TheGrio’s Christina Brown asked several African-American women to take a trip down memory lane to describe their good, bad and ugly hair days.
Lisa Cortes, Film Producer
Brown asked filmmaker Lisa Cortes, whose recent offering includes the film, “Precious,” how she’d describe her hair story. Would it be a comedy, drama, or perhaps a romantic love story? Sporting an up-sweep bun filled with tightly wound dreadlocks, Cortes said, “It would be all of the above. My hair story is comedy, drama, love. It has been fried, died, laid to the side, flipped and dipped and then a wig if none of that works.” Cortes, who admitted to having to bear getting the chemical treatment typically used to straighten African-American hair, called a relaxer, as a young girl, said by the time she reached college, it was time for a change. “I went for natural hair when I was in college. I had had perms since I was five years old, had, you know, the hot comb dropped on my shoulder. You know, all of the abuse for the sake of having, fabulous hair.” After traveling to Europe, Cortes says she was inspired by the music scene and felt confident to let her hair down. “I went to England and kind of fell into the punk movement and just kind of decided I was going to be an artist.” Cortes estimates she’s been growing the dreadlocks that now fall several inches below her shoulders since 1989, and said this about them, “It was just that I felt very comfortable in it. And I’ve always just had a lot of fun. Blond dreads and red dreads, now I’m in more of my, well, I think this is my hair color. I don’t really know anymore.” Inspired by an array of soul artists, Cortes explains why she looked to vocalists like Chaka Khan and Nina Simone for inspiration, “Chaka Khan with Rufus, was amazing because she was just free and expressive and her hair was an expansion of her spirit. I think for Nina Simone, what I loved was her pride and her beauty and in her, sense of self, and this is a woman who can write ‘Mississippi God dam’ but she can also play a classical sweep. I love the multiplicity in her style and I think it came out in her hair, because it was personal and political when she was doing her stuff. Cortes’ current look perhaps blends the political with the classical look of British actress and Academy Award winner Audrey Hepburn, also one of this independent filmmaker’s inspirations. “Audrey Hepburn, I just think she is a classic look and there are still those days, you know, [that] I think I’m rocking Audrey Hepburn with dreads right now.” In short, as a black woman who’s life’s work often unfolds on screen, Cortes sums up her personal hair story, in much the same way she might describe one of her film projects. “My hair story would be a musical in three parts, [there’s] in a musical, you can have a little bit of drama, romance, but ultimately have a happy ending and a great theme song.”
Carla Gentry Osorio, Hair Stylist
New York City hair stylist and owner of Styles New York, nestled in midtown Manhattan, Carla Gentry Osorio’s clients include some of Hollywood’s best-tressed actresses. Affectionately known as one of the styling community’s best ‘track-star,’ for her expertise in weaves, hair color and cuts, her celebrity roster includes Jada Pinkett Smith, star of the new TNT drama, “HawthoRNe,” and wife of Hollywood box-office powerhouse, Will Smith. Osorio says she received an early introduction into what made for well-coiffed hair, “Since I could hear about hair, everything was, ‘Oh she has good hair.’ I mean in elementary school, my hair as a baby, I kind of had like the fuzzy. My mom would do her best to put it into a ponytail, but then ever since first grade, I had hair down to here, so people always said, ‘Oh you’ve got good hair.’” Armed with the knowledge that she had apparently fallen into the coveted category of “good hair,” Osorio said she waited until adolescence to get her hair permanently straightened. “I never got my hair pressed, I didn’t get a relaxer until about fifteen and I would wear two French braids and they would hang down and that was it.” However, once exposed to the relaxer, Osorio wanted nothing more with her soft, natural, curls. “I couldn’t wait to straighten my hair. I couldn’t wait to get it straight. Straight, straighter and straighter.” Now she occasionally flirts with extensions and right now, happens to be sporting a short close-cropped blonde pixie cut. “I have short hair now but I always wore my hair long. Always. I had it long, I got it blonde [and] I’ve had my hair blond for the last 20 years.”
Melky Jean, Singer/Actress
The voice and style of Melky Jean should not be too difficult to recognize. She is the younger sister of Wyclef Jean, the multi-platinum recording artist, and founder of hip-hop group, Fugees. A successful singer and songwriter herself, Jean described receiving disappointing news following an audition. “I had a situation where I went to this casting call, and I was absolutely brilliant and I couldn’t understand why I didn’t get the job. So I asked the casting director to give me the notes for what the director said, and he said, ‘Melky didn’t get the job because she looks too ethnic. She might want to straighten her hair, and then she could get more work.’ You know, I remember feeling like wow, was I not beautiful because I had my hair in more of a natural state? And it did something to me at the time.” The Brooklyn, New York, native whose family is originally from Haiti, has been an outspoken advocate for the West Indian island nation’s poorest people. She’s a delegate for Carma Foundation, a non-profit organization attempting to improve the lives Haiti’s women and children. While wrestling with trying to meet the superficial demands of America’s entertainment industry, Jean came face to face with young, vulnerable women simply trying to survive. Following rejection on stage, Jean had a decision to make, remain true to herself and the very women she was trying to inspire or change, “I considered completely going back to being a slave to my weaves, I considered even closing my gap tooth so I wouldn’t look so ethnic, you know and straightening my hair, dying my hair blonde and I realized; it took me a little while, but I realized that nobody looks like me. So if something is for me, it’s for me. You know, if a job is for me, it’s going to be for me. I don’t want to look like anybody else, I want to look like Melky.”
Shatara Curry, Comedian
When it comes to talking about hair, it’s no laughing matter for stand up comedian Shatara Curry. She told The Grio’s Christina Brown, that her hair has faced just about every hairstyle imaginable, “I’ve had weaves. I’ve had add-in ponytails. I’ve had braids. I’ve had cornrows. I’ve had long hair. I’ve done a little bit of everything.” When she’s not on a stage trying to relieve people from their worries through laughter, she’s working with teenagers as a recreational therapist and mental health specialist. It was the taunts she received from others who in her words paid too much attention to her appearance that made her decide to make a drastic decision and substantially change her look, “I would here an array of people outspoken about my hair, and probably that’s why I cut it all off, and I didn’t like the whole light-skinned long hair [thing]. I just cut it all off, the attention that it would draw and I would see the ignorance more so, in black people that came with it. That really just angered me if that makes any sense. I didn’t even want to here from my own people anymore; a brown-skinned girl with the braids or dreadlocks and to know that we are making each other feel ugly.”
Edited by Jessica Shim