The nappy revolution couldn’t come soon enough for Bihiya Cabral. After years of enduring scalp-singeing perming, too-hot comb pressing, and enough chemicals to cause a nuclear accident, Cabral was ready to liberate herself from a European standard of beauty.
So was Terrence Gore. Half a lifetime of sporting Afros, fades, flattops, texturizers and jheri curls had left him spare on top and hungry inside for a true identity — and just a little kink.
The answer, they both decided, was to lock — and throw away the key.
Forget about technology, globalization and the Atkins diet. For millions of people of color all around the world the real revolution is taking place naturally, right on top of their heads, in twisted, knotted hair that grows, separates and falls into coiled, glorious ropes.
Nappy locks. Dreadlocks.
From actor Whoopi Goldberg to author Alice Walker, from athlete Ricky Williams to hip-hopper Lauryn Hill, everybody, it seems, is wearing dreadlocks.
As chronicled in the more than 100 black-and-white images in “Dreads” (Artisan, $19.95), Francesco Mastalia and Alfonse Pagano’s stunningly beautiful coffee table book, locked hair has been embraced all over the world. What began as a spiritual signifier rooted in Jamaican Rastafarianism has evolved into a statement of pride for culturally enlightened African-Americans. For everyone else — including young hipsters in Tokyo who pay thousands of yen to have their bone-straight hair locked with a drill — it has become a hot trend.
“As our consciousness evolves, people have a basic affinity toward healing,” says Nekhena Evans, the Brooklyn author of “Hairlocking: Everything You Need to Know” (A&B Publishers Group). “There is something about locks, in that even when a person decides to do it as a fashion statement, they’re going through a healing and transformation process.”
Linda Jones, a dreadlocked feature writer at the Dallas Morning News, happened upon such a realization serendipitously while hosting a natural-hair-grooming party at her home last spring. Twenty women sporting locks, twists, cornrows and other natural styles showed up. As they hovered over each others’ heads, shampooing, twisting, oiling and massaging, hair warfare stories spilled forth. Listening to her friends testify about their hair travails convinced Jones that she needed to do more.
Today, in addition to the group’s bimonthly hair gatherings, Jones publishes Nappy News, a bimonthly newsletter that features witty tidbits, information and history regarding natural hair that she distributes nationally. She also offers a Perm Recovery Kit, which includes T-shirts emblazoned with sassy slogans such as “Twisted Sister” and “Happy To Be Nappy.”
Jones takes a lighthearted approach to a subject that has caused thousands of black women pain.
“We’re celebrating and affirming ourselves and providing support for those who want it. Nobody is snatching the chemically inclined out of the (salon) chairs. What we’re saying,” Jones says with a laugh, “is we’re hair for you.”
Eight years locked, with tresses below her shoulders, Cabral, the associate director of the Third World Coalition in Philadelphia, has surrounded herself with like-minded friends and colleagues who provide her with constant affirmation. Otherwise, she says, wearing dreadlocks could be treacherous to one’s psyche.
“When I see the police I do get a little nervous,” Cabral, 44, admits. “People have asked me if I’m Ramona Africa, if I’m in MOVE. You have to have a certain degree of confidence to say, `I know I’m OK.’ My hair is not so much as a statement as much as how I feel comfortable.”
Gore, 34, sees his locks as a metaphor for his life.
“I hold my longest lock out now and see tremendous growth, not only in my hair but in my identity,” says the Philadelphia hairstylist and art dealer who plans to open his own gallery soon. “It’s made me approach my dreams and made me more diligent.”
Gore concedes that adhering to Jamaican music master Bob Marley’s credo to “trust the universe and respect your hair” was difficult at first. But through growing his locks, he has learned patience — how to trust his hair enough to simply let it be during its awkward “Buckwheat” stage, when his locks stood straight up like twigs in an untended forest.
As his hair grew, so did his self-esteem — so much that Gore stopped caring about how others viewed him.
“Then the hair starts to grow and it’s taking on this lion’s mane effect. . . . Then I start doing research about locks and learn about (Ethiopian emperor) Haile Selassie and I’m thinking, `Wow, I’m on target. No wonder this resonates with me.’ “
Dreadlocks’ roots were planted in Africa when Ras Tafari was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1930. After Italy invaded Ethiopia, guerrilla warriors vowed not to cut their locked hair until their “lion of Judah,” Selassie, was freed from exile.
