“Don’t Touch My Hair”—Solange’s New Music Video Has an Announcement to Make

Hair is in the air: Across social media, an impassioned conversation is blooming around the subject, sparked by such controversies as Marc Jacobs’s dreadlocks. Meanwhile, in a trickle-up effect, women from sidewalks to runways and red carpets—even a few Vogue editors—are moving to embrace natural texture, shaking off the idea of singular definitions of beauty. If we aren’t yet a hairstyle-blind society, made clear by a recent U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling essentially stating that dreadlocks can be outlawed in the workplace, then the fact that this case made headlines, and triggered a vibrant online debate, is itself a sign of a shifting needle.

Yesterday, Solange Knowles—whose own frequent follicular change-ups are inextricably braided, so to speak, with her work as an artist—emphatically joined the discussion when she dropped the music video for “Don’t Touch My Hair” in conjunction with her new album, A Seat at the Table. Knowles announced the record last week with an Instagram featuring an extravagantly beaded look inspired by the R&B singer Patrice Rushen, and it’s this epic concoction—created by her longtime stylist Nikki Nelms—that Knowles shakes from side to side in the first few frames. From there, she and a cast of dancers in chromatically coordinated costumes display a procession of spectacular styles: Marcel waves, brushed-out curls, crowns of looped braids, Afros short and long and everywhere in between. That the range of looks on display is so vast—and so undeniably gorgeous—sends a message about hair not only to people of color, but to people, period: It’s yours and yours alone; do with it what you will.

It’s a point that would land even if the video were watched on mute. But Knowles’s lyrics, too, offer a sharp retort to those who would deem certain hairstyles to be unprofessional or otherwise inferior: Like the Instagram commenters, she’s taking ownership of her hair just as she would her own body. “It’s the feelings I wear,” Knowles sings of her strands. “Don’t touch my pride.” We wouldn’t dare.

 

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