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How Dreadlocks Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house toff works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I and I am Josh Clark and with
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Speaker 1: me is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. I knew you were
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Speaker 1: gonna I was waiting for it. You had no idea.
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Speaker 1: I didn't know that, but I just I knew there
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Speaker 1: was some sort of reggae thing coming up. That was
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Speaker 1: all the cuff tap. Really yeah, no, no way, it
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Speaker 1: really was. I thought about it, and like my stomach
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Speaker 1: got all butterflies, and I was like, I'm gonna do
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Speaker 1: it A plus A. Thank you, Chuck. How are you doing.
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Speaker 1: I'm great, You're feeling good today. I've been under the
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Speaker 1: weather again. Yeah, I just don't feel quite right. Like
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Speaker 1: if ten is feeling great and then one is sick,
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Speaker 1: I meant like, uh, like a five and a or six?
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Speaker 1: Is it that staff infects? And still I don't know
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Speaker 1: what the deal is. I would imagine that would have
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Speaker 1: lasting effects after for you know, it's not like a
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Speaker 1: normal stomach bugs. That's like a stomach terrorist. Our podcast
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Speaker 1: is on a watch list now that I just said that.
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Speaker 1: I think so, does that mean more audience? Possibly at
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Speaker 1: least the ns will be listening, um chuck. Back in
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Speaker 1: my hippie days, uh, there was this question that was
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Speaker 1: on everyone's mind. There was a piece of knowledge that
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Speaker 1: wasn't passed around adequately among the hippie counter culture that
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Speaker 1: I was hanging out with, and that was exactly how
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Speaker 1: to dread your hair if you didn't have kinky or
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Speaker 1: curly hair. So the people that did that kept in
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Speaker 1: a guarded secret or else they didn't tell anybody, or
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Speaker 1: they were vague when they did tell. What I suspect
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Speaker 1: is based on the my experience with humorless hippie people,
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Speaker 1: they did say because they didn't want to overtly make
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Speaker 1: themselves look like jerks and say, you know, I'm not telling.
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Speaker 1: They would just be very vague and unhelpful. Plus they
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Speaker 1: probably don't want to make it seem like it took
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Speaker 1: too much work. You know, that's probably part of it
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Speaker 1: as well, because that's not as cool if you had
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Speaker 1: to like work at it three or four hours today,
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Speaker 1: or if if your mom was helping you on a
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Speaker 1: Saturday night, you like, it's just gonna happen man. So
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Speaker 1: I remember having this conversation with this friend of mine
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Speaker 1: who actually ended up on TV later on because I
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Speaker 1: guess the dreads didn't work out. He had a TV
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Speaker 1: show um on ht TV actually, um yeah, he was
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Speaker 1: called bush Whacked. He went in like guerrilla garden people's landscapes.
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Speaker 1: That's awesome. Anyway he was. He was talking to me
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Speaker 1: once he was playing with this hair. I noticed that
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Speaker 1: it was really really greasy. Um, like, hadn't been watching
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Speaker 1: several days greasy this when he had dreads. No, he
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Speaker 1: was trying to get I asked him, what are you
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Speaker 1: doing with your hair? And he's like, I'm trying to
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Speaker 1: dread it. And I was like, you actually have to
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Speaker 1: watch it, man, because that grease is keeping it from tangling.
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Speaker 1: And I remember this look coming over his face, like, Wow,
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Speaker 1: you just blew my mind. That was the closest I
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Speaker 1: ever came to being able to explain how dreadlocks work
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Speaker 1: until today. Now, after years of wondering and then even
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Speaker 1: more years of not caring, when you get to the
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Speaker 1: point where I'm finally understand how dreadlocks are formed among
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Speaker 1: white people especially, Yeah, sure, and I think it's I
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Speaker 1: think the history is a little more interesting than than
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Speaker 1: my stupid anecdote. No, no, than the actual process. But
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Speaker 1: we'll cover the process too, because there's people out there
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Speaker 1: right now that are wondering it. Behooves us. They're they're
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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty year olds out there who are who have
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Speaker 1: greasy hair and can't figure out why it's not dreading
3:47
Speaker 1: or they put gasoline. You ever hear that. No, that's
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Speaker 1: a very bad rumor that gasoline in your hair helped it.
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Speaker 1: Not true, helps your hair catch on fire? Having more
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Speaker 1: than once? All right, So, Chuck, you were saying about
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Speaker 1: the history of the dreadlock. What are we talking about?
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Speaker 1: We were talking about the history the dread Does that
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Speaker 1: ever come back? I can't wait to hear how Jerry
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Speaker 1: edits that? Good luck? Uh so, Josh. Prehistoric humans probably
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Speaker 1: had some form of dreadlock from the neglect method of
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Speaker 1: forming dreadlocks, letting it tangle up, letting it do its
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Speaker 1: own thing and matt matt up and weave itself into dreads.
