It was the 1980s and Prince was rising to prominence. everybody and their mother was wearing lace and purple trying to look like Prince. Deep down inside you wanted to too. The way to REALLY get in touch with your inner Prince was to grow your hair and them do some fancy with your mop top. I've seen person after person try to achieve that Prince look by uploading a Jheri Curl in their hair back in the 80s. Chile please! Hell I aint gonna lie, I tried it too.

For the record PRINCE DIDN"T HAVE A JHERI CURL!!! That was a curly perm!!!! So if you had a jheri curl trying to look like Prince, all you really did was make yourself look like a confused fan of the man who owns a ranch in neverland.

Nothing use to piss me off more back in the 80s than to see Prince wannabes with jheri curls in their hair, Ala Mazzarati, A la Ready for the World.

Ok, got that off my chest. I've been waiting to vent that for 20 years now. Whew that felt good. I no longer need that therapy session

If Mazarati was such a desperate "wannabe" or whatever lol, then Prince might not even have been interested in signing them up to Paisley Park,
hence, before that record-deal Prince got to chat with Sir Casey Terry after a Mazarati-gig to tell them that he was interested to hear more work from the band.

1dell said:

Those poor deluded fools. You could have told them sooner. What are you some kind of monster

Does this really matter today?

You are speaking of their musical prowess. I'm just speaking of their look. Trying to achieve that "prince" look with a head full of jheri curls in it. Thats all I'm saying. Besides, Wasn't Mazarati brown mark's side project?

Shango said:

You are speaking of their musical prowess. I'm just speaking of their look. Trying to achieve that "prince" look with a head full of jheri curls in it. Thats all I'm saying. Besides, Wasn't Mazarati brown mark's side project?

Shango said:

1dell said:

Yeah, but Prince advised them for their image-look too lol.

It can't be long before that style is re-tootled and back in fashion, everything comes around.

Personally, I can't wait to see it!

I had a super wet curl with the bangs over my right eye.

Lol. Why am I not surprised. They looked like a black version of the Metal Band Poison

Shango said:

LOL!!! I had a bang over my right too but I permed my hair. Then I learned how to use a curling iron and it was ON after that!!! shh. don't tell no body

pricy503 said:

1dell said:

For black folks a "perm" is a straightener, a "curl" is a curly perm. Prince had his hair straitened, or at least hot ironed into barrel curls.

.
[Edited 12/28/09 10:36am]

.
[Edited 12/28/09 10:36am]

lol

some of us have these curls without trying

and spend our lives trying to straighten em' out-whilst the straight haired

get perms.....

bloody hair

NouveauDance said:

Oh no! Noooo NOOOO! Never come back, never! That's awful.

1dell said:

Thousands of black men and women wore Jheri curls since the late 70's. People had been wearing curls for years and none of this had the slightest thing to do with Prince. Michael Jackson started wearing a curl in 79/80. Many bruthas in the the early 80's in funk/r&b & rock bands were ALREADY wearing curls. That was the fashion in the entertainment world as well as on the street. Hell, out here in L.A, all the Bloods and Crips were wearing curls. Player, if u talked that shit to them about them wearing a curl because of punk ass Prince,....man oh man. Dig, it was a hairstyle, period. None of that had ANYTHING to do with Prince or anybody else because the Jheri curl had already long since been around before anybody was even thinking of Prince. The cats in RFTW were probably ALREADY wearing Jheri curls before they released their album and long before that. Hell, it's a great chance that Prince's ass when he pressed his hair out, was trying to copy a few of the bruthas in Switch. And nah, I'm not talking about the two Debarge brothers. I'm talking about a few of the other cats in the band. Anyway, many bruthas who had long hair wore curls for years, since they were in their teens. I hardly doubt that the Jackson family and Roger Troutman who were already wearing this style BEFORE P decided to was even thinking of P's ass. While P was either wearing his hair in an afro or pressed, thousands of blacks all over the country were already wearing jheri curls. I started wearing jheri curls when I was 13 but for me, because of the texture of my hair, I never liked how the curl looked because my hair was naturally too straight. I for one, certainly never got a curl because of Prince. And I only got one Jheri curl and booted it to the curb. I started having my hair braided and when I took my braids down, my hair was big and wild looking, which is how I liked it. But what I was going for was Hendrix, not Prince. That's just me. I had some blacks tripping off of me cuz my hair was so wild looking and big and I had no jheri curl. I was already rocking the Mazarati look BEFORE Mazarati. Except of course, the Crips and Bloods or any other O.G. who wore their hair in pink and blue rollers in their hair in broad daylight. And dared anybody to even pretend they were going to laugh. Once they took the rollers out of their hair, it was George Washington time, brah. I know of what I speak cuz I was doing it. Depending on a brutha's texture of hair, u had many Crips and Bloods when they "dropped" their hair, it was no different than the cats in Mazarati.That has NOTHING to do with Jheri curls. This is what I KNOW from out here in Cali and what many bruthas were already doing and this was YEARS before Prince's ass was even out. Again, the curl was a fashion that many upon many of black people were ALREADY wearing. Andre Cymone and Jesse were wearing Jheri curls BEFORE P started curling his hair. Let me tell ya'll something that I was told by both Andre Cymone and Morris Day, who I have recorded with. They both told me that when Jesse came into Minni and hooked up with Morris, they were doing a duo ala Hall and Oates. THAT'S when P first became hip to Jesse. When he was forming the band The Time, P wanted Jesse automatically. Both Morris and Andre told me that when P first met Jesse, he was hella impressed. Because Jesse ALREADY was rocking the big Jheri curl, wild style. He already had the pink custom amps and the pink guitar. Morris and Andre and everybody else in P's circle all noticed that after Jesse first came on the scene, THAT'S when P started with curling his hair like he did. Not at the beginning of Controversy but towards the end of that tour, P was wearing his hair in the front curled. I saw this at a Controversy show (with The Time opening) and noticed that it was different from how he had it on the Controversy album cover. Before Jesse came around, P wasn't even thinking of fucking with that. P started doing Everything the color purple because Jesse already was rocking the color pink. THIS is what Morris and Andre both told me. Now I know all of these folks on here NEED to believe that P is the Originator of ALL things but, that's so far from the truth and reality. Visually, while P was burning the shit out of his hair pressing it to death so it could be straight, when Jesse came to down, whooops, P got him some curly curls.
[Edited 8/19/09 22:26pm]

