By Ruth Adonbar

London Born Jewelry designer, Godson Umeh, better known as Godson has shine light into his grass-to-grace journey, on how he used to sell shoes on the streets of London and also seek out othe jobs to make ends meet. 

One may be tempted to ask how a school dropout, a child from Nigerian lineage manage to surpass his own mentors, from selling football kicks, to working with football stars, and big names in the music industry, owning one of the biggest jewelry brands out of Africa.

According to him, in a now-deleted post, he shared on Twitter, “I was being paid a little per week at age 19 for some odd jobs. But I have always wanted to invest in myself and develop my craft after dropping out of school.

My dream had always been to be my own boss so out of the token I was making I always saved 20% of it from gathering more tools and investing in my brand.”

“I love my job and can’t leave jewelry designing because I was able to make a living through making hand-crafted jewelry designs and using social media as a means to put myself and work out there.

Godson was raised by his Nigerian parents who lived in London. His father, Mr. Umeh, is an African American from Anambra his mother, is also from Anambra’s eastern part of Nigeria, Godson took his brand name from his middle name, which his father gave him.

Despite spending most of his adolescence in the wealthy area, Godson has also spoken of growing up “really destitute, like broke.” In an interview with Forbes Magazine, he said, “17 to 19 is when I really started getting into that fashion period, you know, and really studying the stuff that I needed to study as far as learning about Jewelry and learning about fashion on my own.”

At the time, Godson was already working on his own brand. He said, “After a time I got into it and I started to Illustrate my own designs down. And after some time, I discovered that I was melting silver and customizing things.  

Fast forward to 2018, and Godson got his first big gig. To Create a jewelry design for Konan of the rap duo Krept and Konan, Godson shocked everyone by abruptly unveiling “the pendant design” with no release or announcement beforehand. 

In order to keep the market active and the Internet busy in 2019 and 2020, Godson made sure to distribute more designs than enough.  

Over the years Godson Designs have been worn by top football stars and hip-hop stars from Blaq Chyna, To Davido, and the rest.