About Taaj Marjanee

It all started when I was sketching in my book drawing a cartoon likeness of my face. Without any thought, I just drew an ice cream cone as the body.  I thought to myself:  “that looks yummy”. 

After showing my mother she immediately requested I do similar faces with candy, cupcakes and more.  After 20 characters all representing black girls I wasn’t sure what to do next.  Who had the answer?  My mother of course…lol It was my mother’s idea to create a coloring book and about a day later she came up with the name:  “Color Me Yumme”.

I even designed my very first book cover.  Seriously,  I was so excited and proud of myself!  We both agreed I should use my talent to help underserved black girls color images that look like themselves and be proud to use their black and brown crayons.  So we took the book on the road to 5 public libraries and held our “Brown & Black Crayon Conversation”. Soon after, I illustrated “Color Me Yumme International Vol. 1”.  This is a coloring book filled with activities.  Twenty-eight faces of Afrodescendant girls living in throughout the Caribbean, Central, and South America.   Recently, I self published my first picture book featuring one of my original characters Baby Gummie. My mission is Yumme Brand’s mission: to empower our underserved minority girls with loving themselves, and being proud of their skin, features, and hair by creating characters that represent.