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Speaker 1: Right and right about here, I think people are going
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Speaker 1: to have a question like, well, didn't didn't people who
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Speaker 1: you know lived in prehistoric eras, they didn't wash their hair,
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Speaker 1: So how did their hair dread. Why wasn't their hair greasy?
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Speaker 1: You want to know the answer of that that I've heard. Um,
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Speaker 1: prehistoric people lived out in the woods and slept on
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Speaker 1: the ground, and leaves and dirt got in their hair
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Speaker 1: and actually carry the grease away. Really, huh is that true?
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Speaker 1: That's what I've heard. I didn't do my standard intensive
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Speaker 1: research for this particular podcast. They don't know that that's true.
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Speaker 1: But that's a Josh theory. I like it. Well, dude,
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Speaker 1: they have discovered mummies. Peruvian mummies as old as two
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Speaker 1: hundred d had dreads, and more recently than that, Aztec
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Speaker 1: Aztec priests in the fourteen and fifteenth century had demanded dreads. Yes,
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Speaker 1: and they're not all. There's also contemporary groups. Religious groups
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Speaker 1: specifically dreads tend to pop up, it turns out, in
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Speaker 1: as as a sign of religious devotion in a lot
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Speaker 1: of cases. Right, Yeah, the fact like this is God's body,
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Speaker 1: and even grooming it would be um would not be
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Speaker 1: an aesthetic valve. So if you take that aesthetic value,
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Speaker 1: you're not even You're not gonna do anything to your body, right,
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Speaker 1: You're just leaving your hair to do what it will
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Speaker 1: naturally exactly, And um, so, who who do we have?
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Speaker 1: I know the Coptic Church in Ethiopia. Priests in that
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Speaker 1: church still um Christians with their hair, right, I say
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Speaker 1: that as if Christians, there's Christians in Africa. Uh. In India,
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Speaker 1: the Sado sect of Hinduism, they they have the old
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Speaker 1: dreads in honor of Shiva. Wouldn't it be weird to
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Speaker 1: see an Indian guy with dreads? You know, I've seen
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Speaker 1: dreads on so many different kinds of people. Now, I
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Speaker 1: don't think anything, I'm with you, but I think one
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Speaker 1: of the few ethnic groups that I've not seen dreads
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Speaker 1: on are um South Asians. Yeah. Well, and actually, like
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Speaker 1: in Japan it's pretty popular now. But yeah, I've seen
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Speaker 1: I've seen Asians with dreads. I've never seen an Indian. Interesting, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: with dreadlocks. That's why I'm like, call for listener male
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Speaker 1: right now, if you are of Indian descent and you
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Speaker 1: have dreadlocks, please in a photo. That's right. Okay, Now
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Speaker 1: back to the show. Rasta Buddhist and Japan. That's what
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Speaker 1: we were just talking about. UM. Members of the Black
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Speaker 1: Muslim uh bay Fall sect in Senegal, rights in New Zealand,
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Speaker 1: the Kiwi or Kiwi friends Mayoris, isn't it Mary? I
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Speaker 1: don't know. I'm gonna go with Mary and uh, different
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Speaker 1: African tribes where dreadlocks a gola and then maybe at
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Speaker 1: places like that, right and the Rasta's right. Well yeah, sure.
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Speaker 1: So when you think of dreadlocks, you think Bob Marley,
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Speaker 1: and when you think of Bob Marley you think of
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Speaker 1: reggae and Rastafarianism basically, right, among other things. Yeah, I
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Speaker 1: left one thing out, didn't i? Um? And he was
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Speaker 1: pretty much the poster boy for dreadlocks and Rastafarianism, and
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Speaker 1: he almost yeah, you don't want to say single handedly,
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Speaker 1: but he was a large force in introducing dreadlocks to
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Speaker 1: the West and the symbolism, the mythology behind them, uh,
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Speaker 1: and behind how it was associated with Rastafarianism, which it
7:51
Speaker 1: turns out Jamaican Rastafarianism isn't that old. Yeah, I thought
7:55
Speaker 1: it was much older than what eighty years? Yeah, it
7:58
Speaker 1: was came out of the artis when Hollis Selassie the
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Speaker 1: First was throned Emperor of Japan. Yeah, of Japan. Did
8:08
Speaker 1: you know that? The Ethiopia Ethiopia right, Um? And they're
8:13
Speaker 1: apparently a sect of Jamaicans believed him to be the
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Speaker 1: Messiah and built a religion Rastafarianism around him. And the
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Speaker 1: Dreadlocks are a big part of that because they feel,
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Speaker 1: um that it has to do with keeping you in
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Speaker 1: a pure state as God created you as well, and
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Speaker 1: they point to Samson in the Bible, even though we're
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Speaker 1: gonna get to that that's a myth, yes, so they say.
