Latest / The Tight Curls Project / Never Just One Thing: Curls, Curiosity & Big Ambitions

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Never Just One Thing: Curls, Curiosity & Big Ambitions · The Tight Curls Project

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I posted a video just doing my everyday haircare routine on TikTok,
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and then I went to sleep, woke up, and it had like 100,000 views.
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And I told my mom, I'm like, "Oh my goodness, like we're famous."
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She's like, "What are views?"
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I feel like that we have this culture where we try to label people who've
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done great, amazing things as an outlier or they're the exception.
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But you have to be a little delusional in this world to do what you wanna do,
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Hello, and welcome to the Tight Curls Project podcast.
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I'm your host, Shadia, and we have a very special guest today.
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We have with us Alycea Adams.
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Welcome, Alycea
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Hi, thank you so much for having me.
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I'm looking forward to a fruitful conversation today
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Absolutely.
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Me too.
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So let me give a, little bit of your background.
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So Alycea Adams is a natural hair and beauty creator, an NBA cheerleader,
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a founder, and an entrepreneur.
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Named Sephora's 2025 Hair Creator of the Year, she inspires women to embrace
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their natural hair with confidence.
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A UNC Chapel Hill graduate, Alycea founded Hair Match, an AI-powered
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beauty startup recognized as a 2025 Microsoft Image World Cup finalist.
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After a year at IBM, Alycea is set to pursue her MBA in the fall while
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she continues to grow Hair Match, expand her social media presence, and
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roll out her debut children's book.
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At her core, Alycea embodies more than one thing, which we love.
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From creative technologist to community builder, she strives to be a role model
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for the next generation of young Black girls, showing them they can achieve
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anything they set their minds to.
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Amazing, and welcome.
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We're so excited to have you.
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Thank you for that bio read.
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I love, I love hearing people's narration of, like, the things that
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I've done, and I always, uh, love it
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Yeah, it's so interesting.
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I mean, there's obviously just reading that, anybody listening
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to your bio, there's so many things we wanna touch upon today.
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here at Tight Curls Project, we love embracing curly hair and what you've
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done, and you're really a someone who's a beacon of light in that, but
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also in other aspects of your life.
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So we're gonna get into how you've done all these things at such a
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young age and some of the really interesting things that, um, have
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been part of your journey to today.
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So I like to start with little Alycea.
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Tell me a little bit about you as a kid.
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Like, what were your early memories and relationship with your hair?
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Absolutely.
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I would always say with my hair, I never liked to get it done.
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I would avoid wash day, avoid my mom sitting me down on a pillow
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in front of the TV just because it was such a tedious task.
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But as a kid, you just wanna run around and have fun.
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I was the kid jumping off of the couch, in gymnastics, running
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track, and just being outside.
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Younger me, I would always wear my hair pulled back.
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Whatever worked for my mom essentially was what the style was, just because
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now being older, going back and looking at how much hair she had to do,
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including my own, including her own.
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So it was a relationship where I would hide it a lot of times just because it was
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easier for my routine as an active child
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And so when did you start getting more interested in your hair
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or trying different styles?
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Was that something that came from you?
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Was it coming from, you know, school or seeing other people or your family?
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It definitely started with just my exposure into the YouTuber space,
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seeing those level of content creators.
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YouTubers and content creators are completely different, and once you
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are introduced to it at a young age, around 11 or 12, you really start to
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understand that, you know, YouTube is a platform where you go to learn.
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And so I kind of took that into my mindset and dove into it to see how can I learn
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how to do my natural hair or, like, curly hairstyles for such and such hair texture.
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And I went down this rabbit hole and I was watching videos like
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I was watching film for football and seeing how there were specific
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creators that I've now connected with.
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Jasmine Brown is a good example of that.
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She would do different tutorials on hairstyles, but
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also making them very simple.
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I didn't know how to braid on myself, but I knew how to braid on others.
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So I would actually practice cornrowing on, like, my teammates in gymnastics
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or my younger cousins or just friends from school in middle school to
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learn how to actually do my own hair, because I still can't braid on myself.
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It's so interesting how to reverse the mechanics that you're working
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with when you are braiding.
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But I really leaned into YouTube as the platform to learn about products,
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learn about how to apply products in a way that's effective as well,
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learning the benefits of other products versus using different ones
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for different styles, and seeing and learning the science behind hair.
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So learning how to apply heat in a healthy way, learning how to
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apply moisture through hydration with water, then product.
