Over the last 75 years, hair shows have become a staple of Black culture in the U.S. These events celebrate textured hair through the creative, and often sculptural, styling of centuries-old techniques like braiding and barbering.

The biggest hair shows in the country take place in cities with a much larger Black population than Phoenix — like Bronner Bros. in Atlanta, which can bring in around 30,000 people semi-annually.

But as the Black community here grows and newer Arizona residents bring the culture with them, hair shows have started to pop up in town.

The fourth annual Arizona Fantasy Expo Hair Show will return Sunday in Phoenix.

Show producer Athena Ankrah attended the third annual Fantasy Expo Hair Show in Phoenix last April, and shares what she saw.

About 200 people crowd La Princesa event hall in north Phoenix on a Sunday evening in 2025. Music blasts from speakers on either side of a stage and flows into the dance floor below. There are people of all ages here. Most attendees are dressed in white, to match the all-white ball theme, but there’s no shortage of color atop models’ heads.

Lauren Jackson, 20, just graduated from a barber school in Phoenix. 

We’re watching a competition between two barbers — who can shave the cleanest tapered fade the fastest — when she tells me her plans for the event she’s competing in: the loc battle. 

“So I made a basketball hoop out of locs,” Jackson said.

Hair shows give local hair stylists, barbers and braiders the chance to show off their creative talents through showcases and competitions. 

Some stylists had been working on their entries for more than a year leading up to the Fantasy Hair Expo. But that wasn’t the case for Jackson. The event’s organizers promoted the show at Jackson’s barber school shortly before that day.

“I’m like, OK, bet! …  Mind you, this was a week before the hair show,” Jackson said.

Hair shows are a Black American tradition dating back about 75 years. The creative hair styling can be so eccentric, it’s almost performance art. 

Because it’s not just the hair style on display. It’s a message conveyed through clothes, and sometimes choreography. And a chance to delight in hair textures and styles that have historically been a target of discrimination.

“A lot of us are like really creative and they’re styles that you just can’t do on a daily basis. So the hair show just kind of gives you the platform to just have fun with it, you know, just be really artistic,” Aisha Wesley said.

Wesley is a cosmetologist who organized the event with fellow cosmetologist and friend LaTricia Williams. 

“I definitely think that the hair show is empowering to the community because it’s like, if nobody else accepts us, we accept us, right,” Wesley said. “I’ve had clients before that have had to come back and get their hair redone because their job was like, ‘you can’t wear that.’ You know? the hair show just kind of gives that freedom …” 

“I can wear whatever I wanna wear,” Williams said.

That freedom and ingenuity was on display at the show. 

Now, seeing 40 inches of dollar bills sewn into the bottom of a pixie haircut would have been enough.

But the same stylist, Cherie Nelson of Majestik Handzz Beauty Demand in Mesa, put together a whole crew of models with ’90s-inspired streetwear and exuberant hair to match. 

Nelson put one model in vivid bubblegum pink afro puffs, and another with huge headphones over her ears — made entirely of braids. 

And for the finale: A young woman crawls on stage, covered in wigs. She’s wearing crimped wigs from head to toe. Underneath, the leather catsuit, knee-high boots and afro wreath around her face gives her a sort of Janet Jackson lioness look. 

She stalks downstage, rises to her feet and pulls the lion’s mane onto her shoulders to reveal bantu knots: sleek sectioned hair twisted into knots, a protective style dating back to Zulu women in South Africa. 

The crowd is loving it.

“She went from hoodie, to a lion’s mane, to a jacket, to Catwoman – how do you do that?” the host said.

Finally, it’s time for Lauren Jackson’s event — the loc battle.

It’s all about who can craft the most creative and colorful style out of locs and accessories, with extra points for technique and details. 

For the uninitiated, locs aren’t always dreadlocks. The term often refers to a more structured twist or coiling of hair rather than the Rastafari-style organic loc-ing of hair.

Loc specialists — also called locticians — can build their styles ahead of time, but on competition day they only have 30 minutes to attach everything to their model’s head and make any finishing touches. 

“Y’all ready? Get set! Go!” the host exclaimed.

Anna Holly drove from San Francisco the night before to compete with her mom as her hair model. 

“It was about 12 hours. But it wasn’t bad,” Holly said while laughing.

Despite the time constraint, Jackson’s entry is not insignificant. 

She super-glued, painted and shaped synthetic hair onto a basketball hoop with about a foot tall backboard. 

“So I bought a box of those, the sandwich bags, and I’m like, ‘well, I can use this.’ At Dollar Tree, they also had a hoop already made. So I basically wrapped the whole thing with locs,” Jackson said. “Then I took some orange loc hair and I wrapped that with the rim. And then I took some silver grayish lock hair as well for the, the net to the basketball hoop.”

“It was so hard, I’m not gonna lie. I stayed up like day and night trying to figure it out between school,” Jackson said.

 And it’s functional, too — she brought a teeny tiny basketball to prove it.

“Now, if Steph Curry come out of there and shoot a 3? You won!” the host said.

Another loctician, Elisha Davis, has built a sea goddess look that’s essentially a huge halo of locs sticking straight up. It’s woven with seashells. The stylist and her model have matching glittery siren makeup. The design is minimal enough that you can really see the details. 

“She sells seashells by the seashore. … Aphrodite ain’t playin’!” the host said.

And Holly is installing a replica of a famous landmark on her mother’s head. 

“Is that traffic on her head, y’all? … It’s the Golden Gate Bridge!” the host said to cheers from the crowd.

Yes, the Golden Gate Bridge, made entirely of hair.

“I’m like, dang, I didn’t even know that was possible, y’all! And she had cars on the bridge!” Jackson said.

Master loctitian and cosmetologist Jai Davis is this event’s judge. 

“I’m looking for detail, creativity. …  I like integrity more than flash. I like skill more than flash,” Davis said.

It was a tight race. But a winner and runner-up are announced. 

“This one was super, super hard, we had to go all the way down to details. We had to look at edges and fresh retwists because the creativity in this competition was so cold,” Davis said. “So, because we had to go down to detail and crispy edges. … We gon’ give it to the Golden [Gate] Bridge!”

So Jackson’s basketball hoop didn’t win. 

But despite that, she said, “it was so worth it. If I can go back, I would do it all over again.”

And next time, she’ll be ready. 

“Oh my God, I’m gonna do so much more next year. Oh my goodness, I can not wait for next year. ‘Cause I’m gonna do so much more,” Jackson said.