"Don't Touch My Hair" | |
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Song by Solange featuring Sampha | |
from the album A Seat at the Table | |
Released | September 30, 2016 |
Genre | Alternative R&B |
Length | 4:17 |
Label | |
Songwriter(s) |
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Producer(s) |
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Music video | |
Don't Touch My Hair on YouTube |
"Don't Touch My Hair" is the ninth track on American singer and songwriter Solange Knowles' third studio album, A Seat at the Table . It was released by Saint Records and Columbia Records on September 30, 2016, with its music video being released the following week. It was written by Knowles and Sampha Sisay.
This section possibly contains original research .(June 2018) |
Knowles spent four years working on the album, including the track "Don't Touch My Hair". [1] During the writing of "Don't Touch My Hair" and the creation of the full album, she has posted personal essays on her website, Saint Heron, linking the ideas of these personal essays with messages in the album. One essay that has been linked to the creation and writing of "Don't Touch My Hair" would be ""And Do You Belong? I Do." In this she says "You and your friends have been called the N-word, been approached as prostitutes, and have had your hair touched in a predominantly white bar just around the corner from the same venue." [2]
Solange Knowles debuted the music video for "Don't Touch My Hair" on October 2, 2016, on YouTube. [3] It was directed by Alan Ferguson. [4] In the music video there are an abundance of different hairstyles like Marcel waves, brushed out curls, beaded braids, afros, and then a crown of looped braids. [5] It shows Knowles and cast of dancers swaying back and forth between frames, all moving in soft and elegant steps with the warm harmonies and falsetto, giving the music video a very gentle, yet strong tone because of the overall message and the facial expressions shown on Knowles and the dancers. The hair styling for the video was done by Nikki Nelms. [6]
Rolling Stone said the track "uses sparkling synths and drowsy horns as broadsides against those who might deny Knowles and other black women their bodily autonomy", conveying a message of brutal honesty in tender and rich harmonies. [7] Pitchfork 's Sheldon Pearce wrote that "'Don’t Touch My Hair' moves at a heartbeat’s pulse, subtle and steady, yet vibrant" and "can be read as an explicit rejection of this behavior (the devalue and alienation of black spaces), as a simple establishment of boundaries, or as a powerful pledge of personal identity." [8]
Natelegé Whaley, writing for The Huffington Post , gave the song a positive review, highlighting in particular the importance of its message of praising black women's hair during such a socially volatile period: "Hair is used as a metaphor for our entire essence on this track and is the perfect symbol, as our hair is one thing that has always been policed throughout history and into the present." [9] Writing for Vogue , Eviana Hartman found the song to be an uplifting message about hair, and noted how its message relates to a specific community while also being accessible and relevant to the broader community of women in general. [10]
Despite it not being released as a single, "Don't Touch My Hair" debuted and peaked, at 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, on the week ending October 22, 2016, dropping off the chart the next week. [11]
Chart (2016) | Peak position |
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US Billboard Hot 100 [12] | 91 |
US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs ( Billboard ) [13] | 38 |
Solange Piaget Knowles is an American singer, songwriter and actress. Knowles expressed an interest in music from an early age and had temporary stints as a backup dancer for Destiny's Child, which featured her older sister Beyoncé Knowles among its members, before signing with her father Mathew Knowles' Music World Entertainment label. At 16, Knowles released her first studio album Solo Star (2002). She also appeared in the films Johnson Family Vacation (2004), and Bring It On: All or Nothing (2006).
American singer and songwriter Solange has released four studio albums: Solo Star in 2002, Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams in 2008, A Seat at the Table in 2016, which peaked at number one in the US Billboard 200 chart, and When I Get Home in 2019. Solange released a music video and single for "Losing You" on October 2, 2012. The single was released in promotion of her first EP, titled True, which Solange worked on with Dev Hynes and was released on November 27, 2012, by Terrible Records.
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Alan Ferguson is an American music video director. He is the son of the late Winifred Hocker Ferguson and the late William Alfred Ferguson Sr. His father was a U.S. Army veteran and a postal worker.
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True is the first extended play (EP) by American singer and songwriter Solange, first released on November 27, 2012 digitally through Terrible Records. Following the release of her second studio album Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams (2008), Solange announced that she had parted ways with Interscope Geffen A&M after releasing just one album on the label, and further revealed that she had chosen to go an independent route, eventually signing with Terrible Records. In 2009, Solange began the recording of a studio album, during which she suffered a "breakdown" due to the amount of time and emotion she was putting into the recording process.
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