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Like, so
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Yeah, so I, I, I kept a hair journal and I kept down, like, every product
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I wanted to try and I, um, previously mentioned to you creating, like,
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a grocery list for hair products.
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I'm like, "Okay, Mom, see if Harris Teeter has this or see if Walmart has
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this, or we can go to the Indian grocery store to see if they have this oil."
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So it was a lot of market research, and I didn't know then that that was
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market research, but I really sat down with myself and wanted to figure
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out how can I manage my own hair but also bring out, you know, the
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health, the texture, and the coils.
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definitely had a, an interest and you developed that into an aptitude, right?
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Because you put in the, you put in the hours.
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And so I think it's fascinating.
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Do you think it was really a curiosity to be able to take care of it, of yourself?
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Or just what made you so curious, do you think?
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At, especially at a young
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I think I was so curious because I would always see my brother go to
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the barbershop, and I'm like, okay.
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So he has his own haircare regimen, but I also would have like a yearly silk press.
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My older cousin, DeAnthea, would straighten my hair for me, and it was
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just like this salon experience at home.
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But as DeAnthea, she got older, you know, we're living in different cities.
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Now I'm like, well, I wanna have my own salon experience and I
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wanna be the one behind the chair.
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So I think that just passion and curiosity and also my mom pouring
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into my hair as well, it's a ritual, and it's really rooted in family.
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Um, and there's such a big culture around hair, textured hair that I really just
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wanted to embody myself because it felt like I was-- I would have a authority and
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autonomy over wearing my hair a particular way and not letting my mom decide.
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So that was definitely the root of it.
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thing, right?
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I love that.
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And then you continued with sports and, did that change
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with cheerleading and your hair?
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Were-- 'Cause that's a, you do competitions, right?
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So you're getting your, you have to do your hair a lot for that.
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Did you have to deal with any expectations around your hair?
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Yeah.
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With expectations around my hair, I really started to experience that once you got
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into the competition space in high school.
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So wearing the high ponytails or like, for example, in college, wearing half up half
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down for like the uniform game day look.
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But I had to work with my coaches to explain to them like how my natural
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hair would show up best, not only for game days, but for the longevity
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and health and integrity of my hair.
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The one thing that I did notice and why I refrain from wearing too
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much of like braided styles that are directly on my scalp, because
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it does cause a lot of tension.
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It was causing more damage or breakage than actually
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allowing for length retention.
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So again, I had to go back to the drawing board.
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I just had to keep reiterating that.
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So finding ways to wear my hair that, one, was safe, but
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also helped to protect my hair.
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And it was just like a, a forum to have a discussion to inform others
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who may not be privy to what natural hair is and how convoluted the
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process of even a wash day can be.
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I said, "Hey, you know, if I wanna wear a good wash and go, that's gonna
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be like prep." So if we have a game on Friday… No, if we have field practice
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on Friday, game on Saturday, I have to start prep on Thursday after classes
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. So the expectations of my hair during high school cheer and college, I just
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navigated them by communicating with my coaches about more so of just natural
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hair and what it means to wear it.
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We do have some pictures of early you, so you can tell
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me . Is this you in high school?
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Yes, this is me.
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I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina, so Mallard Creek High School, a grad of
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class of
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2021, and our football team was really good.
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This is how I wore my hair for game days, pulled back into a ponytail, and was
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the most that I could do at that time.
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But it really is just the beginning of a journey with cheerleading and
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also learning that hair has so much movement, and in the space of stump
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and shake, which is a style of cheer that my high school performed as well
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as traditional, hair was such a crucial part where I leaned into and really
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wore my hair out with the volume and how big it was because it just adds so
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much flair to your style of dance or
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It does.
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I didn't know that was the style you did there.
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Okay.
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So it is-- So would they tell you, "Okay, for this game, this
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is how we want your hair and this
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Yeah, exactly.
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And it just, I loved it because I, it challenged me to wear my hair out
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naturally curly and do the wash and goes., It looks so good to see just
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the body and how hair really does tell a story even in performances.
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of it.
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It's part of the whole that.
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Yeah.
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And I didn't describe it you're, you're d- posing to the side and
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you have your hair pulled back.
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Very nice.
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Okay.
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So you had some variety, mixed it up.
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And then in terms of going into college, so you ended up going to UNC Chapel Hill,
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Did you come in knowing you were going to cheer?
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So actually, I didn't even plan on going to Carolina.
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Coming out of high school, I didn't know where I wanted to go, so
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somewhat had information overload.
