From Roots to Blossoms, Domo Wells on Cultivating Lanes in Music and Fashion

Domo Wells photographed by Raba Abro. Photo assistant, Ayana Gordon; lighting assistant, Karsten Spencer; make-up, florist, Kiya Shaco; Naudia Smith, styling consultant; Bolu Olaseinde, styling assistant. Video: Brandon Armstrong, director of photography; Karsten Spencer, lighting assistant. 

This NOV 2024 The Vanguard Issue cover story is available in print.

Domo Wells is the first creative director and designer for D.C.’s National Women’s Soccer League team, the Washington Spirit. Her selection highlights soccer’s growing stateside popularity on and off the pitch as the sport crosses into fashion and pop culture. It is a proud homecoming for the DMV-bred, Los Angeles-based designer and creative director of Dead Dirt and a full-circle moment for a path she’s envisioned since girlhood in Glenarden, Maryland.

Wells has established herself at the crossroads of music and fashion. In spring 2023, she launched her brand and creative firm, Dead Dirt, selling out capsule pop-ups in L.A. and D.C. Following the D.C. pop-up event at the streetwear boutique Somewhere, WNBA star Natasha Cloud, known for her style, visited the store. She later wore a Dead Dirt blue floral pants front row at a Mystics game during the peak of the Mystics' season. The resulting photographs gained significant attention, including a feature in GQ Sports Style, catapulting Wells’ new fashion line into the national spotlight.

This buzz reached the Washington Spirit, leading to conversations that resulted in Wells assuming a lead role in designing the team’s merch and providing direction to the team’s cultural and community activations in D.C. Her first project was designing the 2024 Cherry Blossom capsule and 2024 core collection. Taking Spirit merch where it’s never gone before, Wells has unveiled knitwear for the team’s Fall/Winter 2024 capsule. She covers our Vanguard Issue wearing an embroidered soccer club blouson jacket from the Washington Spirit x Dead Dirt “New Growth” Fall/Winter capsule. (Note: At the time of our interview, the capsule had not yet been released.)

“I’m really excited for what we have coming up this fall. We put out a capsule in the beginning of this year that was really fun, but a completely different aesthetic from what we’re going to do in the fall. It’ll be very much knits, like, things that are for fall… and they’ve never had knits before.”

Her venture with the Spirit treads new ground for the team as it gives fans new ways to show their team pride. By weaving her brand’s boldness into the women’s soccer club, Wells is contributing to the visibility of the women’s game and seeding the cultural environment ahead of the World Cup in 2026. Made from D.C.’s cultural fabric, she is also anchoring The Spirit in its hometown and bringing DMV culture into the national zeitgeist.

Speaking to NUNAR on the set of her cover shoot, Domo Wells opened up about starting Dead Dirt, how entering fashion has healed her, and the DMV cultural palette she pulls from to rise as an influential tastemaker in the world of fashion, music, and art.

“I wanted to be a fashion designer. That’s what I wanted to do.”

Domo Wells' sense of home is responsible for her formation into a multifaceted creative professional. Her deep connection to all three regions of the DMV shapes the cultural perspective she's built. Wells’ grandparents spent adulthood and raised her parents in D.C., however, both sides of her family are originally from Southern Virginia and Wells was raised in Prince George’s County suburbs.

As a kid into her teens, Wells attended go-gos every weekend. Once she was old enough to go out on her own, she ventured to Baltimore and discovered club music. Her experiences endeared her to the area’s musical forms, falling in love with the scenes of the club and the community of go-go.

“When you walk into a go-go, there's so many little colonies in one place. You got the ones in the front with the band that's repping they set and jumping up and sweating and dancing and just really in it.

You got the ones that just came to get a fit off and they in a photo booth with the bottles and they spending money. And you got the cool kids in the back that's not really trying to do too much. They just kind of posted up against the wall. 

And then the people that kind of fall in the middle, that's just there to have a good time and drink and they're not necessarily in anything, they just kind of floating and it all gels together. That's kind of how the world works,” Wells goes on to say.

“And when you 15, 16 experiencing that, it's crazy because it's not like that everywhere. And as much as black creativity, and as far as the community that surrounds it - because music is not singular, everything intersects with everything - you can't have any form of art that doesn't overlap with another. And that place really helped me understand that because of how certain crews dressed or brands that you wore if you were from certain parts of the city and those sorts of things. D.C. really pioneered streetwear in that way. I think that's why I rep [the DMV] so hard because I feel like I would not be who I am or been able to do the things that I do had I not come from all of those environments that just overlap with so many things, and feeling really strongly about where I'm from. Because I think that that shit matters. I think that whether you like where you're from or not, it shapes you in some type of way. And so for me, luckily I love where I'm from and I've been able to find love from where I'm from mostly because I had to.”

