Dreadlocks from a No-Go to a Must-Have Style
- modernmaasai
- Jun 26, 2018
- 14 min read
Tired of relaxing my hair, never liked or had wigs and weaves on my head in my lifetime, 10 years ago, I decided to transform myself to become a dreadlock Rasta... a Rasta-Girl! Dreadlocks make me feel natural, they save my time and money. They actually have relieved me from the pain, sitting hours and feeling ache of someone making you kinky African hair, or even the stress of finding a hairdresser, especially when you are abroad. They also have given me some uniqueness as I have found my own identity with locks in comparison to other casual hairstyles. For my10 years jubilee, I have therefore decided to analyse the transformation of dreadlocks in black culture, from a NO-GO image to a MUST-HAVE thing!
Sit Back and Enjoy!
Dreadlocks Culture in Africa
I was born in the 80s. It was the time when westernization of African people was getting to the peak, as decolonisation and apartheid were on their final stages. Economically, the continent was moving forward and people could by then afford radio and cassettes to listen to the music from other countries and continents. Reggae, the Jamaican music genre was becoming strong in Africa, or at least in Kenya, where I was born and raised, remarkably since Lucky Dude, the South African Reggae singer was becoming an African Icon for his anti-apartheid struggle and songs about African social problems and injustice, and even just because Bob Marley the Legend was gone and reggae needed a voice.
Thus, it was the time when wherever you went in Kenya you would hear almost every household, shop, business, especially in the Jua Kali sector playing Lucky Dube music. Celebrations, even Christmas and Easter weren’t complete without the Lucky Dube’s ‘Together as One’ song. Everywhere you walked you would hear people singing Prisoner, even the drunkareds who were justfying their actions without their knowledge. Everywhere you went to buy music the trial sound track playing to attract the customers was 'Rasta Never Dies' and the cassettes of display were Lucky Dubes' followed by the Bob Marley, the Legend, then Burning Spear and Culture, of course playing 'Go Dread.'
Roots-Reggae-Culture
Africans saw him as their Messiah of Reggae music, as the God of Reggae, who was already in heaven, was Bob Marley, the Legend who brought reggae culture to Africans through his Zimbabwe liberation and his African Unite imploration, which was dedicated through the Pan- African Solidarity Anthem asking for the unification of all Africans, same as Together as One by Lucky Dube. The whole Rasta thing was climaxed by Bob Marley’s Ethiopian visit, leading to Culture's dedication through their 'Addis Ababba' Lyrics, all of which strengthened the acknowledgment of Rastafarianism, the culture that upholds living naturally, in Africa.
Rastafarianism
It was all about hearing the message. And as Reggae music and culture was getting stronger, Africans, men in particular, who were strongly influenced by Bob Marley and Lucky Dube through the text of their music begun to follow the values of Rastafarians through aesthetic perception by visualising and copying their idols based on the images on the cover of the radio cassette they bought, pictures on the newspapers they read and the live concerts images they saw. And soon men in Africa were becoming Rastamen who married empresses’ not just wives.
It wasn’t long before clothes, which were brought by the westerners who were ashamed of the nakedness of African culture, Maasai in particular, started transforming to become four-coloured, with Green, Gold, Red and Black playing the key role. The next thing that trailed was grass (weed or herb) smoking as it was considered a principle ritual of a real Rastafarian that you weren’t one without spiritually blazing cannabis or ganja and despite the fact that it has always been illegal in many African nations where you will go to many years in prison for growing, selling or smoking cannabis.
This started getting serious, as the next thing we know was the hair transformation. It was considered incomplete to be a Rastafarian without dreadlocks because they symbolised the rejection of Babylon as Rastafarians refused the aesthetic norms of grooming that they didn’t want to be slaves of Babylon and they were committed to naturalness. Dreadlocks and non-shaved beards were, in fact, biblically inspired as they said to be a covenant, the one is said to be in Ethiopia, between God and Rasta, which was argued through the Book of Numbers 6:5-6, which says
‘For the entire period of his vow of separation, no razor shall pass over his head. He must be holy until the time of his separation to the LORD is complete; he must let the hair of his head grow long.'
