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I got an exciting call from my mom that

my favourite cousin is getting married.

I was so excited!

But then she mentioned

I should do something about my hair,

I should do something really nice with my natural hair

specifically.

I was like, oh, I was thinking about it

what should I do with my natural hair?

Should I do something with braids,

should I style my natural hair, should I do wigs?

I was thinking, I was thinking, hmm.

I decided to call my friend in Ghana

to ask her about her hairstyle ideas

if she can give me anything to my surprise.

Once upon a time, the African woman wore her crown

without explanation.

Her hair was never just beauty, it was

part of her memory, identity, power.

But somewhere between history and modernity, between the

continent and the diaspora, that crown began to feel

unfamiliar.

In 2025, many African women do not

truly their natural hair.

Not because it disappeared.

But because they were never taught

how to understand it,

nurture it or trust it.

Some call it progress, some call it preference.

But when standards are inherited,

when rules are imposed,

when beauty is taught before identity,

is it really a choice?

This film is not just about hair.

It's about belonging.

It's about confidence.

It's about our heritage.

And it's about remembering what was never

meant to be forgotten.

This is Crown or Class.

The only human beings with fully human hair

are Black people.

Everyone else has texture, which is more akin to fur

of a horse or a dog

or a sheep or a goat.

And that's why, you know, when I was first

you know, approached about the idea of

'Crown or Class', I felt like that's not

an accurate juxtaposition because

if you have your crown, that itself is class.

Who would, you know, argue that the fur

of a dog is classy?

Again, you can look throughout the animal kingdom.

The only creatures who are not mixed with

Neanderthals and so forth and so on, we're

the ones who have fully human hair.

Everyone else has some manner of fur.

I decided to wear a crown today.

So I guess you can see firmly where

I'm on the side of.

So the crown is the class.

Having fur like a dog is not class.

Natural hair to me is just like any

other part of my body.

I don't see it as separate because when

I look at a human being, I realise

that every human being started off with their

natural essence.

And I embrace it from that position.

If you look at the statue of Sa-ra Djoser,

this is in classical Kemet.

You can see him depicted in a statue,

you know, with locks.

A lot of people are unaware of this.

They'll think, oh, you know, locks started with

Bob Marley or, you know, Rastafari.

But, you know, again, when you go to

classical times, you'll see us with, you know,

our hairstyles in this way.

Hair is a big part of our culture

as human beings.

You can look at someone's hair and immediately,

you know, take a wild guess where they're

coming from, who they are, how they feel

about themselves, everything.

African hairstyles, it's our everything.

It's connected to our history and our identity

and not only for the women.

It's showing status.

It's showing our mood.

So am I bereaved?

Is my hair shaved?

Then maybe I'm bereaved.

Do I have locks?

Then maybe I'm a sacred person.

Is my hair shaved as a male?

Maybe I'm a chief.

So the dressing, how we dress, our hairstyle,

now we say coiffure, has everything to do

with our lives, our status, what we want

to communicate to ourselves and then to the

community.

When we're looking at this idea of who

we are as Black people, you know, also

our hair, all of these interrelated concepts, and

then where it comes to the self-esteem,

that it really is rooted, you know, when

we understand our own worldview, when we understand

our languages, when we understand self-love,

self-affirmation, in the sense of, you know,

our hair is our crown, if we understood something

along those lines.

If you look at, you know, the Fula people

that they'll also, you know, do braids,

and you'll see amber, just like this, you know

inside of, you know, their hair.

You'll find, you know, people who, again, to

look at locks, like amongst Yoruba, they have 'dàdá'

So this is a child who's born with

their hair already starting to lock, so they

will leave it that way, and it's actually

a prohibition for them to do it, you

know, anything else for them to cut it

or do anything like that.

You'll also find amongst the Akan people, you

have a class of people called 'Akomfo', so

these are traditional healers and diviners, and they

also have, you know, locks in that way,

so that also reflects their status, it reflects

who they are.

Also amongst the Amazulu, you have the 'Sangoma',

and also they have locks in the same

way, and it shows that there's a connection

between themselves and the divine.

You'll find, you know, the 'Baifal', so these

are people who, you know, went to Islam,

but then also carved their own path in

terms of what type of Islam that they

practise, that they also will, you know, keep

the locks in the same way.

Especially when I was young, we had this

widowhood rites, where women are shaved

when they lost their husbands.

And then another cultural practise was puberty rites,

introducing the young girls into maturity.

So we had something called 'bragoro'.

So when they menstruate, their first menstruation, they

did this for them, some cultural practises by

shaving their hair

that is, they are weeding the old system off

and then they will appear to

be in a new system.

So hair actually makes a statement, and hair

tells our story as Africans.

And if we embrace it, it means that

we honour our culture, our heritage, and all

that there is.

It is good to dance 'Adowa'.

It is good to dance 'Agbadza'.

It is good to be seen, to be...

but if you are not careful, that is

all we do, and we think that is culture

Culture should go beyond that, to let the

average Ghanaian know that if I live in

a mud house, should I call it mud?

I mean, the 'Northern hut'

I am not uncivilised.

Today, wigs, weaves, and extensions are everywhere, yet

yet, most are imported.

The Middle East and Africa hair, wigs, and

extensions market is valued at around $495 million

in 2025, and projected to grow through the

end of the decade.

Have you heard of the phrase? 'me broni'

'me broni'

Yeah, so my ideal in beauty is a

white person.

'me broni'

I mean, it sums up our philosophy,

it sums up everything about us.

The most perfect, let me say, of anything

is a 'white'.

So therefore, if they give you anything 'black',

you won't take it.

I mean, if this interview goes off, if

I'm not making a point, my point is

that everything that has happened to us has

a history, and the history is that we

didn't resist what came to us.

The colonial period saw a lot of damage

to how we perceive ourselves as a people,

and then how we saw our women, how

we even saw ourselves in relation to our

African aesthetics.

At the advent of the 20th century,

particularly around 1901

photography had become much more accessible,

and so the British and the Europeans were

moving around, and people were seeing hairstyles.

It wasn't only in Africa, it was all over the world

People wanted to try out new hairstyles and

new aesthetics that the Westerners were bringing in.

