LACHSA alumni are real world proof that LACHSA is worth every investment. This month’s featured alum, April Showers, is a creative changemaker who continues to create opportunities and a multimillion dollar business.

April, who graduated from LACHSA in 1998 from the Dance Department, is a pioneering entrepreneur and founder of Afro Unicorn, the first Black-owned, woman-founded business with a fully-licensed character brand in major retail, celebrating diversity and empowering women and children of color. With over $20 million in sales, April is also an award-winning children’s book author, actress, producer, TV host, event curator, and creative director. We were fortunate to catch up with April around her busy schedule and ask her a few questions about her LACHSA journey and her career.

How did you find out about LACHSA and the Dance Department, and what made you drawn to it?

I want to say that Cal State LA had some type of elementary or middle school dance or gifted program. Then my mother found out that there was going be open tryouts.

So, a little bit about my class of ’98. We were the first where the 8th graders and the 9th graders had to graduate together. I was attending Bancroft in Hollywood in the performing arts through the magnet program. So I had been in the dance world for a minute, and now I had to graduate and go to… we always call them normal schools… to find a school that had a 9th because LACHSA did not have a 9th grade then. So I spent one year at LACES. And then I was able to get ready to go to LACHSA because I wanted to continue in the performing arts. I didn’t want to just be at a magnet school for math and science. I wanted to be at a school for performing arts, but there was nothing available for me for high school, except LACHSA, but I had to wait a year.

Given that you majored in dance, what did dance give you that you’ve incorporated into your life and your career?

Well, one of my characters, Unique the Unicorn, her superpower is singing, and she loves to dance. So, in my characters, the arts just really carry on with them. Like Dreama, she is one of the characters, and she’s a visual artist. So although I was in the dance program at LACHSA, I had friends that were in the visual arts department, friends that were in theater and in music. So I pulled all of that into my characters.

And then dancing on a personal level… A lot of people love my content because I will dance at a heartbeat. Like, I will do some type of dancing on Fridays. I love to call it Fry-yay. And I’m able to bond more with children. Although I’m 45 years old, kids are really drawn to me. I, myself, I have a character, which is Miss April and they just love that I’m relatable. I dance. I can keep up with the kids. They’ll post videos, and they’ll challenge me in the comments.

I love that. Well, they see the joy in you, you know? I mean, I think that’s what’s so magnetic. I read something about you that said your friends were always saying that you sparkled, and that’s in essence where the unicorn came from, right?

Yes, and also in my yearbook, they would write, “I know one day we’ll see your name in lights,” “You’re gonna make it big!” And it was never based off of my art… I wasn’t the best ballerina, the best dancer–I was the best, like, street dancer, hip-hop, jazz, but for the conservative dancing and contemporary dancing, I wouldn’t say that was the best. But everyone saw this star-like quality about me. From junior high into high school, and I was like, well, where’s my talent? Because I really couldn’t carry a tune, as far as I was concerned. I was a part of the musical Fame at LACHSA, but I didn’t get a singing role, because I was completely tone deaf. Now I’ve gotten better, but then… And then my name, April Showers. I have this star name and I’m like how is it gonna all come together? And… it came together.

So, how did it come together for you? How were you able to go from the student at LACHSA to where you are now?

One of the things that LACHSA allowed me to do is be very active in the city of Los Angeles while I was attending LACHSA. I was the first youth commissioner of the city of LA under Mayor Richard Reardon. I was an appointed official during my high school time. They also sent me to class to become a moderator and had me go to the high schools and moderate conversations about race. There would be Hispanics and Blacks, and I would be in the middle, and we would have this dialogue. From there, we birthed LAU Speaks Out, where I was a producer and host of a talk show where we shot around 5 or 7 shows. And it was all while I was in high school. The principal that was there at the time understood the work that I was doing on a community-based level, and so they supported my efforts.

That’s amazing. Do you think being at LACHSA helped to give you the confidence to do all of that?

Oh, yes, because they… they didn’t treat us like babies. We were like little adults. That school really made us grow and become so mature. The freedom of being on the campus of Cal State LA, and it was really like, look, you auditioned to get here, this is what you wanted to do and so if you worked that hard to be here, we’re going to just trust that you’re going to do what’s needed to be done to stay here.

They treated you like professionals.