Moreover, following the Biblical figure Samson, dreadlocks were contemplated as a symbol of strength even because Haile Selassie was thought to have conquered the Lion of Judah just like Samson who slew a lion barehanded. And to communicate that, Rastafarian dreadlocks were therefore shaped and styled to look like lion Mane symbolising the conquering of the lion, which might explain The Weeknd’s look, as he has Ethiopian roots, or Gunplay and Murs hairstyles, maybe they are real Rastafarians!
MAU MAU, Mungiki and Tribal Hair Culture
Hence, Rastafarian dreadlocks weren’t just dreadlocks as they were highly associated with unkempt look with beards all-over their face including all the body hair. However, the remarkably art of naturalism and lack of grooming in dreadlocks and the general appearance of Dreadlockrastas was already practiced by Kenyan freedom fighters and anti-colonists during the MAU MAU uprising in the early 50s. During that time, men with broad long unkempt dreadlocks from Kikuyu tribe became gorillas hiding in the mountains and forests while fighting the colonists to get their lands back. People believe that these were the people who might have been copied by the Rastafarians, as it is argued that Jamaicans, also colonised by the British just like Kenyans, might have seen the news and images of the feared MAU MAU fighters during the struggle for independence in Kenya and applied it as a symbol of 'fierceness and fearlessness' in their fight against Babylon.
All in all, some other African cultures like the Maasai, Somali and Omo people already had long natural thin twisted hair as part of their culture.
And after the MAU MAU uprising, there remained an ethic group in Kenya called MUNGIKI and banned for illegality. The name stands for ‘a united people,’ which is known for its rejection of colonialism, Christianity and westernization and these people identify themselves with dreadlocks, mostly disheveled ones. The group is linked to violences like post-election violence in 2007-08, anti-government resistance and they function like a Mafia group.
The Beach Boys-Dreadlocks and Sex-Tourism
Then there came tourism in Kenya. The industry brought some externalities, both positive and negative. As the Kenyan government and foreign investors profited from it, with less multiplier effect for the locals due to the system of all-inclusive and too high unemployment rate, jobless people tried their luck by going to the beach since tourists are segregated and spend most of their time on private resorts at private beaches and don’t go out to buy anything at the local shops, bars or restaurants, to do business with the tourists. While on the beach, the boys started practicing acrobatic. Tourists surrounded to watch and take pictures with them.
Hotel managers realised their potential as entertainers and booked them to entertain tourists at the resorts as part of the animation program, which of course needed special looks and uniqueness as entertainers. Using local materials like tree barks soaked in water and rubbed on hair, they made dreadlocks. During the entertainment session, white women seeing the fully-trained men in six-packs and dreadlocks were fascinated that they couldn’t resist. Those without dreadlocks saw how uninteresting they were to tourists and how successful those with dreadlocks were and they also decided to make dreadlocks. Tourists started falling for them, marrying them and of course the locals noticed the high demand for dreaded men by white women and soon the supply increased.
Boys seeing the interest of white women on dreaded men, to become attention-grabbing, magnetising and enticing, they had to have dreadlocks. More boys in dreadlocks flocked the beach spending time by trying to sell safari, fruits, souvenirs and drugs to tourists while hoping to be approached by white women to be married. Competition swelled and the boys became aggressive that they started approaching white women and no longer waiting to be approached.
Age didn’t matter as, in fact, they thought the older the better, since they are more financially stable with less responsibilities. Older white-single-unattractive women in Europe saw the trend and started going to Kenya to import their nice-bodied young, energetic attractive, sex slaves in dreadlocks. And soon the business broadened to make Kenyan coast become one of the world most famous sex tourism destination, as the boys started selling themselves, and their girlfriends, wives, cousins, aunts, sisters and even mothers and grandmothers to white men. Thus, girls, complicit, joined the beach as well.
They started by selling services such as massage, braiding female tourists, and goods like fruits and clothes to become the beach girls, however they were accomplice of the beach boys, as they were their to service white men once the boys found a man looking for a girl. All in all, the boys at the beach those with the culture of dreadlocks and known for speaking several foreign languages were the center of everything and became famous as ‘the beach boys’. And due to spending many hours on direct sunlight and salty seawater, somehow they became very dark in skin-tone while their dreadlocks became brown or dirty blond.