8:35
Speaker 1: And they also it was sort of a sort of
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Speaker 1: rebelling against the European invasion of the world, the imperialism,
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Speaker 1: European imperialism. And uh, the author of this article, Matt Sailor,
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Speaker 1: who I do not know, to you, um must be
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Speaker 1: a freelancer. Matt Sailor points out that, um, it's rooted
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Speaker 1: in the idea of the West as a place of
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Speaker 1: captivity in Africa's paradise. And as you were saying, it
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Speaker 1: kind of rebels against European ideals of beauty, right, or
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Speaker 1: it did at the time, Like we're not gonna have
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Speaker 1: the lustrous blonde hair, fine hair exactly, We're gonna grow
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Speaker 1: together matted clumps, and we're going to be proud of
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Speaker 1: it in your face, in your face. And and it's
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Speaker 1: possible that the Rastafarians were um inspired by the Mau
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Speaker 1: Mau tribe. Yeah, that's what I wanted to know, is
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Speaker 1: where it came from. Well, this is possibly where it
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Speaker 1: came from. The Mau Mau are located in Kenya and
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Speaker 1: they were a um a tribe that rose up against
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Speaker 1: British colonial rule. And actually there's a Magnum p I
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Speaker 1: episode that puts Jonathan Higgins in the in the middle
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Speaker 1: of a Mau Mau uprising in the fifties. Yeah, you
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Speaker 1: see that one. It's good. That sounds familiar. I think
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Speaker 1: it might have. Actually, Um, there's a guy with the spear.
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Speaker 1: There's like a Mau Mau warrior that's stalking the the
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Speaker 1: estate Robin's Nest. Does it's called anyway? They think that
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Speaker 1: they were they were inspired by the Mau Mau in
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Speaker 1: their uprising against British colonial rule, which makes a lot
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Speaker 1: of sense. Um. And they also think that this may
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Speaker 1: be where the name Dreadlock came from, right, Yeah, that
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Speaker 1: it inspired dread in the in the hearts of the
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Speaker 1: British soldiers. And it's possible that it's not necessarily attached
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Speaker 1: to the Mau Moo. That Rastafarians realized that it possibly
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Speaker 1: inspired dread in the fear in the hearts of um Westerners. Right,
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Speaker 1: it's always dread in the heart, dread And yeah, you're
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Speaker 1: not gonna feel that anywhere, maybe just in the heart,
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Speaker 1: maybe the stomach. It's stomach dread and the loins of
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Speaker 1: the British soldiers loin dread is the worst, Josh uh So,
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Speaker 1: um dread lucks today they spread obviously, you said Bob
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Speaker 1: Marley had a lot to do with that, with his
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Speaker 1: popularity so untold in the nineteen seventies. You know, I
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Speaker 1: posted to Bob Marley video on the Facebook page one
10:57
Speaker 1: day and I got killed for it. Why. I didn't
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Speaker 1: know that there were so many anti reggae people out there.
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Speaker 1: And I'm not Mr. Reggae like at all, but I
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Speaker 1: like a little Bob every now and then, and as
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Speaker 1: did some people. But some people are like, I can't
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Speaker 1: believe he posted this. Reggae is the worst? How are you? No,
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Speaker 1: that's not correct, We thank you. That's really weird. I
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Speaker 1: don't think I've I've heard of people who are like, no,
11:21
Speaker 1: I'm not really into reggae, Like it seems like one
11:24
Speaker 1: of those those music genres that's not really polarizing it's
11:29
Speaker 1: either you kind of like it or you're really into it,
11:32
Speaker 1: not you're really into it or you hate it. They
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Speaker 1: hated it, that's crazy. I think they were you know,
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Speaker 1: are you sure they weren't confusing it with country music?
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Speaker 1: Maybe so maybe they thought Bob Marley is the country music.
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Speaker 1: Uh So, he and his whalers in the seventies made
11:47
Speaker 1: it very popular in the United States and then actually
11:50
Speaker 1: everywhere well the world. Sure he made it popular in
11:53
Speaker 1: one hand, but it also increased the anti dreadlock. I
11:56
Speaker 1: wouldn't say it's a movement, but like with the whole
12:00
Speaker 1: marijuana thing, and it was tied to you know, some
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Speaker 1: people would say, like drug use, how so, well, the
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Speaker 1: Rastafarians they like their their pot. Explain from what I'm told,
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Speaker 1: there's no explanation. And the writer Mr. Dreams Sailor also
12:16
Speaker 1: pointed out movies like Marked for Death and Predator To
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Speaker 1: Predator To, both released, actually had something to do because
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Speaker 1: they depicted menacing gangs with dreadlocks. I don't know about that.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if they hastened it or else, if
12:30
Speaker 1: they were maybe born out of, you know, some sort
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Speaker 1: of public view of dreadlock. Any dreadlockynism. Yeah, you know,
12:40
Speaker 1: but it's a good point, like he's saying, we used
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Speaker 1: to view people with dreadlocks as menacing drug dealers who
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Speaker 1: corrupted children, and now we view them as, um, you know,
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Speaker 1: wealthy kids who go to college and yeah, follow fish
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Speaker 1: around on tour because that's popular. So Chuck, let's say
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Speaker 1: you are a an aspiring fish tour kid, right, especially
13:05
Speaker 1: even on tour any longer. Did they get back together
13:07
Speaker 1: and break up and get back together again? I don't know,
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Speaker 1: we'll find out. Let's say you're following somebody string cheese incident.
