This story is a part of The Melanin Edit, a platform in which Allure will explore every facet of a melanin-rich life — from the most innovative treatments for hyperpigmentation to the social and emotional realities — all while spreading Black pride.
Wielding pieces of wire and bundles of kinky hair, hairstylist and makeup artist Fesa Nu meticulously braids a last-minute creation she dreamed up on the set of Chole Bailey's Flaunt cover shoot. After weaving at least five plaits over pieces of wire, Nu fixes them to look as if they are floating mid-air. They are tied just far enough from the ends to bloom into cloud-like puffs, piercing the fire-colored sky behind her.
You'd be right to call it a work of art — one part of a canon that is ever-changing and expanding. Afrofuturism: the word itself sounds like it belongs in the title of a comic book or vintage film. But it's more like a movement, ideology, and at times, an aesthetic. It's a form of Black cultural expression that ties together the past, present, and future. The term was first coined by the author Mark Dery in his 1993 essay, "Black to the Future." The work explores speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, and the like) through interviews with Black creatives Samuel R. Delaney, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose.
But Afrofuturist aesthetics were already taking shape long before Dery wrote about it in the '90s. As early as the 1950s, Black artists were laying the visual, sonic, and sartorial groundwork for the cultural movement. In an Architectural Digest essay breaking down the history of Afrofuturism, writer Taylor Crumpton describes it as "a fluid ideology shaped by generations of artists, musicians, scholars, and activists whose aim is to reconstruct 'Blackness' in the culture." The movement is informed by Black history and African tradition — it must be, as Jaime Broadnax explains in a 2018 essay for the Huffington Post, in order to exist. "A narrative that simply features a Black character in a futuristic world is not enough," she writes. "To be Afrofuturism, it must be rooted in and unapologetically celebrate the uniqueness and innovation of Black culture." Drawing from history, the movement honors the Black experience and creates a vision of the future through mediums like music and visual arts.
Black women music artists have always played a pivotal role in the aesthetic development of Afrofuturism in popular culture. They used visual elements of their artistry to enhance their storytelling, with their hair and makeup looks playing key roles in these narratives. Today, Black women artists and the teams that style them build upon that tradition, contributing to a canon that celebrates their beauty and allows them to set their own standards of glamour.
An Afro-Renaissance
"We're starting to see an appreciation of pop stars with different types of hair textures," Dawn Richard tells Allure. The singer-songwriter and former Danity Kane member often employs Afrofuturist motifs in her work. She points to younger artists like Chloe x Halle as evidence of a sea change that's been a long time coming. Black beauty is being celebrated out loud and on a scale we haven't seen before. "That's beautiful. There's an appreciation of Black hair being worn in a multitude of ways, in different textures," Richard says. "As Black women, we are sometimes stifled because our hair has to [conform to Eurocentric standards]."
This environment has brought forth the conditions for what makeup artist Sir John describes as a comeback for Afrofuturist aesthetics in the media. Though, this time (as always), it's a little different. "It's almost like a renaissance of romanticizing a type of individuality that happens to be called Afrofuturism," he explains. "It doesn't even feel like you need to have a title on it." How very modern. The newest generation of Black female artists like Normani, Willow Smith, and Bree Runaway are able to lean in to their own interpretations of beauty because of the standards set by artists like Janet Jackson, Missy Elliott, and Grace Jones.
Afrofuturists Past
Jones solidified her beauty icon status in the '80s and early '90s with her signature flat-top crop, which highlighted her prominent, angular facial features. She played them up even more with bold, bright eye shadow and lipstick, sharp contouring, and vibrant shades of blush saturating the length of her cheekbones, draping up and over to her temples. Her androgynous presentation created space for Black women to reject conventional notions of beauty and femininity — the same ones that excluded them — and embrace something of their own making.
Missy Elliott built upon Jones's legacy in the ‘90s, tapping into Afrofuturist aesthetics with her debut project, 1997’s Supa Dupa Fly. Its breakout single and video bearing the same name birthed her most iconic look: The inflatable black jumpsuit that she paired with rhinestone-encrusted sunglasses, which stretched up towards her hairline before curving back over her head like a bike helmet. Much like Jones, her style embraced the bizarre, the androgynous, the otherworldly. She wasn't afraid to get weird with it and maintain a version of glamour that diverged from the norm. She didn't need to present as conventionally "pretty" in order to assert her beauty.