You know, prior to our indoctrination, we actually

honoured our hair, right?

We realised that this hair is a manifestation

of our connection to the creator.

Some will refer to it as black cotton,

others say it's like our antennae that keep

us in tune with the universe.

Cultural imperialism, because it's not just from one

aspect of it.

It's imperialism on a whole throughout the world

that has dominated the world and causing everyone

to subdue and submit to their way of

life and their philosophy and their political orientation,

etc.

History shapes the perception of

African women about their hair

Becuase for hundreds of years

our hairs has been devalued by history

it has been undermind in the sense that

the hair was not beautiful

the hair was not elegant

These people are defining our sense of beauty

as evil.

Who would take it that it is evil?

So perhaps we have to understand ourselves because

because of where we have come from.

We have come from a time when we

had no idea the history of it, and

so we thought that, oh, that's natural.

We should be inferior

The fact that they made an attempt to

denigrate African people by actually, you know, presenting

your culture and your way of life as

being insignificant, as being evil,

and all of these negative connotations.

All of a sudden, having your natural hair,

kinky, straight, the contrast to your skin

didn't matter anymore.

All of a sudden, you had to be

as close to whiteness as possible to matter.

South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya are among

the region's largest consumers,

with demand driven by urbanisation, youth culture,

and global beauty trends.

More than half of African women use wigs

or extensions regularly.

What started as curiosity on our part had

been turned around and been demonised.

So it was not only about hairstyles now.

It was about identity.

It was about Africanness.

It was about blackness.

'tum tum broni'

it is because we were trying to compensate ourselves

for being caught off guard

it makes the lie a bit... sweeter

'tum tum broni'

but there is no 'tum tum broni'

because if there is a 'tum tum broni'

it means that the best 'tum tum', is one

who is making it himself or herself.

'white'

You know,..if you look at our media landscape

it is influenced by our affiliation with

our colonial masters and what has been projected

on screen for all these years.

I would say it has shaped our narrative.

So psychologically, it has had an effect that caused

a lot of inferiority complex.

So the inferior complex is what we are

seeing today in terms of why women feel

the way they feel of not embracing their

own natural hair.

So these ones who put those types of

images and put those types of standards, if

we can even call them standards, in front

of us, they know that they're doing that

because they're going to reap the benefits.

You have young girls, even in middle school,

thinking they should wear blonde hair and look

like white girls because they watch, you know,

high school movies and they are thinking they should

But they forget that that is the natural

hairstyle of a Caucasian kid.

And as an African kid, your natural one

would be a nice afro, braids, even.

I don't know.

There may be others, but I saw one

black... Ghanaian film, but as for Nigerian films

I saw a lot,

where angels of God

are always white and the angels of the

devil are always black.

It's always... with horns

You know, where did this thing come from?

But it's one of the means of getting

us to know that we are inferior.

Our inferiority is even devilish.

So clearly, if our people is suffering from

inferiority complex, they will look at what other

people has and not recognising that we are,

we're gifted.

We are gifted to be who we are

and where we are and how we are.

Right?

And when you have that kind of disconnect,

of course, you're going to have all kinds

of problems, both from a standpoint of your

health, your spirituality, your social realities.

So there's a quote by Nana Amos Wilson,

a noted psychologist, who says, if you want

to understand any problem, don't look at who

suffers from the problem.

And this is clearly a psychological problem.

Look at who benefits from the problem.

So, again, the exact same ones who told you

that your natural hair is bad

are the ones who benefit when you come to

them for the chemicals, when you come to them

for the wigs, when you come to

them for the weaves, when you come to

them for all of those things, they laugh

all the way to the bank.

Right?

I'm still in school.

I got told by her that

even in Ghana

the most schools in Ghana, they don't

let them grow their hair, they cut them.

So she's even as clueless as I am.

At this point, what am I doing right now?

The roots of this disconnect stretches back centuries.

Colonial education systems imposed

Eurocentric standards of beauty & discipline

including hair policies that still linger today

In some African schools, girls are discouraged or

even prohibited from growing their natural hair, reinforcing

an idea that straight, manageable hair is superior.

This directive in most schools served as a

proverbial factory system, mass producing African women each

year with no idea how to grow or

care for their own hair.

My brother, my sister, we have seen our

students wearing dreadlocks have been victimised in such

wonderfully great schools as 'Achimota'.

Right here in Ghana,

we have seen how people with dreadlocks

have been chased out of offices.

Some even will not be allowed to present

letters of employment, let alone be employed.

So there's a clear distinction.

You can just look at a kid, look

at their hairstyle and know or at least

predict what kind of school they're in.

And that alone is where the classism even starts

It has more to do with the demographics

of the kind of children that would usually

be in an international school or private school,

a high end private school.

And then the kind of demographics we'll have

in a public school.

And so there's some sort of liberalism when

it comes to the classes and when it

comes to schools.

So middle class to low fee paying schools

might have strict rules with regards to policies

on hairstyle for both the male and the female.

With the government or the public schools,

it looks like we force them to wear short hair

One, it's easier.

It's comfortable because when you just need a

comb and then shea butter, then we are done with it

But with the braids or the locks, you

need to go to the saloon.

And then I think it's expensive.

But most children in the public schools are

not too rich.

But those who send their children to the

private schools are a little high.

And we have average parents in the government sector

In the private setting, children will come in braids

cornrows, afros or their hair in a bun

And the differences with that could be some

of the children have permed hair and some don't.

So some go with unpermed hair.

Because I had some students from the private

schools who had braided their hair.

So when they came, and then because it's

not normal in the public schools, I asked

them to, you know, cut, to go and shave it

And in fact, the way they were crying and the rest

So with the public school, we enforce it.

Because we want the children to be uniform.

So I think because of uniformity and then discipline.

But with the private schools, they are free

to do whatever they want with it.

Because the parents can afford it too.

I believe they can afford it.

Because buying the wigs and the rest, and

then going to the shop and saloon to do it

is a little high.

But with the short hair, you just need

a comb and then a sheabutter

And even in the private school space, there

are different categories.

So there could be high-end private schools

where any sort of hair is allowed, including

putting extensions in your children's hair.