Wells’ creativity sensibilities were likely salted in the womb by her parents who were both talented artists. Her first attempts at fashion design altered the outfits of Barbie dolls. Her dad was a hobbyist cartoonist and her mom was an excellent photorealist drawer, yet both did not receive the encouragement to pursue serious careers in art. Growing up in a financially constrained household more concerned with practical reality than art meant that despite having artistically inclined parents, Wells’ early aspirations were not encouraged. 

“I didn't have the support in my household to pursue anything creatively. That's why I feel like I moved into it so much later in my life. When I see young kids going after it straight out the gate, straight out of college, 21, 22, whatever it is, and you really going after it, I'm so excited and proud for them because I know how I felt at that age and not feeling like I had those options because I allowed other people to really influence my decisions at the time [....] Your parents not always going to be your number one supporter. Not necessarily because they don't love you, because they don't understand. And that's okay. But when you're young, you don't get it,” she says, opening up about being forced to suppress her artistry.

“I kind of had the same thing done to me that was done to my [parents]. They told me we not paying for that, you not doing that, there’s no stability in that so we’re not gonna support you on none of that stuff. So I kind of put it to the side for a while and I tried to pursue other things that were more [quote-unquote] stable. That’s how I ended up working in the government.”

While unable to plunge into a career in fashion design, Domo still practiced creating embroidered appliqués and customizing her own clothing and shoes. After graduating from high school in 2010, she began working as an analyst at the Department of Energy during the Obama administration, and in 2012, she was enrolled at Penn State studying energy and sustainability policy. Like many creative people, Wells sidelined her ambitions of making a living from creating art to focus on working a ‘sensible’ job and supporting her family.

From 18, Wells worked part-time in the event and nightlife scene in D.C. She helped coordinate various events and parties, meeting and befriending creative executive Modi Oyewole, Debra Lee’s late son Quinn “Spicoli” Colman, DJ Austin Millz, and others. Years later during an intensely difficult period, her impulse to express art searched for another release and found it in disk jockeying. “When I first started DJing, it wasn’t because I thought I was gonna do it as a profession, it was a creative outlet for me. I was going through a lot of shit, I had some crazy family stuff happen… I had a relationship thing happen that was also really traumatic. And then we were in the throws of the Obama administration leaving and the Trump administration coming in while I was still working in the government. So it was all this shit going on that I was just not fucking with and I was really depressed. So I was just trying to channel that energy into something else.”

“I left the Department of Energy on a Monday and I toured on a Friday.” 

Secretly DJing in her bedroom and practicing during the weird hours at the former bar and club Big Chief helped Wells evade a depressive period of her life and hone her craft of blending sonic sounds well enough to get noticed. Her first professional DJ gigs were offered by her colleagues at Rock Creek Social Club at a time when she didn’t yet have a name for herself.

“That’s kind of when I had to get it together and I started going by the alias Dora Winifred, which I still find funny…” She laughs. “It was a good joke until I would explain it because people were like ‘What kind of name is that like it’s such a goofy ass name’. But Dora Winifred is D.W. from Authur [....] She’s like my spirit cartoon, like my spirit animal. We’re the same. She’s crazy, so am I. And we have the same initials. I’m not gonna be D.W. but I’ll be Dora Winifred. So I carried that title for a while until I finally switched to DJ Domo.”

The evolution of Domo Wells’ name from an alias reflects an evolving selfhood that moved to unbury her dignity as an artist with a creative multitude to explore. “I never really wanted DJ in my name. But people just kind of always put it in front because you're a DJ but it’s Domo. Domo Wells is fine. I don’t need all the fluff anymore.” 

Modi and Quinn’s early support proved instrumental in helping Wells find her footing in the music industry. As a young DJ still figuring out her path, they helped her secure her first festival gig at Trillectro, D.C.’s first hip-hop and electro dance festival, as well as her initial gigs in L.A., where she DJed at their parties, including the now-defunct Word of Mouth.

“When some of the people who were closer to me, who I thought were going to be hyper-supportive, weren’t, [Modi] was like ‘Nah, whenever you come to LA, let me know.’ Him and Quinn, they would invite me to their offices, put me on the lineup of their parties. It was really no frills about it,” Domo continues. “Quinn brought me into his office at [Warner Bros. Records]… he was walking me around that label like I was someone to know, introducing me to people like ‘Oh you need to know her, she works at Apple’, dah dah dah. Just hyping me up because he knew what that would do… little shit like that that goes a long way. I literally can never repay Quinn for that.” 