Yeah, from the beginning. And so, yes, that totally helped to mold and shape my life into adulthood.

That’s beautiful. Beautifully said. Thank you. That brings me to the next question, what do you think is the most important thing you learned attending LACHSA?

I learned to really appreciate the diversity. Of not only our backgrounds, but of our arts. Like, truly appreciate it. That, and that someone that can look like me as a visual artist. And someone that looks like you is a musician. Seeing how we really work in this world collectively together. And how we’re really not that much different. It’s magical.

Do you stay in touch with other LACHSA alumni, and what’s that looked like for you?

I do. One of my best friends, she was 14 at the time I was 15, Laniece. She’s with me for every birthday, every big moment. I’m a State Farm agent, too, so I insure her and her entire family. And I’m still connected with Roderick [Lewis] Frazier, and others… Jessica, there’s so many. Yeah, we’re still connected. Yamanika [Saunders], who was a grade ahead of me, and is an actress/comedian and we’re well connected. We did a live together where she told everyone, “April’s always had it, ever since high school. Every time I turned around, she was owning every day. She was owning everything, she owned a car. I think she even owned the school.” I’m like, girl, I did not own the school. She’s like, “April is who she is today, who she was then.”

That’s really beautiful. It’s nice to see that you’ve still stayed connected. What happened after LACHSA that led you to where you are? Can you tell a little bit about your journey after LACHSA?

I’ll give you the quick journey after LACHSA. I remember meeting with a counselor there and found out that dancers made, like, 20-something thousand a year! I was like, oh, that’s not the life I had in mind for myself. I talk about this on the Afro Unicorn Journey, that being who I am, I saw it before it happened. Because I had a mother who took me out of my inner-city area of South Central Los Angeles and drove me around to Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills and Beverly Hills, and the Palisades. I saw what life was like. So I never had a career goal, I had a lifestyle goal. I knew that there was a life that I wanted to live, and when they told me how much the dancer makes… well, that’s not gonna afford the life that I need to live, so, let me rethink this.

I really thought I was going to go into politics, but then with the talk show, I didn’t get credit as a producer, and that really boiled me over, so I’m like, I don’t want to play with politics anymore. And a LACHSA friend was going to school in Florida, Florida Memorial College, and she was a grade ahead of me, she was already there. So I’ll go there! Never visited Florida, I just applied to that one school. And I went to Florida, but when I got there, I knew that it wasn’t for me. I am a creative through and through. And it was very, very structured. And yeah, I lasted a semester, came back home, tried to find my way…

I got into temp agencies, and I was still dancing, like, I would do the Summer Jam shows, but I knew I had to find a way to have this lifestyle. I needed to figure out my lifestyle, right? I landed a decent temp job. But I had a calling on my life for entrepreneurship. I  always have, and so by 2020, I launched an entertainment PA agency, where I would find PAs to work for other entertainers in the industry. And then I got pulled by 2021 to work with a music supervisor. I did three motion pictures with that music supervisor. Met a lot of people in the music industry, and then I shifted into managing artists. It was fun. I really loved it. I had a really incredible rock band. It was an all-black rock band that I was managing and then, I think my lead singer was on cocaine and he was blowing through the money. It wasn’t working and I’m like, this is not gonna get me to the lifestyle!

Then I got into real estate and I ended up becoming a real estate agent, and then a real estate broker. From there, I got into State Farm. I had my own State Farm office. I still do. I’m 13 years with State Farm. And then, even while sitting at State Farm, I was just like, this isn’t it. It’s still not going to be the lifestyle that I desire. And I wanted to explore more options. I read an article one day on the Lemonade Stand. It’s a blog that said you should never rely on one source to dictate your livelihood. And they talked about doing a print-on-demand t-shirt business.  I had already been calling myself this unicorn because of my friend who was calling me a unicorn because I was a real estate agent and a State Farm agent and a mom of two boys. And I was like, okay, what if we put this unicorn on a shirt? What would that look like? And that’s how the whole Afro Unicorn thing started. So none of it makes sense. None of it connects, really, like on paper.

But that’s the beauty of your journey, right? It all led to where you are, right?

Yes.

Did you design Afro Unicorn yourself, or did you bring someone in to design it for you?

