A Quote by KiKi Layne

It's not lost on me to have the ability to be wearing custom Dior or Gucci, with my box braids or my bantu knots. It's another opportunity to show that Black girls belong in these places and that what I naturally bring as a Black girl belongs as well.
I don't think it's different to be a black girl in England than it is to be a black girl from America. We all collectively share in a pain of displacement and not feeling like we quite belong in places.
Braids are not new. Black women have been wearing braids for a very long time.
We don't live in a world that nurtures and cares for Black girls like me. And if the world doesn't care about a Black girl like me, then what will happen to our Black babies who grow up to become Black children and Black adults?
The first dress that I wore in the Spice Girls, which everybody thought was a little black Gucci dress, was actually from Miss Selfridge - it wasn't a little black Gucci dress.
Having Black hair is unique in that Black women change up styles a lot. You can walk down one street block in New York City and see 10 different hairstyles that Black women are wearing: straight curls, short cuts, braids - we really run the gamut.
I remember when I had my show [The Chris Rock Show on HBO], I used to run my show. It was so hard to get people to bring sketches to me. No one had ever worked for a black person before. Even the black people hadn't worked for a black person. It literally took a month or two for everybody to know: I'm really running the show.
My dad, who was creative director in the '60s, always wore black jeans with black desert boots; he thought he was cool. He told me to buy a pair as well. I didn't like black, so I got the sand color, and I've been wearing them since college.
There's this idea if you are a woman of colour, that you must never let them see you break down. That we've got to show ourselves in the best light, always, as the 'Strong Black Women' and bring that 'black girl magic' all the time.
I've always been 'other' in all the spaces that I've been in. Even when I first moved to America, just the idea that I was a dark-skinned black girl from England with an accent. It's one thing to be a black girl, but it's another to be a dark black girl. I was chastised for that. I was chastised for the way I spoke.
I was wearing black clothes almost from the beginning. I feel comfortable in black. I felt like black looked good onstage, that it was attractive, so I started wearing it all the time.
I, however, like black. It is a color that makes me comfortable and the color with which I have the most experience. In the darkest darkness, all is black. In the deepest hole, all is black. In the terror of my Addicted mind, all is black. In the empty periods of my lost memory, all is black. I like black, goddammit, and I am going to give it its due.
I felt like it was a courageous show [Black-ish] from the beginning. We are a black family - we're not a family that happens to be black. But the show is not even about us being black. The show is about us being a family. That is groundbreaking - on TV, the black characters either happen to be black or they're the "black character," where everything they say is about being black. I think that's the genius.
One of the things I noticed when I worked at Vibe was that backstage at a fashion show, they always referred to the black models as "black girls." I thought, "They never say 'white girls.'
When I was coming up, we didn't have the movement of Black Girl Magic or Black Girls Rock, but my parents made it their business to make sure I saw positive images of myself and celebrated images of black women.
Honestly if a girl’s wearing, like, a Gucci shirt with a Gucci belt and a purse and a visor, that’s not cute at all. You can’t get away with that - with me - but you can always sprinkle it in there with your own stuff and it’s all good.
Honestly, if a girl's wearing, like, a Gucci shirt with a Gucci belt and a purse and a visor, that's not cute at all. You can't get away with that - with me - but you can always sprinkle it in there with your own stuff, and it's all good.
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