And there are some that are a bit

more conservative, based on also the class of

parents they're dealing with.

So in a high-end, typical private school,

you might get parents that are from the

diaspora, parents that have travelled, expatriates.

And so for them, if there's a white

child in your school, for example, sometimes we

tend to make exemptions for them.

And then you get local parents questioning why

our children can't have long hair or leave

their hair out.

But then why is it that the white

kid can do that?

If you look at children when they go to school

they have none of these inhibitions from the beginning.

I'm supposed to be this way,

I'm supposed to be that way.

That was imposed on them, right?

And if you look at other schools that

allow children to come in their natural self,

they have a whole different spirit, a whole

different personality, a whole kind of different self

esteem that gives them a certain pride and

a certain amount of dignity.

And that also helps them to excel

because of that freedom.

Our natural curiosity wasn't really the problem.

Where we took the biggest hit was in

the direction of religion and our belief system

because I believe that our aesthetics was attacked

through religion, was attacked through being made to

be the other, being made to not matter.

The same people call themselves Christians.

They have a Bible that they do not read

They are Sunday Christians.

What they do is until Sunday comes,

do not know where their Bibles are.

The Bibles are hiding in a corner catching dust

So Sunday comes and then they pick the bible

tuck the bible under their armpits and

run to the church.

My brother, my sister, hardly do they read the bible

When the bible itself said Jesus was a Nazarene

he came from Nazareth.

My brother, my sister, what is the meaning

of Nazareth?

It means the uncut vine, Nazar.

That is what it means in Hebrew.

They were the only people who vowed to

God that they would leave their hair uncut.

I don't want to go too much into

the biblical essence of this.

So I decided to explore by myself

if I as a young woman living in Belgium,

should proudly use my natural hair or hide

it under wigs and weaves as others.

My first stop was Matonge in Brussels,

the heart of African beauty supplies and hair culture.

Meanwhile, my friend in Ghana was also on

her journey.

I began my journey at Accra Central

at the heart of Makola Market.

She went into the city centre, walked through

hair shops.

A few days later, during school vacation, I

went for a job interview.

Sadly, I felt nervous and small.

My natural hair, short, not straight, simply seemed

out of place.

While others wore wigs, hearing her experience reminded

me this struggle is bigger than me.

It's something so many of us go through,

whether in Africa or in the diaspora.

As global media circles reinforce foreign concepts of

beauty, young African women often equate straightened hair

with success, desirability, and acceptance, a powerful influence

that continues to shape self-esteem and identity.

So, you know, that is it.

You know, people feel like they're born straight,

the wigs.

And the funny thing is those wigs are

even more expensive to acquire or to purchase

compared to having your own natural hair and

treating it, right?

But it's about the narrative that is being

put out there, how people, how those things

are framed.

If you look at our TV landscape, we

have more soap operas, movies from Mexico,

the Philippines, from America and Asia.

And you have something like a global television.

So the more you are exposed to a

certain culture, you start to believe in those

cultures and you want to be like them.

You know, the saddest thing that we were

exposed to was growing up, when you watch movies

and you see the way certain characters are portrayed

you see like a maid, a broke woman

and

a poor woman.

What do you see?

More often than not, first you see that

person in an African outfit with some fabric

wrapped around the person.

Look at the hair.

You see how the hair is twisted.

cornrow

You see the African way.

That was the representation.

And when there's a transition of that character

to a successful woman, you see the person

wearing a wig.

You see her wearing like a Western outfit.

So subconsciously, when you are watching

and as a kid or even if you've grown up,

you don't want to be like that character.

You want to be the successful person.

And that successful person is portrayed in a

certain way.

You know, imagine this, right?

This is a horsetail.

Imagine something like this.

And I put this on my head and

I say, oh, beauty, beauty, beauty.

Now, despite all of that inpropaganda, anyone

with sense, which is like black people, black

men, would say that's not the defining feature

of what a woman is.

Let me show you the shape.

Let me show you the curves.

Let me show you the thighs.

Let me show you the backside.

Let me show you the breasts.

Let me show you all of this.

That is the defining feature.

As a kid, it is what you see

on screen or what you hear on radio

subconsciously influence what you receive,

how you act on certain things

It's interesting, but I think age six, grade one

is when that happens.

You might think six-year-olds don't understand

or appreciate how they look, but they do

for the girls especially.

And so that's the age that you'd see

the signs, right?

So you see the signs, that's okay.

She likes to look in the mirror.

If a car is parked and a six year old

girl who has hair or has

braids is walking past the car, they may

stand to look at their hair to ensure

it's nice and all that.

But I guess at that age as well,

if the mother is unable to keep the

hair well, it begins to affect them in

a way because they can see how their

friends' hair are looking really nice and cute

with all the ribbons and everything.

And then if theirs are looking unkempt, they

begin to take on that mood.

And so as educators, you would attest to

the fact that when they come in with

a new hair, sometimes they even ask you,

Miss Precious, how am I looking?

And you have to make sure you compliment

them really well.

And so it starts from a really, really young age

And it comes down to how people are

exposed to what they see.

You know, when you watch TV, you tend

to imbibe the things that you see.

So as a kid, when you are watching

a movie or you are watching any TV

content and you see somebody with wigs, you

see, I'm not really used to the categories

or the types, but you see there's certain

projection of some type of hairs.

So people tend to feel like this is

the right thing to do.

They have a major role to play in

that because if you look at all these videos

it is marketing and promoting a foreign culture

and a foreign system.

It's always very attractive.

People see things on TV and it's like,

oh, I want to look like that because

that person looks nice.

Because usually the imperfections are edited out.

Nobody really shows those parts.

It's just the perfect, the perfect sides of things

And people aspire to that because everybody wants

to be attractive.

Everybody wants to be seen as, you know,

looking nice.

So we aspire to things like that.

So when we see the way beauty is

represented here, we subconsciously just want to look

like that, to be like that so that

we also get, you know, the compliments.

We get these kids thinking that the only

way your hair is pretty is if it

does not look like your natural hair.

If it's anything but your natural hair.

So I think we have to rewire a

few synapses in our brains.

