Thando Kafele - The King of Loc
Today we have a very candid conversation with Thando Kafele, otherwise known as the King of Loc.
"Thando Kafele possesses a clarity of vision for natural hair well-suited to the high priests of the Old African religions. Quite simply, he is a revolutionary, a sorcerer Who has been engaged in liberating natural hair for 25 years. Clients do not sit for hair appointments with him; they sit for spiritual transformation, ancestral divination, and wholesome reparations for the scalp, He works magic, re-imagining chair time as an opportunity to instill African magnificence in his clients.
A visible yet unassuming presence, Kafele projects an earthy majesty. He makes you feel at ease immediately with his broad grin and deep dimples, but you also sense quickly his sacred energy. His hands are fleshy and dense, well suited for untangling, weaving, locking, braiding, parting, organizing, and oiling tendrils, tresses, and scalps. His mantra "Natural hair is not just about style; it's about health" is a reflection of the ways in which his practice is a site for total healing. He follows the long tradition of West African spiritual practices that recognize the head and the crown as sources of the Divine. These spiritual practitioners knew well the significance of the crown; they saw hair as an adornment to the psychic and spiritual energies that protect and nurture the body, and, as such, hair required particular attention by anointed hands.
Kafele's stylings are imbued with wisdom, meaning, and power; they are only legible to those who have been initiated into the visual politics of the Afro-centric. They are regal signifiers from the African past with messages of ethnic pride. They are meant to be donned unapologetically with dignity.
African locs, Dreads, Afros, and Corn Rows had been prohibited in many corporate spaces as unacceptable corporate appearance; this is starting to change. Very recently, the New York City Human Rights Law has been expanded to make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of the stylings of Black hair. Black hairstyles are protected racial characteristics because they are an inherent part of Black identity. The dismantling of this practice in the largest city in the United States speaks to the revolutionary influences of natural hair style wizards like Kafele. As his clientele continues to grow, Kafele reminds us that the revolution will not be texturized."
—Timothy Benston