Taylor, MS is a 27-year-old Milwaukee native and the visionary behind Naesthetycs LLC. Nateya is a self-proclaimed renaissance woman who is passionate about Black liberation and health equity. She has an educational background in Urban Studies, Digital Cultures, and Criminal Justice.
She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a Master of Science degree in Urban Studies and certificate in Digital Cultures in 2023. Her master’s thesis titled, “Black Autonomy as a Form of Resistance and a Symbol of Rebellion: A Comparative Study of Robbins, Illinois, and Milwaukee Bronzeville (1920-1970)” is an interdisciplinary study at the intersection of history, geography, and sociology. The paper explores how two majority Black communities in the Midwest practiced resistance through Black autonomous practices in response to racial discrimination during the Great Migration.
Similarly, in 2020, Taylor graduated from Carthage College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice and completed her undergraduate senior thesis titled, “Milwaukee Black Health: How Criminal Justice and Public Policy Collude to Disadvantage Black Milwaukeeans,” which explores the negative impacts of residential segregation on Black health.
Taylor specializes in archival research and her research interests are centered around residential segregation, Black resistance, Black geographies, Black autonomy, and the Black Power Movement.
Outside of her scholarly accomplishments, Taylor is a multimedia storyteller, creative writer, and documentarian who focuses on preserving Black life.
Taylor is very community-oriented. She is currently a 2025-2026 Engaging Communities to Change Health Outcomes (ECCHO) Fellow and Northwest Side Fellow with African American Roundtable. From 2023-2024, She was an Artist in Residence at Milwaukee Water Commons, 2024 Food Leaders Lab Ambassador with Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin, and 2024 Creative Director of House of History MKE.
See her full CV here.
Vision
We envision a world where storytelling becomes an act of remembrance, resistance, and collective becoming, where image and sound disrupt anti-Blackness, and where memory, movement, and imagination converge to shape liberated Black futures globally.