Soon you would walk in Mombasa, Diani, Malindi and Watamu towns and beaches to see very young black boys with unkempt dreadlocks holding hands with very old white women, then the next and the next and the next. The boys became rich, had money, drove swanky cars, had fancy houses, all sponsored by Wazungu, white woman. The problem was, Kenya is a masculine society, however, a man married to an older lady who is bankrolling everything would be considered as ‘he is married by the woman and not that he married the woman,’ which is negative.
And so it was a cliché that men in dreadlocks were beach boys, those male prostitutes who sell sex to white women to get good life, however they were married by women and not married the women! Scandalous! More terrible was the fact that most of them had younger black women at home with children and as beach boys they sold themselves as single. Thus, normal men didn’t want to be associated with the beach boys and never wanted to have dreadlocks for the sake of their image! Nonetheless, there were fewer beach women with dreadlocks walking with old white men too. During that time, dreadlocks weren’t too much by black women, even the beach girls preferred braiding their hair, which gave them flexibility to style and re-style their hair differently whenever they wanted. Women thought that dreadlocks were too monotonic!
Dreadlocks at Workplace
In general, dreadlocks in Africa were negatively deemed in the society since they were contemplated as wild, unattractive, badly groomed, and especially in Kenya, they were highly associated with unconstructiveness, as people who wore them were notorious for troublemaking like the MAU MAU fighters (by the tribes which didn’t fight for independence except for Kikuyus who considered them as part of their culture) and MUNGIKI an illegal cult. And as MUNGIKI you would have troubles with people from other tribe as they might want to kill you due to tribalism, so you would prefer not to have them to avoid being classified as one.
And dreadlocks through Rastafarianism, the fact that these people had a record of smoking weed, which was illegal and breaking the law, having dreadlocks was considered a cannabis smoker. And this meant that you weren’t safe as dreadlocks were like a searching warrant for the police to inspected you when they saw you. Moreover, the naturalism of Rastafarians where dreadlocks were combined with unshaved look of men with too much beard and Rasta colours made them unkempt. The fact that dreadlocks were kept natural there was also no colouring of white hair, less washing involved as most Africans didn’t have too much water and based on the economy they couldn’t afford too much soap to wash clean so much hair they even didn’t have blow-dryers and electricity to dry so much hair which made people regard them as dirty and stinks, there was a very negative view on dreadlocks. Their looks weren’t stylish either as they were just kept open, in big crocheted Rasta colour benny hut or just covered with a colorful bandana some with a ganja symbol.
The other aspect was that dreadlocks were associated with the beach boys and girls, viewed from the facet of sex tourism. Due to the negativity of dreadlocks, it was very difficult for people with dreadlocks to be taken seriously and be perceived professionally or qualified, thus they couldn’t get a decent job. Thus, they were associated with idealism, as most Rastas were jobless and grouping. For men to communicate their qualifications they needed short groomed hair or clean shaved heads. Women were accepted in braids, cornrows,blow-dry, perm, curlkit, weave or wigs.
Attending schools in dreadlocks wasn’t part of school uniform or corporate culture and it was forbidden, similarly to braids in many schools. Getting a job at the bank, or anywhere in the society wasn’t easy. A doctor, nurse, teacher, professor or a TV presenter in dreadlocks was unthinkable. No one would take such a person serious. It was like having tattoos in Europe! For a normal role in the society you would be viewed different if you had dreadlocks. Imagine being a dad, mother, grandmother, chief, boss, or a politician such as an MP, Minister or even a president in dreadlocks. It was unimaginable!
I remember at the age of 19 years doing my first dreadlocks after finishing my secondary school education while waiting for my results to join a college. My elder sister, who was my guardian asked me to cut them off and be serious. While working at the hotel as an animator, we needed a serious image thus we were asked not to have dreadlocks so that tourists couldn’t mistake us to the beach boys and girls, whose image had deteriorated, as Kenyan sex tourism image was disreputable worldwide and the fact that they didn’t leave tourist in peace, even married women, to enjoy their holiday that most tourists feared to walk at the beach.
Modern Era of Dreadlocks in Africa
Time changed and the image of dreadlocks started shifting. Africans started moving from just hearing to envisioning, as many households begun to afford televisions, even though many could only buy the black and white ones, but they needed no colour to see the dreadlocks.