But make no mistake: there's always been space in Afrofuturism to be pretty. See the video for Janet Jackson's 2000 single, "Doesn't Really Matter." At one point, her nail extensions change with just a flick of her wrist — it's the type of beauty innovation we wager a lot of Black women could get behind. En Vogue's vampy glam in their 1997 "Whatever" video evokes a mysterious sensuality that is both alluring and intoxicating. Aaliyah's glossy, red pout and impossibly inky, smoky eye makeup in 2001's "We Need a Resolution" is a masterclass in balancing a bold lip and eye.
Afrofurutists Present
With these references, younger Millennial and Gen Z female artists, along with their glam teams, weave elements of the androgyny, femininity, and Black beauty traditions into the visual components of their art. In 2021's "Wild Side," Normani sports a headpiece shaped and dyed to look like dice, a side pony that curves and bends to the heavens like an undulating spine, and a leopard headpiece, set atop a sleek ponytail anchored by delicate loops of baby hair.
Willow Smith moves freely between hairstyles in both her art and real life. (The singer famously shaved her locs onstage during a show.) In her performance visuals for 2021's "Transparent Soul," she wears a set of Fulani braids at least four different ways: adorned with hoops, piled high in a bun, and twisted into Bantu knots. In one scene, Smith appears in smoky black cat-eye shadow. In the next, the makeup is more intense, sprouting a few extra wings for good measure. Watch a little longer, and you'll see her in washes of lavender shadow blended out to her temples, framed by painterly strokes of white.
On the cover of 2020's 2000AND4EVA album, Bree Runaway licks her fingers adorned with extremely long, light blue square-shaped nails. Her talons are a fitting contrast to the choppy, shaggy ponytails anchored by blunt bangs she wears like an ancient ceremonial headdress. Her hair, though it is straight, mimics the volume of an Afro. She looks like a cross between a 'round the way girl and a glorious extraterrestrial.
These looks indicate a shift in the music industry and an increased agency Black artists are able to have over their images. It's something Richard says she wasn't able to enjoy early on in her career. "I remember going into the industry and being told I couldn't wear red lipstick, no color lips, because [it makes Black girls] look like clowns," she recalls. "It was so much. We had to have this bone-straight hair or the windblown look. We had to look a certain way or it isn't considered pop culture."
You can credit social media for this shift. In our pockets, we have access to what is essentially a buffet of micro and macro beauty influencers. These are (or in some cases, were) regular people who happen to have takes on beauty that a lot of people like. Even if their followings don't launch them to mega-stardom, they are very much still tastemakers in their own right.
"Everything trickles down so much faster than it used to," says Sir John. "When I'm going on Pinterest or these other social platforms, it's easy for me to pull looks for a job or get inspired and pull references. It could be some girl in Harlem or Flatbush wearing beautiful, celestial neon liner. No longer are we looking at the relics or red carpet for inspiration. We're looking at real people. So it's backward in a sense, with [celeb fashion and beauty] instead following the realness that we see in everyday life." And when that realness is re-imagined for the stage or the lens of a photographer or director, it's taken to extreme heights — as high as Afrobeats artist Chika's cornrowed ponytail stood in a live performance of "Songs About You" at the NBA Conference Finals.
Social media has democratized beauty enough to allow Afrofuturist aesthetics to thrive. People want to see a reflection of themselves, and platforms like Instagram and TikTok grant Black women and femmes that opportunity. The mainstream has to keep up with the demand. And as a group largely left out of the discussion, Black women are the ideal vessels through which these forward-thinking beauty moments can be authentically crafted. As we witness the emergence of a growing new class of Black women musicians, we have an opportunity to experience in real time another evolution of Black culture.
"In the word Afrofuturism is the word future. Anything that pushes possibility is the spectrum, and we just so happen to be people of color that do it," says Richard. "Afrofuturism is that choice where my genre can sit anywhere, my makeup can sit anywhere. I don't have to be pigeonholed."
More Melanin Edit stories to take in:
- Why More Black People Are Getting Fillers & Botox
- I Interviewed 101 Black Women About Their Hair
- Discover 14 Black-Owned Beauty Brands From Around the World
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