Entertainment

Marsha Ambrosius’ Black hair magic

MINNESOTA SPOKESMAN-RECORDER — Marsha Ambrosius has been serving vocal magic and hair goals for nearly two decades. She first hit the scene as one-half of the R&B/poetry duo Floetry in 2003, reigning as a natural hair icon before it was even a thing.

Published

6 years ago

May 18, 2019

Oakland Post

By Stephenetta (isis) Harmon

Marsha Ambrosius has been serving vocal magic and hair goals for nearly two decades. She first hit the scene as one-half of the R&B/poetry duo Floetry in 2003, reigning as a natural hair icon before it was even a thing.

Now, the singer/songwriter is repping a brand new flow. In late 2018, she dropped Nyla, her first studio album in four years, rocked an amazing tour with Maxwell that included a fall stop in Minneapolis and headlined her own tour this spring.

As far as her album, when you press play, you know it’s Ambrosius.” I feel like not a lot of artists have that identity,” she shares. “I made it a point to always create and make you feel like [that]. This entire album has a signature Marsha ‘thing’ and that’s lovely.”

The same holds true for the songstress’ hair. Whether relaxing, big chopping or bleaching to get a hair fix, the naturalista has always celebrated the kinks, curls, and magic of her hair. We caught up with Ambrosius for a quick chat about her journey and love for hair.

MSR: Throughout your career, you’ve been known as much for your hair as your sound — what’s that like?

Marsha Ambrosius: Oh, that’s a whole other animal! You could google Marsha Ambrosius hair’ and you will see a million and five changes [laughs]. I’ve never been attached to hair where I needed that length or I needed that style. I’ve been like, “I’m bored, let’s do this.” I’ve had everything from an entire rainbow to just blonde to it falling out because I stripped it down too much and then chopped it all off again and started over. But I think what remained consistent was a giant fro and my natural curls.

MSR: With all these different moments, when did you fall in love with your hair?

MA: From the beginning! This little girl from Liverpool (England) with light skin, green eyes, had the most 4C textured, thick, Black afro you’ve ever seen — and I took pride in that.

As a kid, when I realized that if I put my hair in an updo, if I took it out the ponytail holder, it would stay like that — I thought that was amazing! I told this White girl to her face, “Your hair can’t do this… I am magic!” To anyone else, that’s jokes, but for me that was pride.

MSR: What’s one thing you wish you knew earlier?

MA: I love my hair journey. I love being able to do anything, but I wish someone would have told me sooner about protective styles and not having this stigma on Black women having to wear weaves or sew-ins or lace fronts or whatever it is. Now, I’m like, “Oh your hair is purple. I love this color! I lost my own hair because I stripped my hair down to the bone blonde so I could dye it purple and it all fell out.”

[I thought] people used to wear these things because you didn’t have any hair. I didn’t realize it was because all these women didn’t have the time and you can just get up and go and put one fly wig on! I hate myself right now for even thinking of it that way because what we do to each other is we judge.

MSR: With so many looks must come a ton of products/ how do you go about choosing what to try?

MA: For every Black woman or man anywhere, we’ll try a product when someone says try whatever. You’re going to try the product cause something is going to work for somebody. Not only that, we’ll use five of them at the same time and claim that that’s the magic and that’s okay, too! It can never be one thing, [more like]well actually I use this and this at the same time, but this at night.

MSR: Why is it so important for Black women to celebrate their hair and know that it’s magic.

MA: Because I know what it did for me and ultimately as small as that thing will be for anybody else, how it enabled my confidence in life, period. It was as simple as my hair being my crown.

This article originally appeared in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

1 day ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

1 day ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.

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Activism

S.F. Businesswomen Honor Trailblazers at 44th Annual Sojourner Truth Awards and Scholarship Luncheon

This year’s well-deserved award recipients were women who graciously and continuously have served and empowered the Bayview community and beyond.

Published

1 day ago

April 27, 2025

Oakland Post

Carletta Jackson-Lane, 21st Western District governor of the National Association of the Business and Professional Women’s Club, Inc. sits with honoree Carol E. Tatum the 2025 Sojourner Truth Award recipient of the NAB&PW, Inc. Photo courtesy of Sheryl Smith.

By Rev. Dr. Rochelle Frazier
Special to The Post

On Saturday, April 19, the San Francisco Business and Professional Women’s Club (SFBPWC) held its sold-out 44th Annual Sojourner Truth Awards and Scholarship Luncheon at the Southeast Community Center at 1550 Evans Ave. in San Francisco.

The luncheon’s theme was “Moving Forward with a Purpose: From Trailblazers to Game Changers.”

This year’s well-deserved award recipients were women who graciously and continuously have served and empowered the Bayview community and beyond.

Carol Evora Tatum received the National Sojourner Truth Meritorious Service Award for her decades of leadership and dedicated community service.

Brittany Doyle, founder and CEO of WISE Health SF, was honored as the Businesswoman of the Year because of her insightful and innovative business acumen regarding community-centered health programs.

La Shon A. Walker was recognized as the Professional Woman of the Year for her community empowerment and leadership work as the vice president of Community Affairs at FivePoint.

The luncheon also provides an opportunity to present scholarships to well-deserving students. The scholarship awardees were Jayana Harbor and Zari Moore, both graduating from Immaculate Conception Academy, and London Robinson, who is graduating from Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School.

Harbor plans to attend Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland; Moore will attend Loyola University in New Orleans, and Robinson will attend Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

“The 44th Annual Sojourner Truth Awards and Scholarship Luncheon is more than a celebration,” said Cheryl Smith, president of SFBPWC. “It’s a tribute to the legacy of Black women who have paved the way and made a commitment to uplifting future generations. We are proud to honor extraordinary leaders in our community and invest in the bright minds who will carry us into the future.”