Lenny Kravitz started his career with a signature look of neatly-styled dreadlocks and a nose piercing in the early 1990s. Kravitz’s wife Lisa Bonet too had dreadlocks. Together they made a statement. Female artists like Tracy Chapman, Toni Morrison, and Lauryn Hill all with dreadlocks became famous, joined later by Goapele, Ledisi, and Kim Fields, among others. Then apartheid was ending, which the whole world was witnessing. At that time, in 1992, Whoopi Goldberg played a teacher in Sarafina movie, which made her famous in Africa. Her style as a character in Sarafina and her general style as Whoopi, seeing her in dreadlocks together with other strong black women, black women, whose hair beauty standards were based on wigs, weaves, braids, perm, and blow-dry, which many couldn’t afford anyway, started considering locks, which gave some uniqueness, as a style of its own. Now the trepidation for dreadlocks on black women was diminishing.
Dreadlocks in the NFL
Sports world started striking. American National Football League (NFL) highly made of blacks, was full of dreadlocks. Already in 1997, Ricky Williams was famous for his dreadlocks look leading to the declaration of long hair as part of NFL uniform, due to discussions his dreadlocks caused. They soon became a trend as Al Harris, Richard Sherman, Steven Jackson, Chris Johnson, Marion Barber, Larry Fitzgerald, Bob Sanders, Langston Moore, Josh Cribbs, Marshawn Lynch,Devin Hester, Laurence Maroney and Mike McKenzie all played with dreadlocks.
Dreadlocks in NBA
From NFL, the drift went to other ball games. Black players and athletes got tired of perming, braiding and cornrows as style. They needed recognition and uniqueness, while tattoos and Afros weren’t good enough. They begun stirring towards dreadlocks with players, even in basketball known for cornrows and braids, trend shifting having players like Chris Bosh, Brian Grant and Etan Thomas in locks.
Dreadlocks in NBL, Tennis and Soccer
Andrew McCutchen a professional baseball outfielder wore them to became his trademark, which he later cut to donate to a charity. Also, in tennis, stars like Gael Monfils and Dustin Brown pushed dreadlocks.Interestingly, in football or what the American call soccer, where there are a lot of professional black players from Africa and Latin America, dreadlocks has never been a trend.
Dreadlocks in the Entertainment Industry
Soon after, the music and entertainment industry joined the club. Artists started making dreadlocks art and style where the culture shifted from just Reggae thing to Raggaeton, Dancehall and even hip hop. Hip hop and R&B were no longer a braids-cornrows thing. Rappers like Lil Wayne, Flava Flav and Busta Rhymes were now wearing dreadlocks. Others like 2 Chainz, Ace Hood, Beenie Man, Chris Brown, Chief Keef, E-40, Fat Trel, Fetty Wrap, Future, Lil Jon, Jaden Smith, J.cole, Migos Trio, Wiz Khalifa, The Weekend, T-Pain, Waka Flocka Flame, Wale, Wyclef Jean, XXXTentacion to name but a few, all had dreadlocks sometimes in their carrier, even actors like Malcolm Jamal.
Now the house was complete and the image of long dirty thick black-grey freestyle Rastafarian dreadlocks was replaced by straight up, groomed, coloured, healthy, stylish curly locks. People started admiring them.
Dreadlocks Image Transformation By Africans
Mombasa and Malindi towns having damaged dreadlocks image to beach-boysim, rural areas like Kikuyu region having destroyed the image with MAU MAU and MUNGIKI cults and other places having wrecked the image with Rastafarianism and ganja smoking, big cities like Nairobi were now responsible to metamorphosis dreadlocks image into business, style, entertainment, art and brand-identity.
African Icons in Dreadlocks
Self-employed people who didn’t need to apply for a job were on the lead. They starting having dreadlocks combined with business look as they wore full-suits.