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I applied to over 20 schools, got accepted all the way from UCLA all the
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way down to the University of Georgia, LSU, and North Carolina was one of
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the few schools that I considered for in-state, and I waited until May 1st for
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that deadline to submit and tell my mom.
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I hid the fact from my mom that I got a full ride to Carolina, and then 'cause,
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because I knew she would say, you know, "You go to Car- go to Carolina."
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So kept that from her, but somehow they sent something in
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the mail, and then she found out.
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So we landed on Carolina, and I started thinking, "Okay, this will
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be the home for the next four years.
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Let me think about, you know, pursuing cheerleading in college." And I knew
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someone who was on the team from my hometown, so I just reached out to
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her to learn a little bit more about the process, and then started tryouts
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April 2021, made the team August 2021, and we hit the ground running for
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that, um, upcoming football season.
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So very interesting pathway to Carolina, to say the least.
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Well, you definitely rep your school well now, so I'm sure
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once you got there, you got, you
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went all in, right?
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Absolutely
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So as a college student, you think about game days, you think about studying, you
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think about the other things you're doing.
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Um, can you tell us a little bit about what your strategy
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was for your hair with that?
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Did it change the expectations?
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Yeah, it's definitely something that I had to plan into my calendar.
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My freshman year, I lived in communal-style living, so we had
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shared restrooms and bathrooms.
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So I would plan to do my wash day when I knew that it would be a downtime.
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I would do either wash my hair like super early in the morning, like
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at 5:00 AM, just because I knew it would take such a long process.
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But for game days, if I had styles that I would do like the half up, half
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down or doing like a braided back bun, just finding that time in my schedule
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to do that on top of the studying, on top of being social and just enjoying
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campus living, I would set aside time that I could prolong any style.
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So if we had a football game on Saturday, I would wear my twists Monday through
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Friday, take it out, wear a twist out on Saturday, and then we're doing
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whatever on Sunday and Monday until I do the whole process over again.
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It worked well to figure out how to just segment out time for my
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hair, but also learning to lean into my hair as a form of self-care.
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The, the transition for me and the mindset, once I started treating my
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hair not like a chore, but as self-care and pouring into just my wellbeing, it
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now became peaceful, quite therapeutic to do my own hair, to just have a
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decompressing moment in the day or my schedule, put on a movie, um, and just
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have that just pouring back into the cup that I've been dishing out all week with
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all the various obligations that I had.
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That's, that's really interesting.
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I think a couple things.
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One, for listeners, Alycea has an exceptional amount of hair.
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So that is part of why I'm asking this question.
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I think it would be a question for any student athlete, right?
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Especially someone who's doing performance like at a game.
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But her hair is very long.
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I don't know, 30 inches maybe, or I don't know how long
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It, I think the last time I measured it was like 40 inches,
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like completely pressed.
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So again, protective styles.
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Currently I have two-strand twist in that I'll wear for like two
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weeks to give my hair breaks.
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I have like on and off schedules for my hair to give it rest.
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That's another key factor that I learned because too much of
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anything can be a bad thing.
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So if I'm constantly manipulating my hair for wash and goes, okay, my hair is
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like, "Alycea, we need to dial it back a little bit, do a protective style."
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So learning how to nourish my hair and style it in ways that is giving my
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hair what it's asking for, protective styles are my best friend in the
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look great.
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I love the twist.
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So a couple things.
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When you said changing your mindset, can you talk a little bit about some
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of the things you're telling yourself?
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Because I think a lot of times people feel rushed with their hair.
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Even myself when I'm detangling, even with these, you know, I'm never-- This is my
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first time doing these miracle knots and
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look good.
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They look good
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and even if it's not my hair, I feel so rushed to try to get the tangles
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out and I have to take a deep breath and tell myself, "Why are you rushing?
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Don't rush." , What are some of the things you're telling yourself or
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that you would might be helpful for people to think about if they wanna
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change their mindset about their hair?
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My wash day starts with, depending on how tangled my hair is previously,
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my wash day for just, like, washing in the shower portion of washing with
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shampoo, conditioning, and doing a deep conditioner, that process can take up to
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two hours of just cutting the shower on, cutting the shower off, detangling it.
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But to find a system that works for me, that's repeatable, is what I've
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really honed in the last six years of my natural haircare journey,
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because it is about having a routine
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and I think also, like, having that rhythm, it takes
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a little bit of the anxiety.
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Like, this is what, this is how we do it.
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This is we're gonna do it this way, and this works for you.
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That's great.