Jamaican Rastafarianism evolved as a small group of hillside rebels fought off British rule for many years, said Ron Walters, a University of Maryland professor and author of Pan Africanism and the African Diaspora. It was popularized internationally through the reggae music of Marley, who reclaimed the pejorative “dreadlocks,” ascribed by conservative Jamaican society, and celebrated them through his songs.
Adds Walters: “(The Rastas’) wearing of the matted hairstyle is certainly not the stylized thing you see today.”
African-Americans have refined the style by using various techniques to keep their hair looking healthy and well-groomed. Some “lockticians” even offer lock extensions — additional hair that is glued or sewed on to add length and uniformity. Rastas denounce such practices as defeating the purpose. Locks, they believe, should symbolize a natural, spiritual bond among themselves, God and nature.
Yet many African-Americans believe they do project a holistic way of life by wearing “cultivated” dreadlocks.
Darrell Butler does. A human services director for Merck & Company Inc., the largest pharmaceuticals company in the world, Butler, 34, is one of a handful of black executives to wear dreadlocks in the corporate workplace. A Cornell graduate who is on the fast track, Butler says most of the negative comments he has received have been from black colleagues concerned that his locks may derail his career.
Not to worry, says Butler, who takes pains to keep his 196 locks (yes, he has counted them) neat and clean.
“The true Rastas don’t consider what I do to my hair to be important,” says Butler, whose hair crawls down his back. “But my cultivated locks are an extension of my inner spirit, which is one of organization and cleanliness. It’s the only way I could go. `Natty dreads’ would not be an extension of me.”
Nor did Lisa Nelson and her boyfriend, Eugene Haynes, lock their hair to become Rastas. “But I do think we grow our hair for spiritual reasons,” says Nelson, 34, a Philadelphia filmmaker.
“This is the way it was supposed to be. I lock so easily,” says Nelson, who did a seven-minute video about black women and natural hair that is being used as a diversity tool in schools. “There’s an energy and a power that sisters with natural hair give off. It’s like, `Nobody else can do this.’ “
Yet there are those who have tried and succeeded. Some whites spend disproportionate amounts of time and effort to obtain locks, using sticking agents such as beeswax to force their hair to fuse.
Others, like Jaren Lanier, a New York computer scientist and artist, simply allow their hair to do what comes naturally. A Jew who grew up in New Mexico, Lanier says his long, blond, naturally coiled hair holds no spiritual or cultural significance: “The origin of my hair is genetic, not cultural.”
Still others grow dreadlocks to get more in touch with their spiritual side. Sue Skotnicki, 21, practices Shamanism, a nature-based Native American religion.
Skotnicki, who also sports 14 body piercings, says she has had to draw upon her spirituality often to deal with the comments she gets about her hair.
“Once I was in Ocean City and I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone,” she relates. “Every person turned and dropped their jaw. People were like, `What, have birds attacked your hair?’ They think it’s open season to mock you.
“Most people, if they see a black man or woman with dreads, it’s like a Bob Marley thing — that’s what they associate it with. On a white person they associate it with someone who is lazy and dirty.”
But in fact, many lock wearers go through daylong rituals to wash their hair. Locktician Dowmecia Edgerton pays house calls to clients to do their hair. And while she enjoys washing, separating and massaging the locks of clients such as Lisa Nelson, Edgerton, 30, cut off her own locks partly because she didn’t want to keep up the heavy maintenance.
On the other hand, Gore looks forward to that time every other Sunday that he sets aside to shampoo his hair, using therapeutic oils and scents. “It’s very private and brings me inward,” he says. “It’s almost like meditation.”
The result is a glorious mane of hair that draws attention and, for two Italian Americans, even inspired a book that was five years in the making.
“We didn’t do the book to capitalize on a trend,” said Alfonse Pagano, one of the authors of “Dreads.” “We got involved because we literally find dreadlocks to be very beautiful. I find them sensuous most of the time. And when I see Rastas with those big ol’ clumps? They may not be sensuous but they sure are awesome!”