No. I brought my cousin in, who’s a graphic designer, but I dictated everything. He’s autistic, and so we only talk through text. And I basically just texted him that I need a unicorn who looks like me. I want her to have a side eye, she has to have an earring. I want her to have a crown, and that’s how it started. I’m still drawing hangman stick figures, so yeah, no.

Now, I know you mentioned it a little bit in your previous answer, but how did the idea for Afro Unicorn come about?  When did you say “Yes, this is a good idea to put on a t-shirt”? You mentioned something about your friends calling you a unicorn?

Right, so it was…  it was an avatar for me, and as we were designing it, and my cousin showed me, these little different unicorns, and they were all different shades and shapes–this is before the t-shirt business–they were different shades, and they were small, and they looked like emojis when I looked at them. I said, “Oh my gosh, this is a movement!” It’s not just about me, it’s about me finding my tribe. And finding the other women out there who are dealing with imposter syndrome who may not know that they have a unicorn within them. And I need to create space to hold these unicorns. I’m gonna create this space. The t-shirt is gonna just be something for you guys to visually remind yourself of who you are. But my creating Afro Unicorn was more of a women’s movement for this whole entrepreneurship movement and supporting women founders. Like, that was the foundation. I invited 25 women over to my house to birth Afro Unicorn, gave them all shirts to match their different skin tones. I wrote bios on all of them to tell the world what made them unique, divine, and magical. I said, we’re creating our own table. They say, if they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring your own folding chair. And that’s what we’re doing. I’m gonna grow this platform to help us.

I went to have these conferences for women, and then at the event, they were like, okay, what’s your Instagram account? And I’m like, huh? Like, tag! I wasn’t thinking that! And so, then my son goes into the hospital shortly after. We were there for 20-plus days. And I learned Instagram. I didn’t want to launch Afro Unicorn. Three people in a 72-hour period told me I had to launch it once I got to the hospital, so I launched Afro Unicorn while in the hospital. And then people just loved what it was. Like, I had a little catchphrase, I would go find my tribe, so I would find anyone who was using the hashtags Black Unicorn, women entrepreneur, or serial entrepreneurial.  I would go on their comments, and I would say, “Hey, have you ever seen that Afro Unicorn before?” I created a brand for women of color who hustle, to follow the movement. And when they clicked on the page, they saw all the women from my event wearing this shirt, and they were like, oh my gosh, this is the thing that I needed, but did not know that I needed. And then it just grew. Really big.

It kind of blew up, right?

Yep.

And do you think that is a bit because of the kind of cross-marketing that you did with other people?

It blew up because it was rooted in the people. I was highlighting other entrepreneurs, so if you wore my shirt, I would say, hey, look at Lisa rocking her Afro Unicorn shirt,  but do you also know that she’s the Development Director at this LACHSA Foundation, and this is what she does, and this is how you can support her, this is what makes her unique, divine, and magical. So then people saw, oh, if I wear her shirt, she’s gonna support my business. And then I immediately went after celebrities that I saw as being Afro Unicorns. Tiffany Hatch was one of the first. And then Alicia Keys, and when they saw it, they resonated with it, because they are unicorns. And so they were like, yeah, we’re on board with this.

You’re clearly committed to uplifting and inspiring others through your work, so tell us about why Afro Unicorn is so important, and what it gives to the world.

Afro Unicorn is rooted in belief. Like, yes, there is this representation piece of it, which that wasn’t what I got into it for. Yes, the unicorn no longer resonated with me, the standard one that’s in my phone, because it didn’t look like me, so I wanted one that looked like me. But it was more of belief. My quote is, “believing in yourself is the greatest superpower of all.” So what it means to the world is that people in the world need to remember that you have everything that you need already to accomplish everything that you want and need to do. It starts with you, and if you do not believe, I don’t care the number of resources given to you, I don’t care if you know the strategy… all those things. If you don’t believe that you can actually do it, you will never really accomplish much. So that is what I’m trying to get to the world, knowing that believing in yourself is the greatest superpower of all.

