The Revolution Will Be Styled

Remember when a certain kind of man wore locs? Think about it. What kind of man are you visualizing? The one I am picturing usually bought oil from the incense corner man, was a poetry reading regular where he recited verses about the forthcoming revolution and was regarded as "deep", a walking encyclopedia of the history of the African Diaspora.

I remember a time when a woman would describe a man she had just met and after giving the particulars: height, weight and skin shade, she would say in a hushed tone, "girl, and he has locs..." Like that was icing on the mothafuckin cake! Like that meant he had memorized the entire kama sutra and would have your legs quivering, that is after he made love to your mind first (of course). It seemed that if you were a man and you had locs, there was a good chance you could get a woman who just “couldn’t help herself around a brotha with locs” to drop her draws.
Well it seems those days are a'changin...

Because now I see nothing but (and excuse my stereotyping) lil' hood niglets wearing what appear to be haphazard locs, thanks to their biggest heroes, Lil' Wayne and Co.

I know you've seen them in your city, on your train and on the block. And um yeah, it's becoming an epidemic and it concerns me. Now I obviously can't tell someone what they can or can't do with their hair but I was under the impression that deciding to grow locs was not something you entered upon lightly. You know, it was something you consulted the Heavens and the Earth about first, lit a candle, did a little loc growing chant. You did your research on starting & caring for your new coiff and worried about how you would look in that 'in between' phase. Now it seems that you just have to ask the girl in your neighborhood who can do some hair to start locing you up. And now I find myself questioning these youngins’ “authenticity”, wondering if they know the history of dreadlocks, the strength that is their hair, saying to myself: oh they have dreads but they don’t have locs. Catch my drift?

So now with the niglets taking up the loc craze, it seems that many men I know have cut theirs (also something you don't do lightly)...Is it because the trend is changing? Are these men who were once regarded as "deep" fearful that they won't be taken seriously because now they will look like and be associated with the ‘Snap your fingers, do your step’ generation? And how will we know who the "deep" brothers are once they've cut their locs? Should we be on the hunt for some type of RBG clothing item?

Perhaps the locs of the earlier generation was just a trend as well, cloaked in incense, bad poetry and weed smoke and we just couldn’t see through the haze. But it was a trend nonetheless, reserved for a certain type of man. I mean if those men were really down and ready to start a revolution; wouldn’t it have happened by now? And just because these new crop of youngins’ have provided a different version of the trend, does that mean they won’t be just as down when the revolution comes?

So just when I’m ready to write these lil’ niglets off for just substituting the cornrow trend with locs, I think of the following words from the great Andre 3000:
Now question is every nigga with dreads for the cause?
Is every nigga with golds for the fall?
Naw, so don't get caught in appearance
It's Rum Punch Friday another Black experience*

Happy Rum Punch Friday! Have a great weekend! Join us again on Monday…

* Yeah I changed that last line. What are y’all going to do, tell Andre?