Domo shares just how much her long-time friendship with Modi has meant to her over the years, saying, “Always, if I get an opportunity to big him up, I’ll do it because he was there for me at a time when he didn’t have to be… So I will forever be indebted to him and Quinn for how they showed up for me and put the battery in my back to make me feel like I can do everything I’m doing right now.” 

When Trump won the presidency in 2016, it emboldened Domo to prepare her exit from the DOE. By this time, Domo stepped in as Austin Millz’ tour manager for a few shows during his opening acts for Lil Uzi Vert’s A Very Uzi Xmas with Lil Skies. In six months, she assessed her transferable skills, worked her connections, and made the arrangements necessary to quit the government job and move immediately into tour managing rap star Lil Skies’ national U.S. tour. No longer in a relationship and navigating a strained period with her family, she didn’t feel tied down. “I left the Department of Energy on a Monday and I toured on a Friday.” 

She spent the next two years on tour, traveling across the country and making extra stops to DJ at local venues in the cities she visited. “That was probably one of the smartest things I did. Because we would do the tour show and then I would find a local spot to go fuck with outside of the tour show. And that just built relationships,” she tells us.

“Ain't much change yet financially, but I was like, it just felt smart to let's try to hit these other places while I'm here. Come on, I'm broke,” she laughs. “And then that turned into more work. I came home to just people seeing what I was doing. They was like, ‘Shit, you look lit right now.’ And I'm like, ‘I don't feel lit. I feel like I'm working like a dog and I'm broke as fuck.’ Because I got big girl bills. I'm not 19. I'm not a kid living at home. I had an apartment, all that other stuff. I had to decide that I was going to move back home to make some adjustments so I could recalibrate. But that shit was a huge transition.”

Once Wells returned back home, she co-founded the event series GIRLAAA in 2017 with marketing savant Kelcie Glass, renowned artist-activist Tenbeete Solomon a.k.a. Trap Bob, and club mainstay Avanti Fernandez a.k.a. Mane Squeeze. Originally a response to D.C.’s typically male party promoters who only wanted to hear the Top 40 and trap music, Wells sought to create a women-led space friendly to the fusion of multiple genres and art forms. “I was doing parties at home, like other people’s parties, and not really loving them and getting frustrated because I was being tokenized in a lot of ways that was just annoying. So I was like fuck it I’mma start my own thing with all women and we just gonna throw some fire shit that’s gonna be a mix of like - we gonna trap it out, but we gonna play some dance and some club music because I really love club music. I’ve always loved club music and go-go. So I wanted a space where I can run that up and no one is standing behind me like okay are you done with this go-go set are you done with this club set, like get back to the top 40. Like that shit was lame as hell,” She adds.

The sisterly synergy within GIRLAAA allowed the event series to grow exponentially. “We just started alley-ooping things together. Then eventually, we [realized] this is a company because we started getting contracts and we weren’t prepared for that. Because we didn’t plan it, you know? We were just trying to throw a party because the party was fun, and it was kinda out of necessity. And then it organically led to ‘Okay now the Kennedy Center is reaching out, now the Smithsonian wants to work with us, and the Hirshhorn wants to work with us.’ Because we were the only ones doing what we were doing in the way that we were doing it. Everybody else was just throwing parties. We were kinda infusing experiences together.” 

With Domo shaping GIRLAAA’s feminine identity, Trap Bob infusing their activations with the avant-garde art world, Fernandez tying in diverse local music scenes, and Glass’s strategic acumen, the company curated a vibe that was unlike anything that was club-standard. Organically, the group became a women-centric creative agency that was consulted to curate innovative social experiences for national and global brands including Apple Music, BET, MTV, Nike, Adidas, Fenty, Redbull, The Kennedy Center, NBA, and NPR. 

Then COVID-19 happened. “It flattened us,” Wells states. She watched months of bookings evaporate. She was able to work a contracted position with Apple as a curator for U.S. Regional Music Programming. However, with no full-time positions open at the company, Wells was still searching for a full-time job. 

“I found a couple roles at Spotify that, honestly, I didn’t fully understand what they were. Most job postings are so fucking confusing, I don’t know how anybody understands what they are. [....] So I called a friend, Max [October], because Max [was] an Editor over at Spotify.”

With Max’s help (“a couple of calls”), Wells’ application was submitted and reviewed for Frequency even after the listing closed. After a few interviews, she landed her milestone role at Spotify as their Editorial Lead for the Frequency franchise. “That was the hugest alley-opp I’ve ever received because had he not done that, I would not have been able to circumvent any of the process of that. I went through the whole interview process and they hired me and I became the Editorial Lead for Frequency.”