blackguitaristz said:

Again, when I was 13, I got a curl and couldn't fuck with it so all through high school, I just had big hair, with no curl. Many people on this site can attest to this because they've seen pics of me when I was a kid at the Purple Rain premier. As well as other pics from when I was a kid in a film the same year. Me personally, at that time, I was wearing a style that Hendrix wore early in his career. As I got out of high school, I started braiding my hair in big braids and when I took it down, it would have wave patterns in it so it would be curly naturally. I still do that to this day. People could always tell that I didn't wear a curl or have a perm. It's just how the texture of my hair is. Many bruthas who have their hair braided in cornrows or plats, when they take it down, it has a curly texture to it naturally. So I know o.g's back in the late 70's and early 80's BEFORE Purple Rain were already slangin' this and they didn't have a curl. There have also been recent pics of me posted on here with how I wear my hair today. It's how I've worn my hair since I was out of high school. At times, it's curly after I take my plats (big braids) down and if I don't press my hair and decide to wear it straight. Most of the time, I just take my braids down and let my hair drop. It's going to be naturally curly from my hair being braided.
[Edited 8/19/09 20:30pm]

lol..that's interesting B. Yeah a lot of brothers (who were musicians) that I knew started getting their hair "chemically treated" right around the time "1999" came out.

And when "P.R." hit the theaters, they started going full blast. Jheri curls, lace styled clothes, long coats, frilly shirts, their girlfriend's eyeliner, you name it. They were aiming for that "purple vibe" because it was getting them noticed. Some of the black local rock bands were even ditching their "hard rock" sound and going for the synth/guitar/funk/Linn sound..hey, that was the sign of the times (no pun intended) at the moment.


And yes, you DIDN'T dare laugh at the jheri curled gangsters that were hanging out on the school playground playing basketball. That would have invited a real ass whoopin'. But as you said B it was a style. And that was the style back then.

lol..Maybe P saw what was going on in early 85 and said "Damn..people are biting my style..I need to re-invent"..and in a cool and slick way he did.

Jesse and Morris had a duo?..Wow..never knew that!

I remember all the kids with Jheri Curls ruining the chalk boards at school when they leaned their heads on it. That Jheri Curl juice didn't come off.

lol

my mate Age and me shared a house when we first left home and man-he used stuff called stay soft fro.....man that stuff was like yacht varnish-we couldn't get it off the bathroom door when we were moving out

funnier still-Age is a big black guy-that slept in a shower cap so the goo in his hair didn't give him spots

and he did have hair just like the guy in tat clip

Top 5 Jheri Curls

NSFW Language

SPYZFAN1 said:

Yeah but my point is is that u already had thousands of cats who were already wearing a curl a few years easy BEFORE P started to try to get some of what Jesse was doing. I'm not denying that there were some cats that tried to get their shit waved up because P was popular BUT there is no way in hell that P owns the keys to that look. P's ass himself, especially during the PR tour, was trying to get his hair to look like a combination of Little Richard and Sly Stone. Maybe because I'm from So. Cali, I was just exposed to more shit outside of what P was doing cuz u had a grip of cats, musicians or non musicians, gangsters or civilians that were already on it and slangin' it.
[Edited 8/19/09 20:29pm]

Yeah, a lot of pillow slips got ruined back in the day! I know to this day I wish that I was older in the 80's. I could've gotten so many women just frombeing "lightskinned-ed" with curly hair. LOL

Mazarati werent wannabes

they adopted that look after prince signed them to paisley park because he suggested it.

1dell said:

Thanks for waiting 20 years to vent. Glad you feel better

minneapolisFunq said:

P suggested that they DRESS in that fashion and even that didn't stick when they performed live. They wore jeans when I saw them at The Palace in Hollywood. Mazarati were already a band back in 82 and were popular in Minni playing the clubs. Mark would sometimes sit in with them on bass, wearing a mask, going under the name "The Shadow". But from all accounts, MZ were already wearing their hair long and looking wild waaay before P even knew who they were and decided to fuck with them. In 83, they filled in for Dez and his newly formed band when he cancelled at the last minute at the Minnesota Music Awards show. Tony Christian, one of the guitarists for MZ said that's when P first took interest in the band. And again, this was in 83. May 21, 83 to be precise. Over a full year before Purple Rain was released. So nah, Mazarati weren't hardly trying to copy Prince's hair.
[Edited 8/19/09 22:37pm]