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Speaker 1: Let's say, right, you get your hula whoop and your
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Speaker 1: little fairy wings, and you're like, it's time for me
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Speaker 1: to take the third step, which is to dread my hair. Right, um,
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Speaker 1: and you want to get things started, and we're gonna
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Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk about how to do with kinky hair
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Speaker 1: and with straight hair, right, Yeah, much easier with kinky hair.
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Speaker 1: Let's let's start from the beginning. What's what's step one?
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Speaker 1: Because we literally there's literally a step by step list
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Speaker 1: of instructions in this article. Step one, Josh, which is
13:44
Speaker 1: what your friend did not do. You gotta wash your hair,
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Speaker 1: and you gotta dry it. Yes, that's the very first
13:50
Speaker 1: thing you do. And a really good recommendation is to
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Speaker 1: wash your hair with a very natural um type of
13:58
Speaker 1: shampoo because those things to rip your hair, and you
14:01
Speaker 1: want your hair stripped and dried. Basically, you don't want
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Speaker 1: any residue on it whatsoever. Certainly, no grease, no grease.
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Speaker 1: Step to Josh, you wanna divide it into sections. And
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Speaker 1: by sections, what we mean is when you pull a
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Speaker 1: clump of your hair together and you can either like
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Speaker 1: clamp it with something, or you can just do one
14:20
Speaker 1: section at a time, or you can separate it all
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Speaker 1: out right and you want to clamp it at the end.
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Speaker 1: The tip well, yeah, but what you gotta remember is is,
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Speaker 1: uh make a little squares basically, so you can see
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Speaker 1: your scalp in a little square. And that's a section.
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Speaker 1: But each section in theory will end up being its
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Speaker 1: own dreadlock. So if you if you want five huge dreadlocks,
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Speaker 1: then you're gonna have five sections. But you don't want that, well,
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Speaker 1: some people do, well, yeah, sure, some people let them
14:46
Speaker 1: grow together. Have you ever seen those like the beaver tail?
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Speaker 1: Those are awesome. They're impenetrable. We'll talk about that in
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Speaker 1: a minute. Well. Uh, Step three, Josh is well, like
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Speaker 1: I said, pay attention to the size of the section, right,
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Speaker 1: Like you said, when you pull your hair, it's going
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Speaker 1: to it should form a pretty much a perfect square.
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Speaker 1: And the bigger the square, the bigger the dreads going
15:07
Speaker 1: to be. Right. So that's kind of your rule of
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Speaker 1: thumb exactly. Step forward, you want to add a little product.
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Speaker 1: And and this is probably the most contentious step because
15:16
Speaker 1: some people are purest, right, they don't do that. Some
15:18
Speaker 1: people you just use a little water, right. Some people
15:21
Speaker 1: say whax. A lot of people say whax alo cream? Uh,
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Speaker 1: this is this is we should say this is for
15:29
Speaker 1: kinky hair. Uh is it? Yeah? Aloe and cream is
15:33
Speaker 1: for sure. Okay. Well, and the they say the Rastafarians
15:36
Speaker 1: are are really the purest and they only use like
15:38
Speaker 1: purified water to they're not putting wax in their hair.
15:41
Speaker 1: But if you use straight here and you're going to
15:44
Speaker 1: use product, you should use wax. Okay, where are we?
15:47
Speaker 1: Step five you want to start twisting in a clockwise direction.
