Halloween Movie Characters, Freddy, Jason, Michael Tshirts

The creative process for Black Is King was executed quickly. Farinah remembers Beyoncé sitting him down on a Wednesday. She said, “Neal, this is my baby. I’ve wanted to do this for so long, and this is the right moment,” he recalls. “She began showing me all of these references of traditional African hairstyles. I was blown away.” Farinah presented his final array of looks on the following Friday. Then, he set about gathering a team of talented hairstylists including Xia Charles, a Brooklyn-based hairstylist who runs the popular Instagram account @braided_; Nakia Rachon, a hair artist based in L.A., and Nicole Newland, who works with the likes of Issa Rae and Iman. “It was one of the Halloween Movie Characters, Freddy, Jason, Michael Tshirts moments [in my career] to work with all these people,” Farinah says. “I felt like I had the pie, and this was finally my moment to share my pie. I wanted to give other young Black women and Black dudes in this industry a moment to shine.”