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. So I wanna just touch on, you're not just doing cheerleading and studying, you
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also became a huge, uh, content creator.
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So can you tell us a little bit about this?
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I'm gonna bring up this picture from the Sephora
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Squad where you have an award, a lipstick award.
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Sephora Squad, yes.
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That happened my senior year, but I got into the content space going into
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my sophomore year of college, and I always tell people I landed in the
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space of content creation by chance.
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I posted a video just doing my everyday haircare routine on TikTok,
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and then I went to sleep, woke up, and it had like 100,000 views.
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And I told my mom, I'm like, "Oh my goodness, like we're famous." She's like,
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"What are views?" My mom is the type of mom who's not on social media, so I had to
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explain it to her, so now she understands it just being in the space for so long.
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But I loved it because people had so many questions about how did I maintain
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my hair or how did I maintain the length, the healthiness of my hair,
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and I just love answering questions.
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I love being in that space of empowering people through education
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that doesn't necessarily have to be within the classroom.
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I've learned so much outside just learning through life.
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And through that process of content creation, just stayed consistent with it
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and then started, you know, posting on TikTok, but also posting on Instagram.
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And in June 2023, I signed with my current talent agency, Dulcedo,
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and they essentially taught me the business behind social media.
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I was posting, you know, for a hobby and just, you know, making videos,
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learning how to edit content, especially social-first content, because it's
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completely different from what I was viewing as a young child on YouTube.
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The long-form content is a completely different game So I had that opportunity
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with Dulcedo, and it's just been amazing.
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And winning that award this past year at the end of this Four Squad, which
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is like a paid ambassador program,
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so I was completely shocked to walk upstage and accept it.
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But I, I said in my impromptu speech, like looking… my 12-year-old self would be
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so proud because how far we've come to embracing our natural hair, and now doing
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work with my startup Hair Match around bringing product recommendations to those
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who have natural hair to make navigating those shelves a little bit easier.
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It's just been great to be in that content creation space and
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really lean into my storytelling
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Yeah.
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I mean, clearly you're a natural storyteller because that's why
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people resonated, but I think also your desire to answer questions,
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not everybody wants to do that.
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Sometimes people just wanna put it out there and
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not engage.
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So it makes a lot of sense, and I'm glad that you're able to get
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that support and grow as, as a business even while you're a student.
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And I do wanna talk also about your app.
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So you're at UNC, going to school.
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You graduated with honors, and then also you're cheering, and then you're
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doing this c- content creation.
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And then I imagine sometime in that mix, because of all that, you had
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the idea of, of creating your app.
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So tell us a little bit about Hair Match and, And how that came to be.
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Hair Match first off, it's a mobile app that's powered through AI to allow
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users to upload photos of their hair to receive product recommendations, and it
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really came to me I had an internship with my previous co-founder at Delta
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Airlines, and he was working in software development, and I was working in
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business strategy of IT, and we bonded over entrepreneurship and sports.
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And I met him, stayed connected with him as friends, and as I was
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going through that content creation process, you know, doing different
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brand partnerships and always having my audience ask me about what products
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and how did I find them, I could not give them a cookie cutter answer.
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There, there was no streamlined way of finding the products that I did.
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It was a lot of trial and error and a lot of money wasted, and I
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think that's something Black… Heavy on my mom's money, yes.
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I think a lot of women, Black women especially, can resonate with trying
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products and they don't work, and you can't return them like how you can return
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makeup products if they don't work.
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Once you break the seal, you're essentially out of that money
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that you spent on that product.
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And I started ideating with my co-founder July of 2024, so I decided
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I cheered three years at Carolina.
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I could cheer my senior year or I could start, you know,
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ideating to build my startup.
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So foregoed my senior year to pour into my content creation, my startup,
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because it, it was something that I leaned heavily into as someone
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who minored in entrepreneurship.
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UNC Chapel Hill has a phenomenal entrepreneurship minor, the UNC
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Shuford program, and they taught me the fundamentals of design
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thinking, understanding how to meet your customers where they are,
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and understanding marketing from a social entrepreneurship standpoint.
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And I took this one class in my information science major, systems
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design, where we had to do, like, the system requirements, the wireframing,
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the high-fidelity prototyping, and I was like, "Wait, I could do this
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with a startup that I have in mind."
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And started building with my co-founder during both our senior year, and we
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scaled it, launched on the Apple App Store November 2024, and then we made it
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to the Microsoft Build stage May of 2025.
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Right after graduation, I hopped on a flight to Seattle, Washington,
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and spent a week in, Seattle with Microsoft being at Build.
