Strange Fruit

Dr. Burt Ashe always saw himself as a sort of a renegade. Edgy. Bohemian. But no one else seemed to agree. "The way that I presented to the world was completely, just amazingly, conventional," he says. So he decided to change his look. "I thought maybe that me growing dreadlocks might be a kind of pathway to allow what was inside to be presented outside." In doing so, he learned about all the presumptions the world projects onto black people with 'locked hair. Jai had 'locks for 7 years, and like Ashe, he was often asked if he was Jamaican. His book, "Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles," explores the history of dreadlocks, and details his own relationship with the look. The natural hair movement continues to gain steam with black women, but what about men? Ashe says he got some interesting responses from them while working on the book. Like, "It's just hair man you're overthinking this," and, "Dude, your relationship with your hair is a little too...." "It'