15:51
Speaker 1: And the reason you do that is so you always
15:53
Speaker 1: remember which direction you've started, because if one day you
15:56
Speaker 1: go to palm roll it counterclockwise. You're gonna start undoing
16:00
Speaker 1: your dreads unknowingly. And when you when you twist your
16:04
Speaker 1: hair lock, you want to you want to clip it
16:06
Speaker 1: at the end and explain backcombing because I don't I
16:10
Speaker 1: don't fully understand that it's it's easy. Um if you
16:13
Speaker 1: ever have you ever approached a cat and um, it
16:17
Speaker 1: was just sitting there, it looks all happy and content
16:19
Speaker 1: and you're like, I hate cats, So you pet it
16:22
Speaker 1: the opposite way of the way its hair goes. Yes,
16:26
Speaker 1: cats don't like that, No they don't. It's hilarious as
16:28
Speaker 1: it rubs them the wrong way. That's where the phrase
16:31
Speaker 1: comes from. Um huh yeah, uh. This is pretty much
16:37
Speaker 1: the basis of backcoming. So what you do is you
16:39
Speaker 1: have your tight product um counter clockwise rolled hair. Actually
16:45
Speaker 1: we should say this is for straight hair. You don't
16:46
Speaker 1: backcomb kinky hair. Um, so you you haven't. You haven't
16:50
Speaker 1: hand rolled your your hair yet if it's straight, but
16:53
Speaker 1: you have some product in it, You have your your
16:55
Speaker 1: segments and are eventually gonna become dreads. Maybe it's clipped
16:58
Speaker 1: at the bottom. What you're taking. What you're doing is
17:00
Speaker 1: you're taking a fine toothed metal comb. You're holding the
17:04
Speaker 1: tip of the hair and you're combing it upwards all
17:08
Speaker 1: the way to the route, and you keep doing this
17:10
Speaker 1: again and again and again until basically you really can't
17:13
Speaker 1: get the um the comb up through the hair any
17:17
Speaker 1: longer because you just tangle it so badly. And then
17:21
Speaker 1: you move on to the next segment and do that
17:22
Speaker 1: again and again. Intel Basically what you're doing is you
17:25
Speaker 1: just jump starting your dreadlocks. Well yeah, we say jump
17:28
Speaker 1: start because if you want dreadlocks tomorrow, you're out of luck.
17:32
Speaker 1: Not necessarily, you can pay through the nose and probably
17:36
Speaker 1: be made fun of in certain circles. Um a loctician
17:40
Speaker 1: to go to a loctician who will um use a
17:43
Speaker 1: crocheting kit your hair. They really look like dread they
17:47
Speaker 1: look like braids. I don't know. It probably depends on
17:51
Speaker 1: how messy the loctician makes them look. You know, I'm
17:54
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and go on on a limb and
17:55
Speaker 1: say that's not genuine and they don't look like real dreadlocks.
17:59
Speaker 1: Well yeah, if you're one of those people who will
18:01
Speaker 1: only wash your dreads and natural pure water and that's it,
18:05
Speaker 1: you're probably not going to go to a loctician. I'm
18:07
Speaker 1: the purist, Josh, are you That's how I roll. So
18:11
Speaker 1: if you are a purist and you don't want to
18:12
Speaker 1: go to a loctician and pay a lot of money
18:14
Speaker 1: and look silly, then, uh, it's gonna take a while.
18:17
Speaker 1: And it ranges depending on your hair, you know, the
18:20
Speaker 1: texture of your hair, anywhere from a few months to
18:23
Speaker 1: like a year sometimes, right And for kinky hair. Um,
18:26
Speaker 1: there's actually a couple of stages, um, the budding stages
18:30
Speaker 1: where the locks really start to kind of um intertwined.
18:34
Speaker 1: This lasts anywhere from like two months to six months,
18:38
Speaker 1: right right. Uh. And then at the end of that Um,
18:42
Speaker 1: at the end of that that budding stage where it's
18:45
Speaker 1: really starting to kind of like not close to the scalp,
18:48
Speaker 1: it'll start growing out and it will keep nodding as
18:51
Speaker 1: it grows out. What you have, my friend, is called
18:54
Speaker 1: the dreadlock. You're in the locking stage a k a.
18:57
Speaker 1: The point of no return. Yeah. And since you mentioned
19:00
Speaker 1: the root, if it, you don't want to tangle it
19:03
Speaker 1: too close to your scalp because that can it can
19:05
Speaker 1: actually break off and kill that not so you want
19:09
Speaker 1: to also really hurt Well, yeah, I'm sure give you
19:12
Speaker 1: give you the old headache. You want to have a
19:14
Speaker 1: little bit of space there so your hair can still
19:16
Speaker 1: grow normally. And this is something I didn't know, but
19:18
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense. As your hair grows and dies,
19:22
Speaker 1: it's just becomes part of the dread. Right, So it's
19:25
Speaker 1: not like when you see a fourteen inch dreadlock. All
19:28
Speaker 1: that goes back to the root of the scalp, right,
19:30
Speaker 1: Most of that is dead hair. Yeah, it's just kind
19:32
Speaker 1: of like gets caught up and it never falls out.
19:35
Speaker 1: You can't shed, and you're certainly not cutting your hair off.