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So it was unexpected, but I really leaned into my interest in technology
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and utilizing it as a means to help people, especially when it's
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something so authentic to myself.
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When it comes to hair, it's like, usually if someone's trying to spot me in a crowd,
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they're gonna look for the big curls.
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So to h- to build it-- Yeah, so to build a hair app that was focused on it, it
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was great to bring the synergy of AI in the haircare and beauty space because
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people don't readily think about it, but it's so in- integrated through so
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many facets from R&D, through shelving, through just even product launch.
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There's so much technology that's incorporated into it.
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So my senior year was jam-packed, but you know, you only live once,
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so I always say to go for it, and, dream big and build even bigger.
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a
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big accomplishment to go from ideation to, to launching it and then get that
22:26
support and recognition and be able to even learn from people through Microsoft
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and your school and your programming.
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So it really brings a lot of those pieces together.
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I'm just thinking something that's interesting is if people have lots of
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ideas and they have different passions, sometimes it's hard to decide, you
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know, how do you pursue multiple things?
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And you're someone who has done that, but you still make decisions about
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where you wanna focus your effort.
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How do you approach that when you have a new idea?
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How do you think about, is this something I'm gonna do now or later,
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or can I do these things together?
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I always wanted to not be inside a box.
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If you could describe Alycea, she's always trying to figure out
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how do I not pigeonhole myself?
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So, I always focus my time on things that can amplify something
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I've previously, um, done before.
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So everything is connected in some facet.
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So cheerleading Was an avenue for me when it came to being an outlet for
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school, so treating one area of interest as an outlet from the other, but
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also being proactive in that process.
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Time management is my jam.
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My Google Calendar is literally like a rainbow of different things just to
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keep myself on track, and I learned that in college because when content
23:46
creation started to really snowball and amplify, and it's just crazy
23:51
how everything is connected, and you can always do more than one thing,
23:55
and you can always try and fail.
23:58
That's the one, that's the one thing that my mentors in
24:02
entrepreneurship have told me.
24:04
It's rare to launch something like Hair Match the first time and
24:09
it actually scale at that point.
24:12
That's not really the journey of entrepreneurship.
24:15
Usually people have 5, 10, 11 startups before they hit the one
24:21
that resonates with the market.
24:23
But everything happens for a reason, and giving myself the grace to make mistakes,
24:29
to do things and then say, "Maybe we can pivot to something else." As a young
24:33
student juggling your, even your, your personal life, your social life, it is
24:39
a lot, but it's so rewarding to see, you know, the flowers blossom and that's
24:43
what really does keep me going, keep me
24:45
said a lot of interesting things.
24:46
I think you said giving yourself permission to try and fail and having,
24:51
you know, and expect- expecting that you're gonna-- sometimes you might fail,
24:55
and I think also having that grace.
24:57
And then I think even as about going, making that decision to not cheer
25:01
your senior year, you made a decision.
25:03
You didn't keep doing it
25:04
It was so hard
25:06
and, you know, you were incapable of doing both.
25:08
You made a decision, and so that was something that sometimes
25:11
you have to do for this season.
25:13
But we know you got back to cheerleading.
25:15
So before we go there, I just wanna touch on two other things that I thought
25:19
were really cool that, happened while you were in school and a creator, and
25:22
one is getting to meet Kamala Harris.
25:27
Do you
25:28
Oh, this?
25:29
This opportunity and how it came through your creator, platform?
25:33
Absolutely.
25:34
My former Carolina's student body president, Jaleah Taylor, she was
25:39
actually working with the organization that was compiling and, you know,
25:44
organizing this creator collective.
25:46
And so she was like, "I put your name into the bucket.
25:48
They were looking for creators in the area." And I was like, "Girl, really?
25:52
Okay." So they reached out to me, and I knew I was gonna attend her rally
25:57
at East Carolina University, but I found out probably like 6:00 PM the day
26:02
before that I was going to meet her.
26:04
I was like, "Hold on." I said, "Madam." I was like, "Oh my goodness."
26:08
So, and just to see the history and also to connect with her briefly and
26:14
just share words of encouragement.
26:16
At that time, I was going through such a hard time.
26:19
The day prior, I lost one of my close friends to his battle with stage four
26:24
cancer, Tylee Craft, football player at Carolina, and his legacy is so big.
26:29
So the day before I was bawling my eyes out, and then the
26:34
next day I got to meet her.
26:37
So it was like, it was so many mixed emotions.