So if I am selling a cream, a

cream that will turn somebody or will bleach

somebody or let somebody feel good or let

somebody feel like, okay, I'm more westernised, I'm

fair and they have their money, you know,

when it comes to wigs and when there's

money, there's always pressure.

Because they are the

people who are buying the slots.

There are the people who

are sponsoring the programs.

There are the institutions who are

enforcing or influencing

the mindset of the people.

Now, there's another thing that the

sports setting is bringing

in when it comes to boys.

So a lot of boys want to look like their

favorite football players,

who are wearing all kinds

of cornrows and, you know,

Afros, but then with sides cropped off.

And so they come to school and all the

boys are looking like that, right?

Depending on who is on.

So it's one of the things that's also

influencing our culture.

And because we've become a global world,

we're a global outlook.

Some parents think it's okay for their

kids to look like that.

So that representation is what I would

want all of us to take as

the key thing to influence our children

to be culturally competent.

That if you're an African child, it's

really cute to have an Afro hair because

it really looks good on

them when they do that.

You don't care what wig somebody wears.

You don't care what

attachments you put on your hair.

There's Brazilian hair.

They have Peruvian hair.

They have Indian hair.

And they have the mockery

of what they call human hair.

You don't know whether these hairs belong

to dead women who died from cancer or

died from some kind of deadly disease

that you are scared of.

You attach all these to

your hair and you walk around.

You want to be called pretty.

To achieve this look, many women turn to

chemical relaxes, heat styling and

extensions without full

awareness of the consequences.

Relaxers have been linked to scalp damage,

hair breakage, endocrine disruption and

even heightened cancer risk.

concerns now documented by scientific communities

and health advocates worldwide.

I don't call it relaxing.

I say it's stressing the hair.

How can you be more

stressful than having chemicals?

If I threw chemicals all over your body

that caused cancer, that caused all types

of diseases, you

know, do you feel relaxed?

I don't think you would be

very relaxed by the same token.

Our fully human hair is not relaxed when

we put these toxic chemicals.

So, hair care practices are really

important in helping us retain healthy

scalp and healthy hair.

And it's not just about braiding or the

hairstyles that we do, but that also

involves all the other processes that we

include, including chemical processes.

So, the most common one in the black

population, of course, relaxers.

And you have different forms of them.

You have texturizers.

You have, what do they call them?

Curl loosening.

Curl...

They give them all these names, okay?

The bottom line is that they do contain

chemicals, ingredients, that are going to

break down the disulfide

bonds in your hair strands.

These are the bonds between two sulfur

atoms in your hair strands.

And this is what gives

the strength of the hair.

And then they are going to get rearranged

in a different order

so that the curl is looser.

So, you might be going from...

I don't know if I can

even get a curl here.

So, you might be going from this type of

curl to straight hair.

So, because you're breaking down the

disulfide bonds and then resetting them

in a straight line as such.

But by doing that, you are also weakening

the hair strand, because now your hair is

doing something that it

does not do naturally.

You've had to do something to it.

And if the hair is processed too often or

over-processed, even in the first time,

if you over-cook it, then you might

actually break the bonds so much that

they cannot even reform

with other sulfur atoms.

So, and then you've seen that before.

A woman goes to the

hairdresser to get a relaxed hair

She comes home and she's missing patches

of hair because they have

over-processed her hair.

so that's on the hair one

Because it is ignorance that has caused a

lot of them to be

doing what they are doing.

They have no idea.

For instance, if they go and research

the harmful effects of the chemicals from

these hair pieces, and wigs and

whatever, they will be shocked and

surprised that they are actually creating

more harm for

themselves than anything else.

Anything that... does not improve health,

but is causing you to alter a natural state

things, is not good for your health.

So, you don't want to

go in and perm your hair.

You don't want to apply

chemicals to your hair.

You see, people are not doing their

straightening that much now because of

the wigs that are available.

If I want a curly hair and I buy a curly hair wig

I'm off to go.

If I want a straight hair,

so I can decide, today I want a straight hair.

Tomorrow I want a curly hair.

And I'll have different, different stuff to

be able to have that

look that I'm looking at.

Finally, studies confirmed

that those are also carcinogenic.

So, they increase the likelihood of us

getting certain types of cancers

So, studies have been going on for quite

a few years, but I think we finally got

confirmed, even last year or the year before

if I'm not mistaken.

So, as you can see, as especially black women

we are exposed to an array of

harmful chemicals since our early years.

Because, as you know, some black women

are relaxing their toddler's hair.

Two, three, four years old,

they already have a relaxed hair.

And then also on that same point, when

you see people who are doing these types

of things, we have to ask ourselves who

benefits from our getting rid of the

hairstyles, to come back to the point you

started off with, when we get rid of all

of those hairstyles and replace them with

things that are so carcinogenic, whether

that's the fake hair, whether that is the

chemicals that we're using to try to look

like dogs and cats and other lower

mammals, that the ones who benefit from

that are the same ones who convinced us

that fully human hair is not in style,

fully human hair is not what's good.

So, I think that those are just some

various considerations to keep in mind

when we're looking at, you know, across

the length and breadth throughout space,

time, energy and matter,

what our hair is to us.

Those two were wearing the Peruvian wigs,

those two were wearing the Indian wigs,

the so-called human hair, Brazilian wig,

whatever it is, my brother, my sister,

with all the dangerous chemicals in their hair

sitting under dryers for only God

knows how long their brains have been

frying all this while.

It is sad.

To break away from these hair styling effects

education is critical

In this new age, knowledge disseminated

through schools and amplified by media

empowers young people to reclaim their

heritage while making

informed beauty choices.

Then I booked an

appointment with an hair therapist.

At first, I didn't even want to go.

Part of me thought, maybe it's not that serious

it's just hair, right?

But other parts of me knew it was deeper.

Our hair carries stories

and I had to understand mine.

Sitting there, I started

to see my hair differently.

I learned about caring for it,

appreciating it, not fighting

against it for the first time.

i realised that

the problem was never my hair

The problem was the pressure I felt to

make it fit into

someone's definition of beauty.

And once I let go of that pressure,

I started to feel free.

If you say how,

the answer is through education.

We have to educate ourselves.

If we educate ourselves, we see things from

the perspective that we have never seen before

and which is the desired,

the desirable perspective.

