Episode 20: The Khatfather: Ramsey Karim on His Yemeni Father's Khat Empire

The Immigrant Perspective · Oct 7, 2026 · 39m

Ramsey Karim grew up in West London in a house where, in his words, migration, enterprise, faith, risk, and family loyalty all sat at the same table. His parents both arrived in Britain in 1973, and the family’s roots trace back to Aden. His father couldn’t read or write, but Ramsey remembers a man with a sharp commercial instinct, a gold tooth, a gambler’s belief that luck knew his name, and a memory that made up for the lack of paper. His mother was the quiet strategist who kept the ledgers and held the family together. Ramsey is British by upbringing, he says, but Yemeni in his blood, his…