19:39
Speaker 1: So we should say what palm rolling is. I think
19:42
Speaker 1: we mentioned that twice and we didn't really say what
19:44
Speaker 1: it was. So let's say you decided to use wax
19:47
Speaker 1: or something like that. Let's go with wax because that
19:49
Speaker 1: seems to be the best thing. Okay, Um, you put
19:51
Speaker 1: a little on your on your dread and you roll
19:55
Speaker 1: it in that clockwise position. Again, it's basically yeah, it's
19:58
Speaker 1: basically just maintenance, an encouragement of those, um, those tangled
20:03
Speaker 1: knots to stay tangled. That's a lot of work, man,
20:07
Speaker 1: it is. Um. So all that was for you. We
20:10
Speaker 1: entered the locking stage with kinky hair with straight hair. Um,
20:15
Speaker 1: you want to keep the uh, you want to keep
20:18
Speaker 1: applying wax a few times a week actually after this
20:21
Speaker 1: sum after the initial um tangling, the initial waxing. Yes, well,
20:27
Speaker 1: and they said to hair to blow dry it. So
20:29
Speaker 1: the wax actually kind of melt in your hair. Yes,
20:32
Speaker 1: So well we'll get to that. Let's figure it. Let's
20:34
Speaker 1: let's talk about how to do this. There's there's something
20:36
Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't understand, and that is
20:38
Speaker 1: that if you have mature dreadlocks, let's say it's been
20:42
Speaker 1: six months to two years, you've got your actual dreads going,
20:46
Speaker 1: they're all looking sharp. Um. If you don't take care
20:49
Speaker 1: of your hair, you're gonna have all sorts of little
20:52
Speaker 1: um critters growing in it a k. A. Mildew is
20:55
Speaker 1: a big problem actually. Um. That's why a lot of
20:58
Speaker 1: people wash the hair with like teachree oil based soap,
21:01
Speaker 1: because it'll get in there and kill it's an antimicrobial. Well,
21:05
Speaker 1: and that's also from improper drying too. Right, So when
21:08
Speaker 1: you wash your hair right, um, a lot of times,
21:12
Speaker 1: especially when you're washing it while it's in the budding
21:15
Speaker 1: or locking stages, it's they're not mature dreadlocks. You want
21:19
Speaker 1: to put a pinty hose on your head. Then you
21:21
Speaker 1: got a panty on your head, uh, and you want
21:24
Speaker 1: to let basically just let the water go through, so
21:27
Speaker 1: you don't want to get your fingers in there. You
21:29
Speaker 1: want to keep your fingers out of there, let the
21:31
Speaker 1: hair go through, wash it with teach reol soap, and
21:34
Speaker 1: then when you get out the drying part, this is
21:36
Speaker 1: very important, squeeze it out, ring them out. Especially if
21:39
Speaker 1: they're mature, you can bring them out more easily. Um,
21:42
Speaker 1: if they're not mature, possibly you just roll them in
21:44
Speaker 1: your panty hose, uh and then um, you blow dry
21:49
Speaker 1: the heck out of them until they're totally dry. The
21:52
Speaker 1: funny thing is there are very few blow dryers on tour.
21:56
Speaker 1: Yeah I imagine so yeah, so that you're saying they
21:59
Speaker 1: have mildewy head, he's nodding hair care products. That's this
22:05
Speaker 1: is sort of again like with all things, if you're
22:07
Speaker 1: a purist, you're not into it at all, And everyone
22:09
Speaker 1: has their own things they use from like hot oil
22:11
Speaker 1: treatments to gels and salt water accelerator and stuff like
22:15
Speaker 1: that to like really tighten them up. Lenny Kravit style. Again,
22:18
Speaker 1: if you are washing your hair using a product and
22:21
Speaker 1: you don't want to use the standard you know leaves
22:25
Speaker 1: your hair silky and lustrous, because silky and lustrous by
22:30
Speaker 1: basically um she in casing that the hair in like
22:35
Speaker 1: some sort of substance that keeps it from tangling with
22:37
Speaker 1: other stuff. So that's the opposite of what you want
22:39
Speaker 1: with dreads. A chemical agent. Probably that's the European standard
22:43
Speaker 1: of beauty, Josh. If you sleep, um, you should wear
22:46
Speaker 1: like a bandana or one of those cool knit caps
22:49
Speaker 1: or a pillow case. So you don't like crush your
22:52
Speaker 1: dreadlocks and and misshape them unless that's what you're going for, right,
22:56
Speaker 1: and you're talking about um dreadlocks that um villa eventually
23:00
Speaker 1: weave together into one big dread. Yeah, if you want.
23:04
Speaker 1: If you want that, go for it. Just don't keep
23:06
Speaker 1: them separate. But if you don't want that, you should
23:08
Speaker 1: probably be aware that your dreads are eventually going to
23:10
Speaker 1: go to that place, so you want to kind of
23:13
Speaker 1: keep them separate rolled apart. That's part of regular maintenance. Josh.
23:19
Speaker 1: You have dreadlocks and you don't want them any longer,
23:23
Speaker 1: do you have to shave your head pretty much. No,
23:28
Speaker 1: not true, pretty much too. Now. I've known people that
23:31
Speaker 1: that got rid of their dreads through a lot of
23:34
Speaker 1: work and coming. Actually that remembered the Kristen who wrote
23:37
Speaker 1: in with the Sun Slowly, Yeah, a long time ago,
23:40
Speaker 1: of course. I remember she's an artist. She had dreadlocks
23:43
Speaker 1: and she got rid of them because I remember she
23:45
Speaker 1: sent in another picture like eight months later or something
23:48
Speaker 1: and she had like, you know, lustrous European beauty hair
23:52
Speaker 1: really yeah, and she said that she was able to
23:54
Speaker 1: you know, like use like lots of conditioner I think,
23:56
Speaker 1: and combing out, and I think it takes a long time.
