The way I dressed made me stand out, and I won

When Hamamat Montia won Miss Malaika at just 17, she says she had no grand strategy, only instinct and culture.

“I was 17… I was lucky they allowed it,” she recalled in an interview with Bola Ray monitored by MyNewsGh, explaining how quickly life shifted after her pageant victory.

Almost immediately, she was selected for what she believed was a tourism-focused international event.

“I went to my mom and said, ‘Mom, it’s Miss Tourism,’” she said. Her mother responded by packing a suitcase filled with calabashes.

“My whole outfit was like grass,” she added, noting that they assumed the event would celebrate cultural tourism.

But when she arrived, it was a modelling competition. Instead of blending in, she stood apart.

“I was wearing things like the calabash bra. This was 20 years ago and they had never seen something like that. They were like, who is this so proud of where she comes from?” she said.

That difference became her advantage. “That made me win. I actually won my competition.”

Today, the former beauty queen is widely known not just for pageantry but for promoting African heritage through her shea butter enterprise, which gained global attention after American streamer IShowSpeed visited her facility during his African tour.

For Hamamat, the lesson remains simple. “Sometimes where you want to go, you have to go back home to relearn,” she said, pointing to the value of indigenous knowledge passed down by grandmothers and forefathers.

Shea butter, once sold traditionally in calabashes, is now packaged in glass jars and pumps at her facility.

“We still sell shea in calabash, but we have it in a glass for those that prefer that. We have it in a pump. You’ve added value,” she explained.

“Don’t think you don’t have an opportunity because you don’t have money. Money is not the opportunity. Once you have the right mindset, money will come.”