But we are not allowing

ourselves to educate ourselves.

Perhaps there is hope.

There is hope in that

more education will open more eyes.

If I was given the opportunity to

to talk about hair and its effects

the straightening,

the perming, the wig, the weave

and everything,

the first thing

I'm going to do is education.

So I think that we have to re-educate ourselves

or for some of us, first time education

educate ourselves into what is healthy,

what is not.

Because we can't change the grown-ups,

but we can start with the young ones,

so they can start love themselves more.

If you have a black mother who is always

wearing wigs and weaves, and the child

never actually sees her mother's natural hair out

but then you're trying to tell your child

"No, no, your natural hair is so pretty"

I love your curls,

you need to wear them out..."

They say, "Mommy, I never see your hair."

Education is about doing for self.

If you are not doing for yourself first

and foremost, then you are mis-educating.

Because a child should go to school, know

that he's an African or he's a Ghanaian,

and this is his culture.

If we have more of those types of

conscious education,

the mis-education will go away.

I will start educating people about it.

The social media is there

you can talk about it

even in the schools.

We can talk about it.

We have the primary schools there.

We can start talking about it the primary schools

The same way we have the dentists going

around schools, telling them,

"Okay, you should brush your

teeth, so and so and so."

The same thing that I'll equally

pick it up and then educate.

I think education is everything.

Now everybody's child is going to school.

So those are the places

where we need to start.

If you're able to educate their kids,

anytime their mothers want to temper

with their head, they'll tell

them, "No, they don't want it."

We have to make a

conscious effort, like you are doing.

Take the message to

the younger generation.

They will grow up, changed.

Or they will grow up with a right mindset.

Make sure that

education in curly hair is provided.

Second step is start at a very young age.

Start with books,

start with imaging, start with TV,

with toys, and to educate the people and

just make it normal to see like a diverse

set of hairstyles

and their types, actually.

I think that's also very important.

So people grow up as,

"Okay, this is normal."

Not just what I see in school, but

what I see in my books on TV.

We need to drum it in their ears

We need to talk about it day and night.

If we don't talk about it

They won't know

And they will pick the information

from other sources, which

which might not be very healthy.

I would also go back into history

to make our culture

become a part of the curriculum

so that they understand where

they are coming from and where they are going

why they are the way they are today

and why they are not a certain type of way

Because of ignorance, why a lot of the

children or the parents would accept

these kind of guidelines and rules and regulations

from the schools.

But they must remember that that was

passed on to them through colonialism

through the white

imposition of their cultural system.

Then as long as we continue to educate,

then it's not going to become a matter

of what if, it's going to be what is.

Right?

And so that's why I say that

representation from the home,

from the school, even on the things that children

see on the media is so important.

Because then the conversation is quicker

and easier to say that,

"Oh, let's go get braids."

And she would think it's

great because you have braids.

But if you are always in wigs and weave on

that's why we see little children,

i don't know if you have children, they

will put on your wig and even the boys,

because they are thinking,

If mummy wears it, then it must be cool."

So the only way we can let this

information fly out everywhere

is bringing the media into the picture.

They are not followers of society, they are leaders.

They set the pace and set the agenda for

changes and so on and so forth.

They are bring presenters who look

lighter than their normal skin.

They talk about being fair.

Like the presenters alone, it's giving

you an information that, "Oh,

no, you are not accepted here."

Just watch TV and every single girl or

woman had straight hair and

all these Hollywood actors.

And so this is what we learn.

But I think it's so important to have a

new narrative, to reflect new,

and so we can include these

hairstyles, these women,

I wouldn't even say black strong women,

because black women are always strong.

I don't know why.

But it has also been

celebrated by the media.

If the media have celebrated them, it is

because someone is a

commercial entity is behind it.

You can't overemphasize the media,

because there's a lot that if the media

didn't exist, that we're not exposed to.

You're only exposed to your little corner

and experiences in your little corner.

And some things might not jump out at you

when you're just in your little corner.

But the media also gives you a wider

scope on the world and you get to travel

just in your living room or in your

little corner somewhere.

You can travel across the whole world and

see so many different things.

And these things influence us.

So I feel like this is a huge driving force,

because

as human beings

subconsciously, we

aspire to these things.

And we can't help it.

We just see them like it, want to be it.

Many people attach a lot of importance to hair

especially women.

It's their glory.

It's our glory spiritually.

And interestingly, there's even a

hairstyle called Rasta.

They call it Rasta.

And you know what that Rasta is?

They get artificial hair.

You don't know where

the artificial hair is.

Who manufactured it?

You don't know.

Whether it's a dead woman's hair or a

ghost hair, you don't care.

Maybe horse tail, you don't care.

Then they tie it to their head

they walk around, Rasta

My hair is Rasta, i've got Rasta,

Really?

okay

Any which way, stop running after frivolities

and hold on and appreciate necessities.

Reclaiming our hair is not just cultural

but also an economic revival.

Increased awareness will fuel African-led

hair care businesses focused on organic

and safe products, empowering women to

earn and create with their own

communities with

potential global outreach.

Reclaiming African beauty is not just a

fashion trend, it is a paradigm shift.

It is a reflection of what is going on

inside us in our hearts and in our minds.

And so we are not just embracing fashion,

we are showing pride.

I think it's going to go much more

further than people think this

renaissance is happening.

We have seen that there is more to us

than straightening our hair, and then

there is more to us than picking up

identity that is not ours.

So the visibility shift that we've had in

regards to black hair has been huge.

We needed it.

So

the online presence in regards to

the YouTubers, the influencers, women like

them who are on their hair journey,

have created the visibility shift and we

have to give them their flowers because

without them, this whole education,

this whole hair education that we've had for

the last 10, 15 years would probably not

be as intense as it's been.

Trends like black girl magic, you know,

starts as a trend and

everybody wants to be among

We all want to feel like we're parts.

And so I don't know who started it or how

it's even started, but things like that

have definitely influenced it because

people now want to, melanin popping and,

you know, black girl magic, I want to see

your hair, and people are experimenting

more, taking some of those very

indigenous styles, for instance, that may

have looked like, oh, they belong in the

18th century and modernizing it, putting

interesting spins on it and making it

more attractive for this day and age.

