The mullet, a hairstyle characterized by its short front and sides with long hair in the back, has a rich and varied history. While often associated with certain subcultures, its influence has permeated diverse communities, including the African American community. The term "mullet" itself gained popular usage in 1994 with the Beastie Boys' song "Mullet Head," though the style existed long before, often referred to as "hockey hair."
But is everything we call a mullet actually a mullet? Who decides what is a real mullet and what’s actually stolen valor? We all have different associations and expectations about what a mullet is or should be.
Historical Roots and Cultural Significance
Black culture boasts an incredibly versatile and important history of hair traditions. The history of Black hairstyles is deeply intertwined with cultural shifts and transformative moments. Some emerged in response to cultural shifts, and some transformed the culture itself. Here’s a look back at six iconic Black hairstyles from the last century.
Finger Waves
Celebrated singer, dancer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker popularized finger waves in the 1920s. One of the most influential performers of the time, Baker had already solidified her standing as a fashion icon when she debuted her unconventional laid edges and styled baby hairs-sending shockwaves rippling through society. The star’s signature bob-slick, cropped, and sculptural-became the hairdo of the decade.
Natural Hair Movement
In the early 1960s, Cicely Tyson became one of the first Black actresses to wear her natural hair on TV, at a time when few Black women felt empowered to do so. The night before she was scheduled to shoot an episode where she would be portraying an African woman, Tyson had a barber cut her then-straight hair short and shampoo it back to its natural state, feeling it would be more authentic to the character. She later wore the same short, natural style on the popular TV series East Side West Side. "That is what created the natural hair craze," Tyson recalled on an episode of Oprah’s Masterclass in 2014.
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The Afro
Popularized by Black activists, artists and scholars like Angela Davis, Nina Simone and Toni Morrison, the afro emerged as a symbol of pride, protest and self-empowerment in the 1960s. With the Black Power Movement in full force, many Black people decided to ditch the straightened hairstyles and Eurocentric beauty standards that society had forced upon them, choosing instead to reclaim and celebrate their natural textures.
Jheri Curl
When Michael Jackson rocked a Jheri curl on his Thriller album cover in 1982, the snazzy hairstyle skyrocketed in popularity. It was one of the signature fashion statements of the 1980s-worn by celebs like Lionel Richie, Eddie Murphy, Ice Cube, and Samuel Jackson (cue Jules’ glistening curls in Pulp Fiction). It’s also remembered as one of the more infamous styles of recent history… right alongside the mullet. The original styling technique, which involved a two-step chemical process that first relaxed the hair and then sprang it up into glossy curls, was created by Irish-American haircare entrepreneur Jheri Redding and later adapted for afro-textured hair by Comer Cottrell.
Sort of like a less expensive Jheri curl, but for white people. The Jheri curl was a sign of extreme abundance in the Black community. If you could afford activator and managed to not set yourself on fire every time you left the house, you must have made it out of the hood. The mullet, on the other hand, was a sign that you were trapped and might never get out.
Hi-Top Fade
Hip-hop began to boom in the 1980s-and with it, new forms of creativity and experimentation in fashion and beauty. The hi-top fade (aka flattop) was one of the first hairstyles popularized by hip-hop artists. Grace Jones is credited with introducing the edgy cut on the cover of her 1980 album, Warm Leatherette, before it became a go-to look for rappers like Schoolly D and Eric B. & Rakim as well as Will Smith on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. As for the inspiration behind the style? Many believe it was Queen Nefertiti’s headpiece.
Poetic Justice Braids
Google search for “poetic justice braids” and you’ll see hundreds of tutorials, inspiration roundups and odes to the style. The long, thick braids Janet Jackson donned in the 1993 cult classic film Poetic Justice became instantly iconic-so much so that “poetic justice braids” have become pretty much synonymous with box braids, aka that style of individual, three-strand plaits.