26:40
At one point I felt like, okay, I'm, I'm not well to go.
26:43
My eyes were puffy, but I'm
26:45
is a rollercoaster.
26:46
Absolutely.
26:48
Yeah
26:48
And it was just… I think it's so, it- it's so hard to process grief at a
26:54
young age when it's someone your age,
26:58
So I got to meet her and I shared, my friend Tylee's story, journey with her,
27:05
and just to tell her, "Lead us," and that's what we're, we're looking for.
27:09
She's doing so much representation and it's amazing.
27:12
But it was funny because when I posted the picture, a lot of people
27:15
thought it was a wax figure, and I was like, I was like, "Guys, no."
27:18
and then we can describe it
27:20
Yes.
27:21
Yes, you guys both look so good.
27:23
Yes.
27:23
I'm like, "We really could be kinfolk." Yes, this is a selfie that I got to
27:28
take with her former VP, and I also have my twist in this picture as well.
27:35
So just to see how, again, hair is, like, all connected and
27:38
seeing that, just an opportunity to capture this moment in time.
27:43
And it is a photo that is loved in my family.
27:46
It's a Picasso in my godparents' house at their front door.
27:50
So it's amazing what content creation has opened up for me, but also
27:55
what friends have opened up for me.
27:57
Going back to Jaleah, my friend that, you know, recommended me for the Creator
28:01
Collective, and that was definitely a peak of my senior year of college
28:06
So that's so beautiful and that you have that picture and you
28:10
can share that with your family.
28:11
And your twists are ready to go, I'm guessing, right?
28:15
They were ready
28:16
Love it.
28:16
So let's move a little forward now.
28:19
So you graduated and now you're based in Atlanta,.
28:23
And so tell us a little bit about your time there and how you got
28:26
involved with cheerleading there and, and your work that you're doing.
28:29
Yes.
28:30
So with cheerleading, again, after my college experience, I was ready to
28:36
hang up my pom-poms, just having two concussions, having back problems.
28:42
And cheer is a very strenuous sport on your body, especially when you're in
28:46
football season, and it has that collision with basketball season, and then it
28:50
can go all the way into March Madness.
28:53
So it was just a lot of wear and tear just through the nature of the sport.
28:56
So once I got to Atlanta, I started work at IBM, and I came about the opportunity
29:05
to cheer with my now teammate because we live in the same apartment building.
29:10
So it was by chance that we connected, and I was telling her,
29:17
"Oh yeah, I cheered in college."
29:18
And she was like, "Oh, like I cheer for the Hawks.
29:20
Like we have a flight crew.
29:21
We do stunts.
29:22
You should come to our tryouts." I'm like, "Oh, when are they?" She's
29:25
like, "They're this Saturday." Girl.
29:28
I was like, "Okay. I haven't thrown a tuck in like six months," but you
29:34
know, your body has the muscle memory.
29:36
So I took a chance to go to the tryouts and made it to the next round
29:42
and then made the official team.
29:43
So again, by meeting people and just being the genuine, bubbly personality that I am,
29:51
it just opened up so many different doors.
29:53
And that experience with the Hawks was probably the homecoming that I needed
29:58
to have with cheerleading, because sometimes when you do a sport for so
30:00
long, you can fall out of love with it.
30:02
But cheering with the Hawks made me fall back in love with
30:05
a passion that I've always had.
30:07
And they let me, wear my hair however I want.
30:10
I said,
30:11
Wow.
30:12
More control, more control of your hair than, than
30:15
Yeah, and I asked them, I said, "How do you guys want me to wear my hair?"
30:17
And they were like, " We, we like it when you wear it out." I said, "Oh." So
30:21
this was the first time, like I wore…
30:24
yes.
30:25
For my rookie photo shoot.
30:26
Mm-hmm.
30:26
Yeah.
30:27
Our…
30:28
and you have your, your Hawks outfit on.
30:31
Yes, Hawks outfit, one of my favorite uniforms because it has rhinestones on it.
30:35
I feel it's rooted in the Atlanta culture because it's so diverse that
30:41
showing up as your authentic self is the status quo in Atlanta, especially
30:46
when it comes to the intersection of sports, music, and entertainment.
30:49
Atlanta pretty much has everything across the board.
30:52
So to wear my curls in their natural state and to again have that movement,
30:58
the body of hair, it just felt like I loved getting ready for game days
31:03
because even with, when it came to the fans, like the young girls taking
31:07
photos with me at the Hawks or even like with being in the space of content
31:12
creation in Atlanta, now I'm building a community here from online to in-person.
