Hair! How I Grew It

On today’s show, I interview AJ Watkins. She is the founder and CEO of All Natural Kinks, a natural hair care company based in LA. It’s inspired by AJ’s struggles to grow her natural. More on that later in the show. Let’s start with AJ’s hair beginnings. She was born and raised in Gilroy.

On today’s show, I interview St. Clair Detrick-Jules. She’s a photojournalist in Washington, D. C., her hometown. St. Clair’s love letter to her younger sister Khloe is called My Beautiful Black Hair: 101 Natural Hair Stories from the Sisterhood. More on that later in the show. First, let’s dissect St. Clair’s hair journey.

On today’s show, I interview Mercy Chikowore. Mercy is a publicist in the Washington, D.C. metro area. She is also my Delta Sigma Theta Sorority sister. I always start my Hair! How I Grew It interviews with, “Where were you born and raised?” While all the answers have been interesting, Mercy’s was the first to take my breath away.

On today’s show, I interview Bernita Cooper. Bernita is the CEO and Founder of Bernita Cooper Communications. She helps her clients alleviate the stress of creating content that informs, educates and tells a story. Bernita was born and raised in Hemingway, South Carolina, which is a small town located about two hours from Columbia. Fun fact, Sylvia Woods, the woman who founded the famous soul food restaurant Sylvia’s in Harlem, was from Hemingway. Bernita has sported a natural for about 15 years, but she did take a natural break in college. More on that later in the show.

Hair! How I Grew It is celebrating 30 episodes. Missed out on the show that’s been named one of the top five natural hair podcasts of 2021? Here’s a Hair! How I Grew It rewind.

On today’s show, I interview my Delta Sigma Theta Sorority sister and fellow Cleveland native Linda Dukes-Campbell. Linda is a voice over actor. Her melodious tone is smooth and calming. I’d be entertained just listening to Linda read the yellow pages. While voice over acting is something she’s always wanted to do, that’s not what she started out doing professionally. Linda spent years in radio and television doing other jobs. She’s been a news reporter, talk-show host, news director, public affairs director and producer. Linda was also a Supervisory Public Affairs Specialist at NASA. She stayed there for two decades before retiring eight years ago. I met Linda in the early 1990s when she was an executive at the ABC affiliate in Cleveland, and I was a broadcast journalism student at Ohio University. Linda came to OU to recruit for her station, and when we met, we hit it off right away. She hired me as a station intern and became my mentor. During my reporting days, when I was crazed, unsure or just needed to talk, Linda was always willing to listen and help me if she could. We lost touch for a while, but when I reached out to her for Hair! How I Grew It, we picked up right where we left off, and she said yes to being a guest on the podcast without hesitation. Linda has been natural on and off for years. She embraced the style completely in 2013. Today, she rocks a short salt and pepper Afro.

On today’s show, I interview my Divine 9 sister, Ashley Rowe. Ashley is a licensed natural hair care specialist and instructor. She is a SisterlocksTM brand ambassador and an R Certified consultant. R Certified means she’s been trained to teach people how to maintain their own sisterlocks. Ashley is also an entrepreneur. She owns Naturally Rowe LLC and co-owns Twist’d Up and Loc’d Down Boutique. I met Ashley last year when I was looking for a natural hair care specialist to team up with for my COVID-19 Natural Hair 9-1-1 LIVE clinic on Zoom. I wanted to hold the virtual event because I knew sistahs couldn’t get to salons, and many of them desperately needed help maintaining their naturals on their own. The clinic was a success. Ashley shared a lot of good information. Her mist water bottle suggestion changed my life. She told me to mist my hair with water then detangle it with a comb before I washed it. I was detangling my very dense coily Afro after I applied conditioner, which took forever. I started our conversation with gratitude.

On today’s show, I interview Mahkai Dominique. She’s an actor, who is finishing up her studies at Rutgers University. Mahkai graduates with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in May 2021.  She’s rocked her natural for eight years.

I started our interview with an observation.

On today’s show, I interview Gineen Cargo. Gineen is a mompreneur. She takes care of her family while wearing multiple professional hats.