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Texture Diaries is a space for Black people across industries to reflect on their journeys to self-love, and how accepting their hair, in all its glory, played a pivotal role in this process. Each week, they share their favorite hair rituals, products, and the biggest lessons they’ve learned when it comes to affirming their beauty and owning their unique hair texture.
In honor of Juneteenth, the musician keiyaA is releasing a video compilation of her recent performance at the St. Augustine Church in New York, the only church in the city that has left its slave galleries—a separate part of the church where enslaves people could view the service—in place. “I knew I really wanted to do something in that space because of its significance. I wanted to honor the legacy of it,” keiyaA says. The result, produced in partnership with Abrons Art Center and ODA, is an entrancing visual, entitled A Meditation on the Spirit as Captive. This is the latest in a series of poignant projects for the Chicago-born singer, who recently starred in the short film Passage, created and written by Solange, and released her meditative album, Forever Ya Girl, in 2020.
keiyaA’s pride in her community and her interest in preserving its stories shines through not only in her music and its visuals, but also in her beauty and hair choices. “Hair is a super important part of my self expression as an artist. Especially as a Black person performing, there’s a lot of cultural politics associated with our hair,” she says. The Brooklyn-based singer reclaims her narrative through experimentation. “I love to put a twist on traditional African styles, like purple box braids for example.”
keiyaA’s earliest hair memories included getting relaxers around age three. “I didn’t really start thinking much about my hair until middle school, when I began also expressing myself through clothes,” she remembers. Then she started bleaching and dyeing her hair with blue, green, and purple kool-aid, for the “better color payoff” that came from the drink powder when it was mixed with conditioner. “I would try a lot of wild colors and patterns on my hair. I began seeing it as a way to express myself. But the relaxer became very troubling for me,” she adds.
In college, studying jazz at UIC in Chicago, she decided to go for the big chop, cutting her hair herself in her dorm bathroom. “In the moment, I was so ready to chop it all off, I was so frustrated with my hair,” she says. But immediately after she cut it off, she felt a rush of nervousness. Thankfully, she was able to turn to the internet for guidance and support. “That was the same period of time where there was beginning to be a plethora of information about natural hair online.” Throughout her early 20s, she learned to do her own box braids and twists. “I was really self-reliant with my protective styles,” she says, even eventually learning how to do her own weaves. “Hair care was a huge part in learning how to love myself and understand myself,” she says. “It’s been really important that I learned to love myself with both short and long hair.”
Along her journey, she’s found inspiration in Donna Summer and Cicely Tyson. “She was always unafraid of and intentional about being proud about her identity and displaying that through her hair; whether it was the intricate braids or anything else,” she says of Tyson.
To keep her hair healthy, keiyaA moisturizes her scalp with a DIY oil blend—a mix of jojoba, rosemary, and peppermint—that she applies throughout the week. “Every now and then I like to try something different and extra. Lately, I’ve been loving scalp scrubs,” she notes, especially the one from Drunk Elephant.
Ultimately, for keiyaA, hair care is one part of staying grounded. “Knowing and understanding who I am and what I want and where I come from is essential,” she says. “That’s what helps me to try things that are scary or take risks. I always stay rooted in that.”
