They say the hair on our heads are our antennas; our connection to a world of premonition and intuition. Our hair, in some ways, is an extension of the nervous system; of the brain. It is so Integrated with our brain health that you can tell the intelligence and other behavioural features of a person just from their hair.

The hair is considered an accessory of beauty in all of human culture there is, from as far back as we can tell. In several faiths, it is required of priests/adherents to keep their hair free and long. The ancient levite priests were required by Jewish traditions not to cut the hair on their head. In our precolonial Afrikan societies, dibia and babalawo folks grew their hair into dada. Children born with a head full of locks were deemed chosen to be healers, oracles and shamans. The hair was not just a beauty accessory, but part of one's spiritual tool kit. During the transatlantic slave trade, the locks of the Afrikan were usually shaved off at the slave factories before they were loaded into the bottom decks of the slave ships. Unruly, exposed, free hair represented an unruly, exposed and free Afrikan.

The brownish maroon-coloured dada soon grew in the Caribbean to represent escaped slave communities (maroons). Our beautiful locks became "dreadlocks", an insignia of the free living Afrikan; one who had no master; one who should be dreaded. In the early 20th century, with the development of the Ras Tafari faith (PBUH), the dada came to represent religious devotion and the freedom of the Afrikan mind.

In colonial times, starting with the annexation of Ékò in the 1860's, Afrikan men and women were encouraged by our European colonists to scrape their heads to the scalp. Till date, we still refer to the clean shaven head as "Eze goes to school", as all admitted males in our first colonial primary schools were required to shave all of their locks away. The unruly, exposed and free hair came to represent a wild and free Afrikan who had no master, just like in the era of the slave trade. It was slavery all over again; slavery of the minds and soul of the pupils.

Our women were brainwashed by the early colonial missions into thinking our thick, wavy hair had to be covered or "tamed" with very harmful synthetic chemicals and products. Their Sunday best had to come with a scarf (gélé). Soon the gélé became part of our indigenous feminine fashion. If you dey ever wonder why our grandmothers for villa no dey ever sabi tie gélé, it's because it was never part of our Afrikan cultural fashion, and was one of the several neo-traditions invented in the colonial era.

Today, Chinese and Korean industrialists have created a billion dollar industry from selling relaxers and other "hair-straightening" products to Afrikans. Afrikan girls are never to accept themselves as they are born. They are born with skin that needs lightening, hair that needs straightening, and a mind that needs caging. These harmful chemicals permeate our scalp and eventually find their way into the same pool of bloodstream that bathes the human brain. Our girls are being made to poison their very own brain. They are literally being "brain washed" by these harmful hair products. Now society is littered with "beautiful" fools. Félà talk tire for Big Blind Country (BBC), my people no still hear. We're not just blind, but also deaf.

Our hair are antennas. The longer they are, the better our reception to signals from the world beyond this one. Little wonder then that in the hippie age of the 60's in the US, long flowing hair came to signify mental, spiritual and societal freedom. The clean-shaven head still represents a new recruit; a new slave as it once did in colonial times and in the slave trade era. Till date, military and cult group initiations still require the heads of the new recruits to be clean-shaven. This represents a severing of the subconscious connection to one's soul and mind. A soulless body is much more easier to control and dominate. The new recruit was now to look, talk, think and feel like everyone else; a slave to the status quo. They cut your hair, and cut off your senses.

Keep your antenna well-cared for; feed it natural food and not synthetic poison. Free your hair, then you'd be able to free your soul and mind. Until Afrikans free their hair, mind and soul, we're bound to remain the slaves that we still are. We'll remain locked until our locks return.