It’s a #BlackGirlMagic bonanza!
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The Blackish star is partnering up with activist, former Essence editor and The Meaning of Mariah Carey writer Michaela Angela Davis to executive produce and narrate The Hair Tales. The docuseries is a collaboration produced by an all-women-of-color team from including Oprah Winfrey and Harpo Studios, Freeform network President Tara Duncan and the Onyx Collective, and Culture House Founding Partners Raeshem Nijhon and Carri Twigg. The series will be an intimate look into “the connection between Black women, beauty and identity through the lens of Black hair.”
“Every Black woman has a personal and defining story that involves her hair,” Duncan said in a statement announcing the series. “From the moment Tracee and Michaela shared the idea for this series, I knew it would strike a chord with Black women and anyone who has ever been curious about the singular connection between our hair, our agency, our beauty and our identity. It’s incredibly exciting for Onyx Collective to bring this project, that is entirely produced by women of color, to Hulu and OWN.”
The Onyx Collective is a new Hulu content brand launched by Disney for premium content by creators of color and underrepresented voices also led by Duncan. The first two projects from the Onyx Collective are Questlove’s feature documentary Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised) and The 1619 Project docuseries produced by Oprah and based on Nikole Hannah-Jones’ work.
Davis previously described the deeply personal concept for a video series of The Hair Tales as “Vagina Monologues for Black hair.” Davis said in an interview with Refinery 29. “I’ve been obsessed with hair my whole life, partly because people were obsessed with my hair my whole life — the ‘otherness’ of it. It was kinky, yet it was blond; it caused both admiration and confusion,” she explains. “Doing Hair Tales was mostly about love. I love Black hair, and I love our stories.”
The new docuseries is slated to start production later this year. It will debut simultaneously on OWN and Hulu in 2022. Will you be watching?