Akinola Davies: Beauty and Black Masculinity

*This article was originally published in Beautystack Magazine Issue 1*

Akinola Davies, aka Crack Stevens, is an advocate for social change. The London-based moving image artist and DJ often speaks out on issues of race and gender equality; with his portfolio of work paying homage to his Nigerian roots and telling stories of diasporan communities, beauty and culture. He’s worked with Kenzo, directed music videos for Larry B and is a co-founder of club night PDA. 

While a lot of his work has pulled on themes of beauty and identity politics, his own image is equally unapologetic. Long dreadlocks have become a signature part of his look, often wrapped upon his head or worn down “like a scarf”. We caught up with Akinola to discuss his beauty routine, and the significance of hair in his work, storytelling and identity. 

Your hair is such a distinctive part of your style, how do you maintain your dreadlocks?

I’ve had my current locs for 7-8 years and I did them myself. My hair is the most coarse consistency of black hair, so I just twist it. As long as I keep doing that every day for a couple of months, it just locs.

Every few months, I go to an incredible hair stylist called Virginia. She does a deep cleanse with Indian healing clay - it’s a bit of a process and takes a couple of hours. The rest of the time, I just rinse my hair with organic apple cider vinegar. It’s really good for a deep cleanse - it breaks down product residue and frees your hair of dirt. For me, it works better than shampoo. Most shampoo dries my hair out, but with apple cider vinegar my hair feels very fresh. I also try to keep my scalp moisturised as much as I can - I use jojoba oil, coconut oil, and at the moment I’ve been using a flaxseed and monoi hair oil.  

What does your hair mean to you?

If you’d asked me this question a couple of years ago, it probably meant a lot more. It’s somewhere in line with my identity, but it doesn’t necessarily define it. It’s just like having another relationship with any other part of your body.  

I always wanted to grow my hair and dreads are a way for me to keep really long curls. When I was younger, it was maybe more of an affinity for wanting to be something.

You’ve said before that hair is an important part of your work - what did you mean by that?

It’s an important part of my work because a lot of my work explores themes of race, identity, and gender, and ultimately, black hair is very politicised. The institution is very politicised, the people who wear it are very politicised, so it’s an area of investigation within a broader discussion around identity. In some workplaces, you can’t have dreads or cornrows, but what denotes the standard of hair you can wear to school or work? Ultimately, those decisions are racist, because it’s saying one style is acceptable and another is othered.

Hair denotes identity, it’s like storytelling and passing on tradition. A lot of indigenous cultures were very oral, they didn’t write stuff down to document it, stories were told from one person to another, and in a lot of patterns in braiding, plaiting or dreading. It’s like a story - like someone passing you down a family heirloom.

Has your hair every led to you experiencing being othered?

Having dreads kind of pigeon holes you as some kind of Rastafarian, but I’m definitely not one. I haven’t smoked anything in six years, but everyone always presumes I have a light, presumes I have a cigarette or presumes I smoke weed. 

I was never allowed to grow dreads at school, but I haven’t encountered anything on a professional level. It’s just weird encounters with strangers where I encounter stereotypes based on how I look. For me, it’s never really affected anything I’ve been trying to do.

What was the inspiration behind you wanting to get locs? 

If I’m honest, it was probably Bob Marley. I remember in university I was quite obsessed with his music. There was a song called Rastaman Live Up, and he’s got this singing cry of ‘Keep your culture, don't be afraid of the vulture! Grow your dreadlock, don't be afraid of the wolf-pack!’. I guess for me at 18, hearing someone who had such a huge global impact, encouraging people to be proud of where they’re from, was a big thing.

I never enjoyed cutting my hair when I was younger, so I always wanted to grow it. I guess because my hair was the toughest consistency of black hair, combing it was such an ordeal and I’d almost be in tears because it’s so painful. I didn’t know I’d get dreads, I thought I might get braids like Snoop Dog, or hot comb Shirley Temple hair. I think it was a combination of knowing myself well - knowing I hate cutting and combing my hair, but also my love of music and Bob Marley. I saw that he had managed to achieve everything he wanted to whilst still being unapologetically black.

Can you tell us about the film you directed - ‘This Hair of Mine’?

I directed it for an amazing hairstylist Cyndia Harvey. It’s a film about diasporan hairstyles that we screened at an Arts Festival in Paris. It’s a film about African hair and the relationship between that hair and diasporan women, and them telling stories about how the shoot made them feel.

For me, it’s bittersweet because on the one hand, I’m really glad we can make something with these strong black female protagonists talking about their relationship with culture, with their hair and how empowered and regal they feel. However, it also saddened me that in 2018, we’re only just having these conversations. There’s a lot of people who have no sense of belonging to their culture, so putting them in that context is quite overwhelming. It’s gratifying, but only a finite number of people will see this film. I’m happy it exists, but I just hope the conversation will be moving that way and those communities won’t have to feel like they’re being othered.

In the creative community, we’re a very small and influential group, but those harmful attitudes are still very prevalent in wider society and in the mass media. There probably aren’t many stockbrokers with dreads, or black bankers with baby curls. How much do we engage with those other communities and sectors? No one’s having these conversations with them. I feel like the creative community gasses itself up a lot, but it’s speaking to the echo chamber, but sometimes it’s important to fortify your thoughts before sharing them with other people. It’s a catch 22.

A lot of your work also focuses on redefining masculinity - what advice would you give to young, black men about how to navigate their relationship with beauty and the world around them?

You’re not what people say you are, you’re what you say you are, and you should never have to feel like you have to fit into a certain mould. It’s quite an emotional question. Ultimately, in the black community there’s one way to be a male for black males; there’s one way to be a black male for black females and there’s one way to be a black male for white people. There’s so many different characters and shape-shifting you have to do - which is super confusing, especially in your own community. I want to say something like don’t be afraid to express yourself, but it’s fucking terrifying. Just try to surround yourself with people who encourage you to be yourself.