Freds Dissonance

Day 16 — The 2010s: Bantu Knots

The 2010s were a coiling of memory, resistance, and future like Bantu knots, each twist holding history and vision.

We saw Colin Kaepernick take a knee and turn silence into resistance.
We saw the National Museum of African American History and Culture open its doors, placing our story at the center.
We saw Black film and storytelling reshape the world — from 12 Years a Slave to Moonlight, Hidden Figures, and Black Panther.
We heard our truth in To Pimp a Butterfly and the sound of a nation confronting itself.

We watched the myth of a “post-racial” America unravel and a new generation rise, organize, and lead.

The 2010s reminded us:
Blackness is not a moment — it is a continuum, a system of knowledge, a future-making force.

So what are we coiling now?
What future are we shaping?

Creative Director & Vision
(Sydney Edwards)

Bantu knots t.pierre

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Production & Cultural Direction


Modelsm4rsh + community collaborators

Day 12: The Blueprint Generation

Today we honor Black youth innovation in the 2000s.

Before influencers were brands, we were building culture in basements, on MySpace pages, in barbershops, in dorm rooms.

The 2000s belonged to young Black creators.

Allen Iverson changed the league without asking permission. Cornrows, tattoos, baggy fits, hip hop on the court. They called it unprofessional. Then the culture became the brand.

Hip hop went digital.
Mixtapes moved online.
Streetwear became global business.
Sneaker culture became a billion dollar economy.

Black youth shaped sound, style, and software at the same time.

In science and tech, young Black innovators were coding, engineering, and building new pathways. From students entering STEM in record numbers to the next wave of founders and designers, we were creating in spaces we were once locked out of.

In 2008, Barack Obama used digital organizing and grassroots energy to become President. Young Black voters showed up in historic numbers. His leadership reshaped what political leadership could look like and pushed a new generation of politicians to be more diverse, more connected, and more accountable to community.

But even in innovation, there was tension.

Viral dances traveled faster than credit.
Style traveled faster than ownership.
Platforms grew faster than protection.

Still, we built.

The 2000s proved something powerful.
Black youth are not just trendsetters.
We are architects of the future.

Today we honor the generation that turned side hustles into systems and creativity into currency.

Creative Director & Vision
(Sydney Edwards)

Braids


Styled by


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Production & Cultural Direction


Models
Gavin + community collaborators

Outfit

Day 8: Soul Glo — 1980s

Day 8: Soul Glo — 1980s

This is hard, but necessary.

By the 1980s, Black culture was not just entertainment, it was infrastructure for America’s profit. Hip hop and R&B were exploding, but ownership was quietly slipping away. Major labels consolidated power, and Black artists increasingly became products rather than partners.

At the same time, mass incarceration was accelerating.

In 1982, when Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released “The Message,” the U.S. incarcerated just over 400,000 people. That same year, the War on Drugs expanded federal drug agencies, mandatory minimums, no-knock warrants, and militarized policing. Between 1980 and 1987, the prison population grew 76 percent, surpassing half a million people.

Hip hop did not cause this.
Hip hop responded to it.

As crack flooded Black neighborhoods, policing shifted from community-based to paramilitary. Media pushed racialized language like “crack babies” and “super-predators.” The system created the conditions, then blamed the culture for surviving them.

Gangsta rap emerged as testimony, not instruction. Songs like Ice-T’s “6 ’N the Mornin’” and N.W.A. weren’t fantasies. They were reports from communities under siege. As Killer Mike later said, hip hop became “our blues,” a mirror of lived reality.

But once that reality proved profitable, the industry leaned in. Violent stereotypes became marketable. White America consumed the spectacle while distancing itself from the policies that produced it.

By the 1990s, hip hop was the dominant youth culture in the world.
By 2025, African Americans control only a small fraction of the ownership behind it.

Soul Glo isn’t just about shine.
It’s about extraction.
It’s about how Black pain became a commodity while Black communities paid the price.

Creative Director & Vision
(Sydney Edwards)

Haircut


Wig install


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Production & Cultural Direction


Models
+ community collaborators

Outfit

Day 7 Defying Gravity The Blowout Afro

We honor defying gravity.
The blowout afro defined good trouble and positive defiance in the face of laws and systems designed to strip us of dignity. Even when policies tried to police our bodies, our beauty, and our presence, they could not stop our movement.

Throughout history, Black women’s hair has been politicized and controlled. As far back as the late 1700s, before Louisiana became part of the United States, the Tignon Laws forced free Black women to cover their hair. The goal was control, severing African women from their cultural roots while suppressing their visibility and autonomy.

During the Civil Rights and Black Liberation movements, hair became resistance. The afro emerged as a political statement, worn boldly by organizers, artists, and members of the Black Panther Party as a declaration of pride and self definition.

That policing did not disappear. It evolved.

Today, hair discrimination remains one of the most common forms of racial bias. Studies show Black women with natural hairstyles are less likely to receive job interviews and more likely to be disciplined at work. Research also shows Black women are significantly more likely to be penalized for their hair and pressured to conform to white standards of professionalism.

The CROWN Act exists because hair discrimination is racial discrimination. While civil rights laws prohibit discrimination based on race, the CROWN Act makes clear that targeting hair texture and culturally significant hairstyles is illegal.

The blowout afro is not a trend.
It is defiance.
It is dignity.
It is history refusing to bow.

Black HairStory Day 7

Creative Director & Vision
(Sydney Edwards)

Hair
& .t.pierre

Makeup


Photography


Production & Cultural Direction


Models
+ community collaborators

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This is Hairstory — The African American Timeline of Hair
A living archive built with love, skill, and deep respect for Black identity.

This is the Afro
and it is history

Day 5 of Black History is Victory Rolls

Today we honor beauty and brains, wit and wisdom.
Women who shaped the world and the movement.
From those who were told they were not woman enough
to those whose cells helped heal the world.

To name a few:

Sybrina Fulton, mother of the movement, whose grief became a call for justice after the loss of her son Trayvon Martin

Henrietta Lacks, whose HeLa cells transformed modern medicine and made life-saving research possible across cancer, polio, and beyond

Althea Gibson, the Jackie Robinson of tennis, who broke barriers and rewrote who was allowed to win

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, a pioneer who inspired generations of Black women lawyers and leaders

Audre Lorde, whose fierce poetry named truth, power, and the fullness of Black womanhood

Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman pilot, who refused every limit placed on her sky

Rebecca Crumpler, the first Black woman physician, who practiced medicine when freedom was still fragile

Phyllis Wheatley, whose words proved our intellect long before the world wanted to listen

Nekima Levy-Powell, attorney and activist, whose voice, strategy, and courage continue the tradition of Black women turning complacency into action and hope into policy

Victory rolls remind us that Black women have always carried brilliance with grace and resistance with style.

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Creative Director & Vision
(Sydney Edwards)

Hair & Make up
& .t.pierre

Photography


Production & Cultural Direction


Models
Sydney + community collaborators

Outfit


This is Hairstory — The African American Timeline of Hair
A living archive built with love, skill, and deep respect for Black identity.