24:00
Speaker 1: So you don't have to shave your head. You probably will,
24:03
Speaker 1: though I would imagine it probably depends on a couple
24:08
Speaker 1: of things, like how long the distance between your scalp
24:12
Speaker 1: and the start of the real dread is. And if
24:16
Speaker 1: it's close to the scalp, you probably are going to
24:18
Speaker 1: have to cut him off and then shave your head
24:21
Speaker 1: to make it even. Yeah, I think you would want to, like,
24:23
Speaker 1: after having dreadlocks for that long, why like untangle them
24:27
Speaker 1: just to have a big mop of hair, like just
24:29
Speaker 1: go the opposite, That's what I say, Yes, And it's
24:32
Speaker 1: funny that this is brought up because I was recently
24:34
Speaker 1: reading about your Balkan vampires and apparently one light reading
24:42
Speaker 1: just laughed at me. Well, I mean, I don't know.
24:44
Speaker 1: I didn't know that you were into that. Well, I'm not.
24:46
Speaker 1: It was in Harper's. It was interesting though. Anyway. The
24:51
Speaker 1: author was talking about how this one particular type of
24:53
Speaker 1: vampire in Croatia was known to braid the mains of
24:57
Speaker 1: horses so tight that they couldn't be detangled. And if
25:02
Speaker 1: you cut it off, it was so close to this
25:04
Speaker 1: to the neck it would kill a horse. That's what
25:07
Speaker 1: I hear. That's awful. So, Josh, you want to end
25:10
Speaker 1: up with some myths and truths. Did we cover everything else? Yeah? Uh,
25:15
Speaker 1: Samson had dreadlocks in the Bible or not. Um, I'm
25:19
Speaker 1: gonna go with myth. You're right, Sampson did have the
25:24
Speaker 1: long hair. I don't know if you've noticed enough, but
25:26
Speaker 1: all of these were myths. They are actually just ruined
25:29
Speaker 1: it though. Uh, Sampson did have the long hair apparently
25:32
Speaker 1: where he got all the strength and all that stuff.
25:35
Speaker 1: But they said it was more likely like ornamental braids.
25:37
Speaker 1: Dreadlocks more likely, though, we don't know, Josh, ancient Celts
25:41
Speaker 1: and Egyptians had dreadlocks myth or not true. That's a
25:46
Speaker 1: myth oh uh. And this came from artwork, ancient artwork,
25:50
Speaker 1: Um was misinterpreted basically over the years. And the Egyptians
25:53
Speaker 1: I think shave their head and wore head dresses made
25:58
Speaker 1: out of braid braided hair. Easily confused, Josh, dreadlocks can
26:06
Speaker 1: stop bullets. Uh, this has not been tested. I know
26:10
Speaker 1: Bob Marley was shot like eight times once in an
26:13
Speaker 1: assassination attempt and survived that it's possible that his dreads
26:17
Speaker 1: deflected it. Um, But it's very tight. Weave has been
26:22
Speaker 1: shown to deflect bullets. Yeah. Just last year, that lady
26:26
Speaker 1: I remember, I think we talked about on the webcast.
26:28
Speaker 1: No you, um, you blogged about it. She was shot
26:31
Speaker 1: in the weave and it it stopped a bullet. Well
26:35
Speaker 1: in theory, because the way dread's working now, it's it's
26:38
Speaker 1: it's like, uh, like jute rope or like a we
26:41
Speaker 1: a woven rug. You know, each hair is intertwined, and
26:44
Speaker 1: that's sort of how when we did the bullet Proof fest.
26:46
Speaker 1: It's a similar theory, just a really tightly woven fibers,
26:51
Speaker 1: very strong fibers. But yeah, the weave is definitely part
26:54
Speaker 1: of it, a huge part of it. You need to
26:55
Speaker 1: get one of those guys with a big beaver tail
26:57
Speaker 1: dread and just hold it out and shoot a gun
27:00
Speaker 1: through it and see see what he says, be like,
27:04
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Why are you doing that? And finally, Josh,
27:09
Speaker 1: dreadlocks can be donated to charity, cut off and donated.
27:13
Speaker 1: It's just like you know, regular hair. I'm gonna say
27:16
Speaker 1: that that's a myth. That is a myth. Uh. Lots
27:19
Speaker 1: of love and wigs for kids do not accept dreadlocks.
27:22
Speaker 1: And you can actually get fired for having dreadlocks. Did
27:24
Speaker 1: you know that? I yes, this makes sense to me. Um.