Sooner weddings were marshaled in dreadlocks style with no Green, Red, Gold and Black colours in the wedding theme, something that was unthinkable before, even going to church with dreadlocks was a sin. Artists like Nameless, Redsan and Nazizi (Kenyans), Awilo Longomba (Congolese), which wasn’t common by Lingala artists as Congolese preferred blonder-short hairstyle, Yvonne Chaka Chaka (South African) who were later joined by artists like Diamond (Bongo), P-square and Mr. Flavor (Nigerians) to name but a few, who were all famous in Kenya, had dreadlocks and therefore potential fashion icons. The fear was finally over as they started becoming more common, but mostly by men, not too much by women.
Dreadlocks Styling By Black Men
Unlike normal hair where only women have possibilities to style inversely, contrasting the Rastafarian era where men who wore dreadlocks had their hair either open, tied up behind using two locks or in Rasta-color toque, the modern era gave black men the leeway to invest and play with their hair. Men were seen in sophisticated styled dreadlocks with creativity playing a key role to win the uniqueness. Dreads were now highlighted with different colours either pure, jet black, half-black-half-blond, full blond, brownish or just coloured tips, straightened up or curly, long or short.
Others with long styled their locks in dreaded buns, or ponytail, either wrapped, or twisted in custom design or just double twisted ponytails. The ponytails were sometimes combined with cornrow-twisted fronts. Others kept the freestyle look of Rastafarian either long or short, however combined with grooming such as shaved beard, handsomeness, nicely well-trained sexy manly bodies and sometimes with side-undercut or just left as mini dreadlocks.
To get identity and win some individuality, groomed locks were styled with other body modifications and items, like styling with baseball caps. Now dreadlocks became, fashion, style and brand identity where there are hair saloon specialised in making and re-twisting dreadlocks including dreadlock brands such as beeswax, cream, oil, shampoo, conditioner or spray for dreadlocks that can be shopped in grocery stores.
Dreadlocks By White People
Soon after, white people started impersonating the blacks. How they did it became cultural appropriation rather than appreciation because, after a very long struggle by black people to modify the negative image of dreadlocks, white people accomplished to destroy it within a very short period of time.
Dirty Hole
They made dreadlock a vegan, hippie and Goa style, where westerners in extreme tattoos and body modification started having them as part of their style. And since white people, who mainly have straight hair, had difficulties to make them in comparison to Africans with wavy, kinky, curly hair with volume ultimate for perfect locks, their dreadlocks were a catastrophe like Anne Lamott, Jonathan Davis, Jason Momoa and Zak Keasey have demonstrated.
Moreover, white people hair isn’t ideal for dreadlock, as they make them appear dirty, due to the fact that once hairs is lost it remains in the lock, however each hair has a white point visible at the edge, which is the root and with time there are several white roots/stuffs in the lock looking like dandruffs. Thats why some german-speaking people call them ‘dreckloch’ meaning ‘dirty hole.'
Business Opportunists
And as white people are innovative and opportunists, seeing opportunities in everything, they started making business out of dreadlocks by creating synthetic dreadlock extensions, which encouraged people with agenda to profit from dreadlocks image making temporary version of locks like Lady Gaga, Shakira, Justine Bieber, Kylie Jenner, Zendaya and Miley Cyrus, just a red carpet look or for marketing purposes. Others used fake locks for fashion shows like sending models in dreadlocks to walk the runway for example at the Moschino Spring Summer 2015, London Menswear Fashion Week in 2014 or Marc Jacobs’ Spring 2017 fashion show.
Dreadlocks became a laughingstock, especially when someone saw a niche to design weird accessories as trend for locks like singers Ani DiFranco and Crystal Bowersox. Some combined them with weird dressing code walking mostly barefoot to make it a hippie and Goa party look, people known as adventurous backpackers. On top of that they added other body modifications such as extreme tattoos all over their bodies even face, nose, lips piercing, and gauged, expanded or stretched earlobes with various types and sizes of plugs (Crystal Bowersox). Others went for weird colours of dreadlocks having blue, purple, green or even pink dreadlocks like Lana Wachowski.
Movie Character and Role Models
Movie characters played by Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean and John Travolta as Terl in Battlefield Earth both with very unkempt locks with very uncanny accessories added insult to injury since they played a major role in influencing dreadlock culture in white people.
And due to these role models, dreadlocks in white people have been regarded from a very negative perspective that these people cannot get decent jobs, for example in banks and the society view them from the perspective similar to punks, which is what they have accomplished. Ridiculous!
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