- FileDeejays Goofy (left) and Hawkeye sport uncoventional hairstyles which have now become popular in the dancehall.
Tanya Batson, Staff Reporter
ALTHOUGH hair should be a very simple matter, over the years it has taken on many political implications due to the evolution of human race relations. Humans often do not simply describe hair in terms of length, texture and culture and, when they do, these terms often have other implications.
The political implications of hair can be clearly seen by the number of important historical figures who have argued about it. At the top of this list is Marcus Garvey's statement: "Don't remove the kinks from your hair. Remove them from your brain." This statement becomes especially important when Garvey's importance to the Rastafari movement is considered.
Malcolm X also made boldly political statements about hair. He stated: "The black man in America has been colonised mentally; his mind has been destroyed. And today, even though he goes to college, he comes out and still doesn't even know he is a black man; he is ashamed of what he is because his culture has been destroyed; he has been made to hate his skin; he has been made to hate the texture of his hair; he has been made to hate the features that God gave him."
Both men deal with the political implications of hair in a cultural context wherein the tightly coiled 'water repellent' features of black persons' hair are associated with 'badness' and inferiority. Even in contemporary Jamaica, whether your hair is straight or tightly coiled, and is thus easy 'fi knat-up, knat-up' dictates whether your hair is described as 'pretty hair'.
Blackness
Next to skin colour, hair is one of the most easily identified features of blackness. Thus, accepting black hair in its natural form has become akin to accepting one's blackness. As cultural awareness has grown and black people the world over have begun celebrating African features, for many the question of how your hair looks has become moot - at least in terms of 'badness'. The time of the Afro has come, gone and come again. Locks are no longer thought to be 'nasty' and many schools which had previously banned braids now allow students to wear them.
Hair remains important because it is one of the first things you see or do not see when you attempt to sum someone up. It therefore becomes an important part of 'human packaging' and packaging is important to entertainment popular entertainment, especially.
As the popularity of N'Sync, Britney Spears and all other bubble gum pop pedalling boy bands and belly-skin girls has shown, popular music is often about nothing more than packaging. Popular music often works off a formula and once that formula proves fruitful, then it is used to duplicate other successes.
Of course, not only bubble gum pop is concerned with the marketing process. With the success of Bob Marley, one thing became clearly evident the image of the mystic Rastaman 'chanting down Babylon' had international appeal. Locks are possibly the most profound political statement that hair has ever made. Embodied in allowing black hair the freedom of becoming matted is a rejection of the status quo that dictates hair must be combed and cropped short. When this is added to the potent rebellious lyrics of reggae, it is a firebrand of a combination.
Capitalism, colour, hair
Of course, record companies were willing to cash in on the possibilities that lie within the Rasta. Grub Cooper pointed out that during the 1970s, Island Records offered to sign Fab Five on the condition that they grow locks and change the band's name to Grub. "We weren't interested in going that route and growing locks for show," Cooper stated, explaining why the band turned down the offer.
Mr. Cooper also points out that he recognises that this attempt to reshape the band was simply a matter of 'repackaging', as is used in selling any other product. He notes that imaging remains important, although the image may not be that of Rasta. However, issues of image continue to be relevant.
For some reason, it is often assumed that only women are obsessed with their hair, but in truth, the crowning glory is also important to men (even if it is only whether or not they have it), especially when they are in the entertainment business. One of the most obvious ways that hair is used is to show that artistes deviate from the status quo. Whether this is in the form of the hard rocker of the 1980s who wore big, blow-dried hair or the punk rocker with multi-coloured hair, or even the locks of the Rasta, hair is a symbol of rebellion and that has great purchase, especially in youth culture.
The fact that stars become role models for the young has long been proven. As such, hairstyles popularised by the bold, beautiful, and sometimes simply weird people almost always become popular with the young.
Conservative
Even so, with the exception of growing locks, Jamaican stars' hairstyles have remained mainly conservative. However, it should be noted that this may well be related to the strict guidelines that surround gender. Looking at the hairstyles that male deejays wear can even be taken as an indicator of which styles are largely acceptable. For example, it must be noted that while a few men indulge in wearing 'bubbles' as a part of their heterosexual identity, this has not completely caught on. Similarly, very few of our popular deejays have taken to this. On the other hand, 'canerows' have taken off in the society and found their home on many a head.
However, lack of hair has also made its way into popularity. The bald black man has become quite the sex symbol. Being black and bald, seems to have become equated with raw power. Thus, this style has also gained popularity. While it has not yet made had a dominant effect on the local music scene, it is safely ensconced in R&B and hip-hop, both genres which greatly influence local trends.
One of the few deejays who have gone on the really outlandish hair trends is Elephant Man. The deejay, who has been dubbed the 'Energy God', seems to have found hairstyles which match the name. Having gone though such a wide range of colours, varying from shocking yellow, green and yellow to red, his name seems to reflect his persona.
Even beyond marketing, hair often reflects creative freedom. Those who allow hair to make its own decisions constantly seem to be more free, more artistic. Alice Walker, author of The Colour Purple, says: "Eventually I knew precisely what hair wanted: it wanted to grow, to be itself, to attract lint, if that was its destiny, but to be left alone by anyone, including me, who did not love it as it was." In this speech, entitled 'Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain', Ms. Walker uses hair as a metaphor for how attempts to curtail the self are stifling.
The simple fact is that hair is one of the first things we try to gain control over and letting go of this control, or steering the hair into an unprescribed direction seems to indicate artistic freedom. Thus, whether it is a marketing gimmick or a real political statement, hair continues to speak volumes.