27:28
Speaker 1: There's a lot of discrimination that corporations can still exercise
27:34
Speaker 1: against their employees, and one of them is like you,
27:37
Speaker 1: if you don't appear clean, you can be fired. You
27:40
Speaker 1: can be fired if you are too fat in your
27:43
Speaker 1: company's opinion. Yeah, Um, there are. In this particular article, though,
27:49
Speaker 1: um dream Sailer makes a point that if you are
27:53
Speaker 1: a Rastafarian practicing Rastafarian and they fire you because your dreads,
27:58
Speaker 1: you've got a pretty good lawsuit on your hand. But
28:00
Speaker 1: if you're just some kid with dreads and they fire
28:04
Speaker 1: you because of your dreads, you're going to be fired.
28:08
Speaker 1: Go back to selling T shirts out of your van
28:10
Speaker 1: in the parking lot of the Fish Show. Yeah. I
28:13
Speaker 1: got nothing else, nor do I So if you want
28:17
Speaker 1: to learn more about dreadlocks, seriously, this is one of
28:20
Speaker 1: the most helpful articles I've seen. Steps one through six
28:24
Speaker 1: of how to make dreads. There's another eight or ten
28:27
Speaker 1: steps in dreadlock hair care. Uh. It's really one you
28:31
Speaker 1: should go to if you want if you're if you
28:33
Speaker 1: want to know how to make dreads, if you want
28:35
Speaker 1: to make dreads out of your hair, go check out
28:38
Speaker 1: how dreadlocks work in the search bar at how stuff
28:41
Speaker 1: works dot com, which means it's time for listener mail. Yes, Josh,
28:47
Speaker 1: I am going to call this from Eddie, who hopes
28:51
Speaker 1: things get better. Hi. My name is Eddie. I'm fifteen,
28:55
Speaker 1: almost sixteen, in the tenth grade. The comment you made
28:57
Speaker 1: about how it will only get better if I just
28:59
Speaker 1: hold on and work through high school with something I
29:01
Speaker 1: really needed to hear, aw with friendships that I have
29:04
Speaker 1: no idea, what's going on to work that keeps piling on?
29:08
Speaker 1: I was worried I would be stuck like this after
29:09
Speaker 1: school ended. Uh. The news about the real world, real
29:13
Speaker 1: world being a lot worse than high school doesn't give
29:15
Speaker 1: me easy thoughts. So I'm glad to get a different viewpoint.
29:17
Speaker 1: Thank you, and I will take this opportunity now Josh
29:21
Speaker 1: to mention the it Gets Better project, because we didn't
29:24
Speaker 1: even know about this when we mentioned that. No, if
29:26
Speaker 1: you were listening to us, mentioned that, I don't remember
29:29
Speaker 1: what podcast it was the no it was a jealousy.
29:33
Speaker 1: I think we're talking about high school and kids killing
29:35
Speaker 1: themselves in high school. Um, And we didn't mention that
29:39
Speaker 1: it Gets Better campaign. We just pretended like we made
29:42
Speaker 1: it up ourselves. We like when we recorded it that
29:45
Speaker 1: it Gets Better campaign and have been launched like the
29:47
Speaker 1: day before, and we hadn't heard of it yet. Honestly,
29:50
Speaker 1: we we aren't. Yeah, we weren't. We weren't shirking it.
29:53
Speaker 1: So along those lines, we want to give it an
29:56
Speaker 1: official plug. It is a project called it Better project
30:00
Speaker 1: dot com and it is targeted at LGBT youth um
30:06
Speaker 1: right now. My personal hope is that they expand that
30:10
Speaker 1: to include anyone who feels like an outsider in any way.
30:14
Speaker 1: That's specifically anyone who feels like an outsider in high school.
30:18
Speaker 1: Well yeah, because if you feel like an outsider is
30:20
Speaker 1: an adult, you're I mean high school outsiders. But it's
30:25
Speaker 1: a really great program founded by Dan Savage in September
30:29
Speaker 1: and uh users can upload videos of themselves testimonials as
30:34
Speaker 1: adults talking to kids saying that trust me, it gets
30:38
Speaker 1: better hanging there. Yeah, and everybody's been doing it, I know. Uh.
30:42
Speaker 1: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both had really yeah, that's nice.
30:46
Speaker 1: What about Karl rovean Dick Cheney, They actually did went together.
30:50
Speaker 1: It was so cute and adorable, if so playful together.
30:55
Speaker 1: So that was from Eddie. And if you want to
30:57
Speaker 1: check out Eddie on YouTube, he's a YouTube channel Comic Dud,
31:01
Speaker 1: and he draws comics for that channel, and you can
31:04
Speaker 1: go there and see what Eddie has to say. And Eddie,
31:07
Speaker 1: it does get better, trust me, buddy. Thank you for that, Eddie.
31:10
Speaker 1: And if you have a photo of an Indian and
31:14
Speaker 1: Asian Indian with dreadlocks, we want to see it. Send
31:17
Speaker 1: it to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
31:24
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
31:27
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com the House, Stuff Works dot com.
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