31:17
So it's always cute to see like the young girls like, "Are you Alycea Ray?"
31:21
I'm like, "This is so cute." Yes, it is such a… I just love it because
31:27
it's just me being myself, and it's like a great opportunity to show that
31:31
representation in different spaces.
31:33
that's great And so what do you think, has anything changed with your
31:36
approach now that you're working with your hair and your schedule or how,
31:39
how you represent your hair at work?
31:41
Have you been able to show up?
31:42
You said in Atlanta it feels like you can more be your own self, and this
31:45
is you by your big I- IBM sign That's the Atlanta skyline right behind you?
31:49
Yeah, Atlanta skyline in the background, yeah.
31:52
So with wearing my hair in the workplace, I realized that You do
31:59
feel pressure to not wear your natural hair in different styles per se, but
32:07
I've always been someone who is going to do what Alycea want, wants to do.
32:12
Al- always being respectful with it, but also showing and being true to who I am
32:17
and how I show up in different spaces.
32:19
And with the work schedule, I feel that it's been easier to style my hair when I
32:26
know that, I have practice once a week.
32:30
I have game days on whichever Saturday or weekday, depending on the schedule,
32:36
and I can plan to wear my hair throughout the week in a rest state.
32:40
So maybe twist, maybe jumbo twist, and just have it pulled
32:44
back into a bun or a claw clip.
32:47
And I don't treat work as like the hair fashion show, so sometimes, it's
32:51
a bun, it's a day five wash and go that needs to be washed, but always
32:57
doing it in a way that is easy for me.
33:01
And then also seeing some of my coworkers who they have their hair done every day.
33:07
Yeah, it's, it is really exciting to see, especially being at a place where you
33:10
get to see people with different hair.
33:12
It's inspiring.
33:13
Even if you're not gonna do it, you just appreciate it and admire it, right?
33:17
Yeah
33:18
So let's, let's, as we go towards the end, let's talk a little
33:20
bit about you and next chapters.
33:22
And how you think about moving on to something new?
33:26
Yes, absolutely.
33:27
So next chapter, going to grad school in the fall to pursue my MBA at NC State.
33:33
Another opportunity for a full ride, so my mom was like, "Okay, we're doing
33:38
this again." I said, "Listen." Amazing.
33:40
So just using my brain to unlock different opportunities and just the
33:45
work that I've done with my startup in the content creation space, and
33:48
really rooted in entrepreneurship at the grand scheme of things.
33:52
And with the next chapter, everyone's asking me, "Are
33:56
you gonna cheer again?" No.
33:58
I think Alycea is good to wrap it up, but I would love to step
34:01
into the coaching side of things.
34:04
I love working with people in general, but to see someone have an
34:09
aha moment where it's like the light bulb goes off, it really does show
34:12
up in the athletic space as well.
34:15
After pursuing my master's, I definitely want to dive into a post-bacc
34:19
program to complete my pre-health, pre-medicine requirements for medical
34:24
school to go into the MD space.
34:26
I actually went into Carolina as a pre-med neuroscience major, so technology just
34:31
swept me off my feet, to say the least.
34:33
But there's always an equation that I'm looking for in life, which is the science,
34:38
creativity, and technology to help people.
34:40
To even discuss, how, you know, medical tools don't represent or
34:45
work with natural textured hair in so many different capacities.
34:49
I can go on and on.
34:50
So just to lean into the research bug that I have
34:54
so the goal for, like, my name is to be Alycea Adams, BS, MBA, MD, PhD. So we're
35:03
gonna put, we're gonna, we're gonna put that into the atmosphere, so we love
35:07
love that.
35:07
Absolutely.
35:08
I have a friend, she's getting her PhD. She already has two masters,
35:12
and she's, you know, a mom with two kids, and it was the path that it
35:16
Education is a privilege, and it's so… I love learning.
35:20
And you heard it here, she has a life equation.
35:23
And so that got me thinking about what's my life equation.
35:25
Wanna say yours again?
35:26
What is it again?
35:27
Science paired with creativity and the technology to help people.
35:32
So that's the goal, is to help people in this lifetime
35:35
Another opportunity i'm super excited about is finishing the illustrations for
35:39
my children's book that I'm publishing come fall 2026 in August, um, called
35:45
"My Hair Is My Superpower." So again, it just resonated very well, and
35:50
I've always wanted to do a children's book because my mom had a whole
35:55
She got me this one book, that talked about hair.