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Мужская стрижка Mullet / Modern mullet
The Mullet in Hip-Hop Culture
Hip-hop was only about a decade old at the time of the asymmetrical cut’s debut. The burgeoning genre was certainly unique, but it also reflected the influence of other popular music styles like Rock & Roll. Hip-hop was birthed in rebellion and like Rock & Roll’s commitment it expressed the sentiments of the counterculture.
With increased exposure on shows like Video Music Box (1983) and Yo! MTV Raps (1984) rappers’ big hair, logo-embossed clothing, and huge chains revealed a convergence of luxury and maximalism that was unparalleled.
The adage, “the higher the hair, the closer to God,” illuminates 1980s approaches to hair. While the saying is often attributed to white women, Black women’s hair was also towering. From stacked cuts to bouncy mushrooms to triangular curly cuts, Black women’s hair was as flashy as our style. Salt-N-Pepa’s influence on Black women’s beauty culture, specifically their “stacked” haircuts, cannot be overstated.
Pepa’s style is probably the most famous, as her style included a shaved side and blonde ends. Pepa revealed that her shaved side was the result of her sister accidentally burning her hair off with a relaxer. This style was also worn by other major 1980s hip-hop figures of the time like MC Lyte.
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Charles Aaron notes, “Though hip-hop may have been a party in the ruins of a bankrupt New York City, as evidenced by hit records like Sugarhill Gang’s 1979 “Rapper’s Delight,” it was still a revolt.” He goes on to trace the interconnectedness of “rap rock” and the differences in how their youthful rebellion was received by audiences. This youthful dissent from tradition was also defined by personal style and there is an interesting connection between hip hop's asymmetrical cuts and rock’s mullets.
The Modern Mullet: A Resurgence
The mullet is the haircut that refuses to die. It dominated the tail end of the 20th century, fell into clutches of derision and acidic irony by the late ’90s and suffered a variety of pop culture indignities for most of this century. That was the rap on it for years, but somewhere around the start of the pandemic - when professional haircuts became illicit, speakeasy-style clandestine hookups that could end up putting you in the hospital - comparatively haphazard hairstyles like the mullet slithered back into cosmopolitan America’s good graces. “I love your mullet” can be heard throughout the hip neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
A recent New York Times article described the mullet being such a freak-o signifier that people would cross the street to avoid you if you wore one, but esteemed hairstylist Guido Palau has been playing with lengths and textures for years, and one of his favorite looks is the mullet. Paired with the right model and outfit, a mullet can look incredibly chic. That’s thanks to Bowie, Joan Jett or the dance-punk singer Peaches, who’s worn more varieties of mullet in her career than most of us even realized existed.
The Curly Mullet and Gender Expression
The curly mullet you see east of Western Avenue defies gender and recalls sexual liberation icons like Bowie and Peaches. It’s riding a ever-cresting wave of empowerment across the sexual spectrum in Los Angeles, a place that’s always prided itself on being at the forefront of countercultural movements (even if the city government itself isn’t always quite so liberated). Mullets will never die because the spirit of what they represent won’t either.
The most popular mullet of today isn’t the spiky Bowie version or the luxurious muskrat look from “Joe Dirt.” It’s a curly, haphazard style that’s been occasionally attributed to Ella Emhoff, the daughter of Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff.
The bouncy, curly mullet that Emhoff wears is softer and more feminine than the traditional buzz of the OG mullet. Maybe that’s why it’s been adopted by all types of people across the spectrum of gender in the last few years.
The modern mullet says: “Accept me as I am.” The symbolism is powerful, but it also looks easy. It’s the antithesis of the hair straightener industrial complex that tells Jewish women and people of color, among others, to spend money to achieve a platonic ideal of flatness. The modern mullet says “Accept me as I am,” even if that look actually took a while to put together.
Conclusion
Mullets will never die because the spirit of what they represent won’t either. It’s a style that can be a bridge between the working class and the artist class, the masculine and the feminine, and the business and the party. The grand duality of existence is buried under all that hair, if you look close enough.