Can you tell us a little about building the Afro Unicorn business and brand, and what does the business look like now? So, it came from this idea and these initial meetings, and then it snowballed, and now…

A couple of years after we launched, a little girl was wearing the Afro Unicorn shirt and she was shooting a video. She had an afro and she was 4 years old at the time. And someone walked by her and said, I love your hair. She said, thank you, it’s an afro. That video went viral because of the grassroots movement that Afro Unicorn had. People were in the comments saying, that’s an Afro Unicorn shirt, that’s Afro Unicorn’s baby, that’s Afro Unicorn. And a buyer at Walmart saw that and reached out to me to ask if we would consider coming into the stores through party supplies. What that did is it made me enter into the world of licensing. And then that turned Afro Unicorn from just this movement brand for women and children into a licensed entertainment character brand.

So we are now distributed through major retail stores. We’ve gone through 25 different categories, over 500 different SKUs, selling over 25 million. Since we started this… this journey… it has grown from a print-on-demand company with this mission and movement to a global licensing entertainment character brand.

And this licensing… you’re the first…

First Black woman to have a fully licensed character brand, yes, in retail.

And, and you’re with the big guys.

Correct. Hanging on!

I love that your creative journey has fulfilled your hopes and dreams, your lifestyle dreams, including now being talent on your own show. So, what has that been like for you?

Yeah. And it’s… it’s just the tip of the iceberg, we’re just getting started. I did Miss April’s Crown & Bookstore, and it came out of a need for me to have entertainment behind this entertainment brand. And I was having some struggles bringing the animation, so I was like, well, let me just go fund and create a live-action kids series show for bridge-age kids, because there’s no content for children for entrepreneurship or anything positive after preschool. Like, every show out there is preschool-based. But what happens between the 5, the 6-year-olds and the 10-year-olds? What are they watching? So I created this show. The concept does not exist anywhere and people are finally looking at it like, okay, I think you’re on to something. So, more to come from that, because we are getting ready to develop a lot more.

In 2026, I’m rolling out a school cohort, to where I can come into your school, and I can do the whole Miss April’s Crown & Bookstore, and teach your kids about entrepreneurship. But then I also have a talk show that’s coming out in January called the Magic Makers Talk Show with April Showers, and that is where I interview retail brand owners. I interviewed 13 of them, so it’ll be 13 episodes that are coming. And that is going to be really, really great. I’m going to see even more opportunities come out of that, I’m sure. 

So, how do you feel about now being in front of the camera again…being the host of a show again, like you were in high school?

Mm-hmm. Full circle moment. Full circle. Even with Afro Unicorn, I’m having full circle moments, because although I’m very excited that we were called by Walmart and pulled in to be a licensed character brand, it has given me this exposure. Made me the first. I’m part of history now….all the things. But, I also felt where’s the why? Like, I created this for business owners. So, one thing I never stopped doing, I never stop celebrating businesses every Saturday. I’m up every Saturday at 6 am, and I share their businesses for free. I’ve been doing it for 6 years straight. And I was getting even push back from the retail side because my page was heavily focused on highlighting women and other people and their businesses. And they wanted it to be really kid-focused and kid-centered, right? I’m like, look, I’ll clean the page up, but you’re not taking my Small Business Saturday.

It made zero sense for this licensed character brand. You would go on Saturday, and you would just see random businesses. But that was my core, that is what I started it off for. And so to now know that I have this talk show that’s coming out that’s centered around women business owners, I have the My Magic Collective group, where I send out weekly newsletters to business entrepreneurs, and I have all the stuff on my website under IamAprilShowers.com. We’re about to launch our mastermind group. I have the Magic Manifest Magic Retreat that happens twice a year in Orlando, where I take women on this retreat for their soul and their success, I’m like, okay, alright, God, I see you. The things have to happen and it’s all working for my good, it’s all gonna connect. So… yeah.

So you’re a company for good. You’re doing good in the world in addition to selling product.

Mm-hmm. Right.

It’s really spectacular. So tell me what are your goals and dreams for the future?

A live-action animated show. That’s a big goal. And I have a book that I’m trying to pitch right now…a really great memoir called Never Qualified, How I Made the Impossible Possible, and it’s my life story from 14 until now. Yeah, so hopefully somebody will pick up that book in the next few months. And I just want to do more personal development… helping people with their personal development.

Well, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to talk with me. It’s such a pleasure to meet you. 

Thank you. Have a magical week.

You can follow Afro Unicorn on Instagram @afrounicorn_official and explore her Afro Unicorn products here.