35:58
But there was another one, and I just see them all the time about,
36:03
you know, just young girls and having the representation and to know
36:06
that your hair is your superpower.
36:08
I've had an adult tell me that your hair has superpowers, so I was like,
36:12
"This is a good spin on things."
36:14
Um, and I love reading.
36:16
The illustrations and
36:17
so
36:18
I, oh, yes
36:20
And my mom's in education.
36:22
Have a lot of family members in education, so I'm so excited to like, you know,
36:26
plan a rollout for the book, do different school readings, and really just pour back
36:30
into the generation that's up and coming because it is monumental to see someone
36:36
who looks like you do something, because it sets a precedent that I can do it too.
36:42
And I feel like that we have this culture where we try to label people
36:47
who've done great, amazing things as an outlier or they're the exception.
36:54
But you have to be a little delusional in this world to do what you wanna
36:57
do, and that's something that I've leaned into because why not?
37:00
And once you start to pull back, you know, the societal jargon that sometimes
37:06
tries to keep you from dreaming too big, you realize you have, especially
37:12
at 22, it's like I have so much runway to figure out what I wanna do.
37:17
So the children's book, I'm so excited for it, and it's just an amazing
37:21
full circle moment to be able to do something for the kiddos specifically.
37:26
to see it.
37:26
So we'll definitely, we'll get the information and include that in the show
37:29
notes so people can take a look too.
37:31
And I think also just what you're saying about, this idea that you can
37:37
try things and also you need to just have the expectation that you can try
37:41
things and be a little delusional, right?
37:43
I don't wanna undermine the fact that you put a lot of hard work in
37:46
what you're doing as well, right?
37:47
So you've worked really hard, but you've also been really open to things,
37:51
and we see how all those pieces have come together and will continue to
37:54
unfold because again, you are 22.
37:57
And so it's really exciting to even just hear a little bit about how
38:00
you're thinking about that, because I think that will re- resonate with
38:03
a lot of people, young people, your peers, people who are older than you.
38:07
Because sometimes we feel like we need permission to try something
38:09
different, and we have to give ourselves that permission, you know?
38:13
No one else can tell us that it's okay to do that in a way
38:16
that's gonna allow us to do it
38:18
absolutely.
38:19
And you don't have to explain your life to anyone else but yourself.
38:23
So even when I was in college, I was trying to pursue an educational pathway
38:30
that made sense to other people.
38:32
So if you looked at my resume, it made sense.
38:35
But one of my mentors, she said, "You do not have to explain anything to anyone."
38:39
I'm like, "Wow, that is actually very true." So, so it's just, it's little
38:44
things like that, um, where sometimes you just have to be bold in your choices
38:50
and decisions and learn that it's okay to make a decision that doesn't pan out.
38:54
So I feel like there is no win-lose situation.
38:58
Everything is a win-win, and when you have that perspective, you learn so much more.
39:02
absolutely.
39:03
I mean, perspective is everything.
39:05
It really, it is the game changer.
39:06
It is the unlock, 'cause it's really about what you believe and
39:09
what you tell yourself and what you take in from other people, right?
39:12
Because I've totally had that experience too, like, "Oh, what are
39:15
you doing next? You're doing that?"
39:17
Like, I gotta do what I gotta do.
39:18
It's okay, you know?
39:20
And I think you should expect that sometimes that people will have
39:22
questions because they're on their own journey, and that's okay, This
39:26
really, is a full circle of what you've talked about, 'cause we've seen
39:29
those threads from the very beginning.
39:31
And interesting things will probably come up with synergies when you're in school
39:35
and you're learning from fellow students and your professors and everything.
39:38
So you're definitely someone we're gonna continue to watch, and we're so glad to
39:42
have you on this season and this episode.
39:45
And I wanna give a shout-out to Emily Eschleman, Emily,
39:49
come pop in and say hello.
39:51
She's our intern.
39:52
Hello guys
39:52
Hey, Emily
39:54
Emily for connecting us.
39:55
Thank you.
39:55
I think she's also inspired by you,
39:57
thank you.
39:58
Well, thank you so much, Alycea We're so excited to have you here.
40:01
This is a great conversation.
40:03
And for everybody who's listening to the Tight Curls Project podcast,
40:06
I'm Shadia, and please subscribe where you're listening or watching.
40:09
We're also on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, every place you get your podcasts,
40:12
and we'd love to connect with you.
40:14
If you have any questions or comments, you can reach us on Instagram.
40:17
Until next time, take care and show your curls some love.