From Roots To Radiance Feat. Salma Ekambi
When Salma Ekambi steps into a room, her hair arrives first. Whether loc’d up in her signature wine red or combed out in a fro, it sends an instant message: this woman wears her crown boldly. While some might consider hairkeep a thoughtless everyday necessity, Salma views it as a conduit to the divine—a living reflection of her Moroccan-Nigerian roots that shaped her identity.
From the time she was just a young girl perched between her mother’s knees, Salma’s hair has been a proud spotlight of self acceptance and spiritual connection. Her mother’s determination to learn new braiding techniques and show her two kids their coils were a source of pride, not shame, opened Salma’s eyes to all Black hair could be.
Decades later, she would use those lessons to teach others the pride and beauty in Black culture and coils with the launch of her annual Black History Project and, eventually, the KNKY Hair show.
Created while Salma was working as a stylist at California Dream Studio salon in 2013, the Black History Project began as a gathering of around fifteen people—friends, relatives, and community members—who came together to celebrate Black heritage beyond the usual retelling of Martin and Malcolm. Salma saw it as a way to counter the tide of turbulence in the headlines at a time when tragedies like those of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown dominated the news cycle.
She wanted to channel the collective hurt into something uplifting. The first gathering had local creators, business owners, and artists sharing their stories and opening space for dialogue. The attendees showed up from all walks of life—one guest was a formerly incarcerated tattoo artist who overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to open two businesses within a year of his release.
By the sixth year, more than three hundred attendees came together for the Black History Project. Though steady growth has been welcome, it hasn’t always been easy. Salma poured her income from salon work into covering venue fees and expenses, often unsure how she’d pull it off. Still, every February without fail, her production returned with a bigger venue and crowd. At this stage, the visionary stylist decided to unveil her own artistry front and center. That’s how the KNKY Hair showcase—a theatrical celebration of braids, twists, curls, and coils in jaw-dropping, gravity-defying form—was born.
Six years in and the KNKY Hair Showcase has become a main attraction within the Black History Project, drawing hundreds of attendees eager to see natural hair elevated into high art. It has become a space where preconceived notions of acceptable hair shatter under bright spotlights.
As Salma looks to the future, she plans to open the KNKY stage to other hairstylists, providing them with the same supportive platform that helped her refine her vision. Her dream is to take the show on the road, crossing state lines and cultural divides, so others can witness the radiant synergy of art, identity, and heritage. Beyond the spectacle, Salma wants it to serve as a reminder of how much power we hold when we truly honor our roots—even in a world that sometimes tries to flatten or tame them.
In the end, it always circles back to that upward-reaching hair, growing toward the sky like a beacon. As Salma puts it, Black hair is a spiritual tether, a crown that connects to generations before with each root growing out like an antenna tuned to to the frequency of ancestors, and she can’t wait to see how far it can reach.