Domo’s work for Frequency included Sunday Dinner, a documentary series featuring black artists from a regional scope to elevate their cultural influence and impact on a broader scale. A DMV edition featured Rico Nasty, Awan Glover, Ari Lennox, Pusha T, and Domo herself. The Frequency campaign also featured local artists-to-know– notably the DMV’s Deetranada, Miss Kam, Foggieraw, Kelela, Austin Millz, and Alex Vaughn - on bus shelter abris, billboards, playlists, and in zines. Wells has gratitude for the support she received in the corporate environment at Spotify from Mjeema Pickett, a D.C. native, along with Kimmy Summers and Francine Tamakloe—a Black women-led team whose synergy mirrored that of GIRLAAA.

“It was a great experience. Two and a half years of a beautiful time with a beautiful team and I was really grateful for the experience because it taught me a lot of what I needed to know going back into my own entrepreneurship. And my plan was never to go there and stay forever.” Wells continues. “I’m a builder. That’s one thing I’ve learned about myself which is a beautiful place to be at this big age in my career. I know what I like to do as a creative and I like to build shit. I like to conceptualize ideas and things that are three-dimensional, intersectional, and require a world to be built. So that’s my favorite part. Once that part is over, I can go.”

Wells understands her purpose as a builder and conceptualizer. Her ‘ministry’, as she calls it, is crafting worlds from concepts, turning ideas into reality. Once that phase is done, she knows it’s time to move on and allow others to step in and continue the creation. She also knows the world she intends to build sits at the intersection of music and fashion. While her collaboration with Spotify was another accolade affirming her place in the music industry, Wells understood that venturing into fashion would require her to build everything from the dirt up.

“Because I knew the direction I wanted to go was at the intersection of music and fashion, and not just squarely music where I had been, I knew I was gonna have to invent that for myself because I don’t have the accolades that the industry might respect. You know, music has some respect for me. I know I could go somewhere and get a job with music, I’m confident about that. But that's not what I wanted to do. 

I’m like okay, if I want to be viable in a place of fashion, I’m gonna have to start executing in that direction no matter having a job or not. I have to do it myself. And so that is what I have historically done. That's what I did in music honestly. That's how I got to Spotify. I was executing things on my own that I was able to leverage in the direction of that job. And so that is exactly what I'm doing right now in fashion. I am executing in the direction of the role I want to have.”

Originally starting as a one-off capsule, Dead Dirt launched in May 2023 as a B2C brand. Wells garnered support from Somewhere owners Dominick Adams and Steve Place, who supported her bold vision for a pop-up at the store installing sets made of real dirt and grass turf for her visual merchandising. Their partnership led to the breakthrough celebrity endorsement Dead Dirt needed to secure wider recognition. On the back end of the successful fashion brand is a B2B creative firm offering services in design, creative direction, music curation, and music supervision. Some of their clients alongside the Washington Spirit include Universal Music Group and Redbull. 

Working with the Spirit was an opportunity for Wells to bring her work back home. Her affinity for her home region keeps her present, protective, and attentive to a rising scene. Yet, she has global ambitions. 

“It’s like a plethora of things that we’re operating as right now. And it’s kind of like a build on top of what GIRLAAA used to do but just on a more national level instead of regional. And so I’m always gonna tap back to home which is what the Spirit represents for me. It’s like coming back home in a sense. But our work is national and will be international. That’s the objective.”

The evolution of Domo Wells from her origins in music and arts programming into the fashion world reminds us we are free to be more than one thing, in more than one place, at the same time.

“Dead Dirt is– if you're talking to someone who works with plants or farming or anything–  it's like soil that does not produce. And so it's like, in order for me to feel like I'm healing myself, I need to be kind of tilling my own soil and making my own things because that is necessary.

And I think Dead Dirt is just a reminder to myself constantly to not ignore [that need], or not settle, or not carry other people's [needs] even. I think it's been interesting because this wasn't the plan either. It never really is. You always kind of start with something else, but then as you go, things develop… Because I didn't think that I would ever pursue fashion. Once that dream was killed for me as a kid, it was like, go find a real job– ‘a real job’, whatever that looks like. And then having no concept of creative careers that exist. 

There's a full spectrum of them that look like however you are as your own artist– and then just professional creatives. And those are two viable pathways that you can take to sustain yourself. It doesn't mean there's not ebbs and flows, but [those paths] exist. And so Dead Dirt has been that for me. My creative explorations throughout DJing and Dead Dirt, and I assume anything in the future will all serve that purpose of just kind of unearthing the things that you bury deep because you thought you couldn't do them anymore, so that you actually can flourish, that you actually can grow, so that you actually can be the best version of yourself. Yeah.”