Artists and creatives are able to not

only go back and bring back what we're

almost lost, but we are also able to

reimagine the African hair and have a

proper place in the fashion continuum as

we have in 2025 and even beyond.

Even on social media campaigns, there are

a lot of positivity about

natural hair these days, right?

You see in the videos of even big

companies, they have a lot of natural

hairstyles now in

their campaigns and stuff.

They are shedding lights to it

for whatever reasons, either for the good

reasons or for monetary reasons

but they are doing that now.

And we know that because the larger

beauty brands have been forced to adapt

because of this shift.

The larger beauty brands have moved in a

way where they're recognizing that black

women are the audience, black women are

the ones who spend their money.

The beauty brands recognize that they're

going to lose their audience if they

don't adapt their products.

So that's what they've had to do.

They've had to do it out of

fear of losing their coins.

So it's something that we will get there.

And I like the shift

that is going on now.

It's like it's been so quick that

everybody is becoming so conscious of

their skin and their hair.

Those times, some of the creams like sheabutter

people are not talking about it.

Now, it comes to a consulting room, some many people

are using shea butter.

Yes, our women wearing our natural hair is

both active and passive activism for

our place as people of African descent

in the world right now.

I will encourage it.

Realize that

the narrative has been changing.

That stereotypical aspect of our media

landscape has changed a bit.

Because we are

embracing more of our roots.

We call for a lot more authenticity in

the things that we are doing.

And that is now being

represented in the media.

so

little by little, i think

Perhaps I think I am too angry to

appreciate that there is change, but

there will be change.

I think there will be change.

Thanks to modernity,

thanks to open-mindedness, today, some of

the world's greatest

people are wearing dreadlocks.

Or they have worn dreadlocks before.

Marketing that they do is

the lighter skin,

the looser curls.

It's just natural enough.

It's just black enough to pass.

And they know that that way they satisfy

the white audience, which is their larger audience

but they also satisfy the black audience,

because for us, most people

would say some representation is better

than no representation.

Economically, we are

going to invest in our own.

My money goes to my hairstylist or to the

people around me who help to wash my

hair, comb out my hair, fix my hair.

It doesn't go to some

chemical-producing company.

And I think that all around, it's going

to help the Africans really pick up...

We will say,

to pick up the right cloth that will project not only

identity but also pride.

Because I feel like the market is growing

and women are the perfect people to

actually invent products like these

because we do have the hair on our head.

One thing that is very problematic to me

is the fact that lots of US companies are

male-owned, white-owned.

and

So the black hair care market

is a very lucrative market.

and

We all know that black women spend nine

times more on hair care

products than any other ethnicity.

But we're not being protected because the

products are not safe.

And if we build our own products,

we can make sure that

those products are good products.

With black hair care brands

and black beauty brands,

it's definitely a plus right now,

especially for this generation.

They're looking for the representation.

And they want to see it

in what relates to them.

So definitely, it's needed.

We need more of it, in fact, I think.

And... it's quite important that we do use

products that are appropriate for our scalp

and hair needs as well.

There are so many lovely black hair

brands now on the market.

And what I always urge

people to pay attention to is,

what does your scalp need?

If you have a scalp issue, for example,

it's really important that you go see a specialist

so that you know what you need to do

and what you need to avoid

because those needs will be different.

Like, there are now hairstylists that only do

natural hair, only coily hair.

Which was not like that

when I first came to Europe, right?

So now you go in a salon and the stylist

is just there for natural hair.

So people are more open to doing styles

with their natural hair.

Cutting their natural hair into a style

that they can have for weeks or for months.

While earlier, when I started noticing stuff here,

it wasn't like that.

So I see people are getting more

comfortable with doing

more natural hair style.

But it wasn't like that in the beginning.

And I think once a parent understands it causes cancer,

I think that's something which,

to make is supposed to, you know,

to make you rethink before you

do something to your kid.

And plus,

a kid, you're like, why are

you going to wear straight hair?

Like, for whom?

You're a kid.

Be a kid, you know?

Embracing our own,

takes us away from unrealistic standards.

It doesn't matter how much

and how long you perm your hair.

You are not going to be white.

You are not going to be European.

Please embrace what you have.

If you don't embrace what you have,

you will keep looking for something that you don't have

and you might never have.

I think, you know, we should just accept what we have

and don't try to force your hair to

do something that it does not want to do naturally.

So embracing our own is not only going to

save us and boost

our confidence as Africans, it's also going

to impact on us economically.

That any single thing that we do where we

start practicing functional hatred

against our past, current and future enemies

will be enough to change things for us.

And, you know, again, you can look at the Chinese

at one point in time in the 80s,

they had nothing but kung fu movies.

That's it.

No one knew China.

We didn't see Made in China on anything.

They took one single aspect that they had,

and then flipped it into everything else that they have.

For us, we can choose anything.

It doesn't have to be clothes, but it could be that,

it could be hair.

Right.

We could say we no longer want chemicals

to make our hair look like fur.

And then from that single decision, the

money that we save from that,

we can now flip it and say, you know what,

we want electrical vehicles,

just like Burkina Faso has.

We as a parent, we need to start really

working more on self love.

I mean, this is

it's sounds like, oh, wow self love.

But the more you realize

people don't love themselves,

the energy of not loving themselves,

this is what they're going to spread.

And they're going to give it to their kids

and the kids going to use it and

give it to other people.

So I believe self-love.

Like even if you want to wear your straight hair,

just do it, but do it with love and

make sure you know that.

Don't do it on your little kid.

Do it on yourself as a grown up.

That's OK for you, but not on the kids.

But I think a lot of it

has to do with acceptance.

Acceptance.

Why would you want to relax

a four year old hair?

It's because you don't find her hair

to be adequate, to be pretty,

to be nice, to be normal.

Please stop.

Please stop applying these extensions.

Because your scalp is very tender... for the kids.

Make sure your kid, especially people in the diaspora,

make sure you help your kids

know his or her roots.

We are going to identify that as a people,

we are beautiful the way we are.

We are going to boost the confidence of our children.

