Sudan Archives: Selfish Soul
Sudan Archives (aka Brittney Denise Parks) recently released “Selfish Soul,” a vibrant, joyful ode to Black women’s natural beauty—specifically their hair. It comes accompanied by an equally vivacious video—directed by Trey Lyons—wherein a bunch of women play in the mud, hula hoop and dance; and the LA-based artist plays her violin upside down. The singer-songwriter says in a statement, “I feel like there’s an American standard of what beautiful hair is, and I wanted to show in this video that’s not what all beauty is; to showcase different hairstyles and different types of women and their hair. I was inspired by India Arie’s ‘I Am Not My Hair,’ one of the first songs I heard about this subject. She talks about extensions and weaves and natural hair and nappy hair, and that she’s not her hair; she won’t conform to the comparisons that would come up if you had a weave or sew-in or natural hair or Afro—that doesn’t represent her.”
