Lyfe’s regal bone structure that mirrors how royal she looks in tribal prints, comes from an enviable mix of her parents’ Indian, Portuguese, African American and Caucasian heritage. There is not a cell of blandness in Lyfe from her arms of beads and ethnic bangles to her identification with the book, Women who Run with the Wolves, where females are celebrated for their strong spirits rather than the American archetype of the dainty woman. In what Lyfe calls her “Jackie O” moment, with bold white oversized round shades, she says that she loves older women and can’t wait to look back and laugh at it all. She is already as a single mom at 25, wise beyond her years, and commanding in her elegant head wraps and chains.”I don’t like to look at things as being difficult, I look at my journey as it just is,” Lyfe says, which is particularly inspiring coming from someone whose parents lost custody of her and her siblings while growing up.

Hardly the ugly duckling that Lyfe claims she has been in her family, adversity has brought her to where she is now. She is perceptably sophisticated in silk wrap dresses with chunky clip-on earrings and confident in her destiny to be the mother of Mason, who Lyfe feels has taught her love in the purest form. Fortune would have it that her grandparents, who brought her up, taught her that the woman can be the man and the man the woman in a relationship. Lyfe will never be “suzie homemaker,” she states, with her sharp focus on becoming a holistic healer and her passion for dance, poetry and whatever creative force makes her tic in the moment. Her grandfather was “the greatest man ever,”Lyfe feels, “he is the woman” in that he gave her all she needed to appreciate herself, including being comfortable enough to know her pain.

If you love Lyfe, you may also like Wamuhu Waweru, Fred Butler and Trae Harris .