It's going to allow them to

to compete on the world stage without having to second

guess themselves because they have a hair

of a particular texture

or a particular shape.

So if you want to braid the hair,

you can braid it.

There are different styles that people do

with their natural hair.

And looks very, very beautiful.

I really like them though.

Like what you have, if you want to straighten it,

you can get a straightener or whatever.

But you don't have to do it too much because it's heat.

And if you keep touching the scalp,

you're going to breake the hair follicles,

as I said.

And the hair would start falling.

It might fall when you reach a menopause,

and that's the part where you want to look

younger and it might not look very good.

To parents, I'd say, learn together with your kids.

Have patience.

Watch how you speak about the hair.

Don't compare your kids hair to another kid's hair.

And also watch your body language.

I get it that it can be frustrating at times,

even or especially when you have a

different hair type than your kid.

But make sure that you don't sigh or let

the kid feel like it's too much work for you.

And for aspiring hairstylist, I say...

be curious.

Be open to learn something new.

I think a study...

A study even said that 40% of world's population in

2030 will be curly haired.

So it is very, very important if you want

to keep up to learn about afro-textured hair.

And also not to only learn about the technical part,

but also learn about the

history and the cultural part.

So you know how to speak about it and you know

how to treat someone with afro-textured hair,

so make them feel comfortable.

I'm definitely not against wigs

or you know, extensions.

We are diverse beings and sometimes we

want to look a certain way.

Our moods affect a lot of the ways we

want to present ourselves sometimes.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

So yeah, I wear wigs.

Not just for film on sets.

Like sometimes I just want to look a certain way,

and there's nothing wrong with that.

So I'm not one of the people that are

like, no, no, no,

nobody should wear wigs.

No, absolutely not.

Wear what makes you feel beautiful, but...

it shouldn't overshadow who you are.

I am more proud and more myself and more

authentically...

Alive

if that makes sense.

When I am who I am.

These are like,

Characters.

honestly, I say like characters.

Like, today I'm feeling very

spontaneous and maybe my hair is

in a bit of a knot and

I'm trying to get somewhere really fast

and I don't have the time.

And there's a wig that is

also feeling very spontaneous.

Okay, let's go with you, spontaneous wig.

We go and

if there's another day that I'm feeling

spontaneous with my

natural hair, I would do that. Like...

This is...

I would never preach against any of that.

It's just don't shun who you are.

Don't feel ashamed of your coils or your skin even.

Because another one is better.

It's not better.

Wigs are not better than your hair.

Yeah.

As someone that deals with children

and with parents,

one advice that I will give

on this topic

is for parents

to build their children up.

From a very young age

to be more confident in what they know.

And what they carry.

No matter where you are in this world,

knowledge is a universal language.

And so we don't want our children to be

looking like nice, beautiful perfume bottles

that have rotting things inside.

We rather want a perfume vessel that

doesn't look any good.

But then when you open it up,

the fragrance just goes to any corner and it

just brightens up everybody's day.

So yeah...

These standards of ugly are definitely a

manifestation of 'Isphet' and 'Neo-isphet'.

So what we have to do is

from the framework of our great grand ancestors

which is anytime 'isphet encroaches,

we drive it away.

We crush 'isphet' militarily.

And again, you can go all the way back to

the autobiography of Weni,

which is the first narrative military document

in the history of the world.

And it talks about when these non-black

'Aamu' tried to encroach into Kemet.

The land of black people, we drive them away.

And that is, you know, a directive

straight from the ruler.

So we should guide them

so that we have uniformity

and then discipline in hair do's.

So that's what,

like I said, we can use ponytails.

That is very simple.

You just push the

whole hair and then tie it.

Or you do cornrows.

You just braid it to

Either the back or in front.

Yes.

So there shouldn't be strict rules on it.

They should leave them.

The first this is love yourself, see yourself.

Ardently desire to see your hair,

to be beautiful to be silky

and you will actually put the energy into it.

Finally,

I found a style that felt both elegant and rooted in who we are.

I sent it to my friend,

waiting anxiously for her responses.

Curious if she would see the same beauty

in that I had just begun to discover.

So here I am now, after all the confusion

and all the searching,

I realized natural hair

is not just an option.

It is my way forward.

I want to know it, embrace it,

and grow it for myself.

The crown was never lost.

It was waiting, waiting to be understood,

waiting to be reclaimed,

waiting for permission

that was never needed.

For generations, African women were

taught to adapt, to conform, to survive,

to fit into systems not

designed with them in mind.

But today, something is changing through education,

through storytelling,

through science, culture and community.

African women are relearning their hair.

Not as a trend, but as truth.

Because the crown was never about class,

it was always about identity.

And when a woman knows who she is,

she no longer asks for permission to wear her crown.

We end where every story begins,

with voices.

These are the women who lived the journey,

the loss, the rediscovery and

the reclamation of the crown.

I want nothing else,

nothing smoother,

nothing borrowed.

This is my crown.

So my parents actually relaxed my hair

from a very early age on.

I think I was about

five or six years old.

And I relaxed my hair my whole life up

until my early twenties, when I also

colored it and it fell off.

So I knew I had to change something and I

went online to research, just to find out

that there was no

information in German available.

And so I went on YouTube and US American

blogs and I saw all

these women with long hair.

I mean, it was relaxed hair,

but it was long hair.

And I actually never saw

that in Germany before.

I never saw like black women with long hair.

And I was so inspired.

So I researched and researched, it went on and on.

And then I knew about or I got to know

about the historical parts of it

and the political parts of it.

And I know, no one ever taught me about

this not in school, not in university.

And that just woke me up.

So I decided to wear my hair natural

as a conscious decision.

And yeah, I taught my knowledge to other people,

family members, friends.

And it was like a mini natural hair

movement started around me.

And so I decided to give workshops for families

in the beginning.

Because I knew it was like I found a treasure.

And I knew that if I would change my knowledge,

I could actually change someone's life.

Take me, for instance,

I'm quite new in the industry.

Well, I like to say that I'm

quite new in the industry.

But one of the biggest platforms that I

got to make a name of myself in as an

actor was in a TV series.

And I've been told several times that the

reason I was cast wasn't just because of

my acting skills, but

it's because of how I looked.

It's because I'm dark

skinned, because I have this hair.

And these are lead roles.

For instance, I was cast for a very big

TV series called Dede.

And part of that was because of this.

And young people see

that, oh, I look like her.

Or maybe if I have acting

dreams, I can be like her.

Or maybe you don't have acting dreams.

It's fine.

I can rock this style that I saw hair

wear in hair natural hair to the office.

Oh, I didn't know I could

wear that to the office.

You know, things like this, it might be

tiny, it might seem like it's

insignificant, but

it's not insignificant.

And so artists like myself,

for me personally, I know there are a lot

of other artists, but I'm very passionate

about it because it's

part of my identity.

I struggled a lot when I was in school

for the color of my skin and for how

stressful my hair has been.

And it's been a journey

to get to embrace it.

So as an artist, as a storyteller,

my life will seep into my music.

So is something that I find very

important, it definitely will seep into

the messages that I tell.

And so, yeah, I have

two of the songs that I'm very passionate about in my career are

'I am tarr' and 'Be Your Own Beautiful'.

I am tarr is about my dark skin.

Be Your Own Beautiful

is about my hair.

I Just root songs about my skin and my hair.

Because I'm very proud of both.

It's very,

first of all I think

we have learned

that

everything that is, you know,

when you have long hair, it's nicer.

When you light skin, it's nicer.

This is what, you know,

this is how I was raised.

And being a writer and an actress in

Germany, it was not more easier.

Because it was more like, 'oh, we can't do this with you because'

There is, there was always ' because'.

So it's it's always a big challenge for

every single person if you haven't

learned to know who you are.

So, yeah a lot of the hair issues that we have

tend to actually come from our family members.

What I get a lot of from some black woman,

is they're saying, oh, Jackie, you won't

understand because you have the good hair

and you don't have type 4C.

So you won't understand.

I always find it to be a bit funny because

on one side of my family,

I had bad hair

because a lot of my cousins and other family members

have the loose hair type.

So the 3A, the 2C's

and straight hair.

So I was always considered to have bad hair.

So I grew a sort of shame around my hair

and I begged and I begged

for my hair to be relaxed.

And I'm so happy that my mom never really

gave in until I was about 17 or 18.

So

So some of my cousins, if we had an event,

say, oh, no, no, you need to get your hair braided or done.

But my other cousins with the looser curl

pattern were allowed to just wear their hair out.

And they look nice.

So, I understood very quickly that their hair

was nicer.

Than my hair.

I understood very quickly that they were prettier

because they had looser curls than I did.

And of course, if I had been,

and when I would go to other sides of my family

where people had tighter

curls, it would be the opposite.

So, oh, you have such nice hair.

You have good hair.

And because their hair was tighter.

So they had learned much earlier as well

that their tighter 4B,4C curls was not

as pretty as 3C curls, for example.

So.. and I think it's just something we need to get rid off.

This whole thing.

For me, personally, sometimes when I wear

certain types of wigs, and I think

majority of the time if I wear wigs and

weave on's, I feel it adds

10 more years to my age.

And it's something that people very close

to me have mentioned.

Right.

So I can take a picture like this and

take another picture having weave on.

And if I show it to random people to say,

how old do you think this one is and how

do you think that one is?

They will, if they call 40 for the wig one,

they will call 30 for the other one.

And I guess in God's own wisdom, he made

us to look ourselves and our

ages with our natural hair.

As a hair stylist, I've always done

different hair types and I've had lots

of different clients over the years.

So I've always had conversations with

people in regards to their hair and in

regards to self-love.

But it wasn't until I had my own journey,

my own healing journey, that I really

understood what it meant to feel

and embrace a sense of self-love.

So...

Let me break that down.

So that personal journey, started really

only about five years ago, to be honest.

And it happened in Covid.

And what triggered it wasn't even

anything to do with hair.

So I went on, I suppose, I went through

an emotional situation and that was a

catalyst that actually ended up with me

having to dig deep and

unpack a lot of things.

And I had to challenge

my sense of self-belief.

I had to challenge a lot of the

behaviors, the unhealthy behaviors.

The unhealthy mindset, the unhealthy thoughts

that I was carrying.

I had to undo all of that.

And once I did that, like I said, I was

in a better position to

actually embrace self-love.

And that had a knock on effect in terms

of my relationship with my hair.

And even just a little background, when I

was a kid, I had a lot of hair.

But my father would do 'home barber'.

My father would just, you know, just when

you least expect, and my dad would not

pay for anybody to barber my hair.

He would do it himself.

And I remember I would cry, I would wail,

as if something was

being taken away from me.

So I didn't like it.

So as SS after you know my secondary

education, I just realized that this is

the time for me to just be,

to grow my hair, to enjoy it, to embrace it.

But maintaining it was difficult for me.

So now that was a problem.

So I decided that, okay,

I'm going to try something.

Now, in 2009, there was a trend.

The weaves or the, you know, the synthetic hair,

you, after fixing it, you cut it.

So I don't know the proper name for it,

but you would cut it,

you know, to suit you.

It's either you cut it to be a bulb or,

you know, like something crazy.

So I just wanted to try it out.

Can you believe that after two months,

when I decided to take off the weave, the

synthetic weave, and then take off the cornrow

my hair was stuck in the middle.

So in the middle, I have

a scar, even till date.

Apparently, it had, you know

turned into a boil.

And it busted, and it took, it busted,

and the fluid that came from

the boil got stuck with my hair.

So the day that we had unbraided the cornrow

and then it was time for wash,

when they combed the hair, that part came off.

That part came off.

And so seeing that, because I had very

beautiful hair, and for

the center to have that,

it was just heartbreaking.

So I decided on that

that I wasn't going to use any chemical

and I wasn't going to do any cornrow

but I had to find a way to

maintain that type of hair that I have.

So I went in for the odd

I would lock my hair.

And this was 11 years ago.

You can just imagine.

And so, yes, it becomes a career for me.

I understand hair.

I understand how somebody can make it

look a certain way for you.

And so I can now advise and give my

services or render my services to

somebody who actually is struggling with

natural hair, but wants to

maintain it in their way.

Because...

this is my hair, this is my name, this is my crown