For five days in June, we put Black beauty history on the walls of The Beverly Hilton, and made sure the culture could see itself there.
From June 25–29, 2026, during Culture Creators’ 10th Anniversary Innovators & Leaders Awards and BET Awards Weekend, Hip Hop Beauty transformed the hotel into a living conversation about image, influence, and the Black women who helped define modern beauty.
This was not simply an exhibition. It was a reclamation.
As we often say through Hip Hop Beauty Circa 1973, the mission is simple: “Where Black culture is invisible, put it on display.”
Why Hip Hop Beauty Belongs on the Walls
I co-curated Hip Hop Beauty with my Circa 1973 co-founder, Thembisa Mshaka. Together, we wanted to create more than a beautiful installation. We wanted to document the visual language that Black women built when the mainstream beauty industry did not make room for us.
“This is the untold foundation of modern beauty,” I said during the exhibition. “Born from a lack of shades, access, and representation, women like Thembisa and I were forced to innovate. That innovation reshaped the industry and the culture.”
That innovation is visible everywhere today: in complexion ranges, bold color, protective styles, editorial makeup, beauty education, and the creative freedom many people now consider standard.
But those freedoms did not appear out of nowhere.
They came from women who mixed products backstage, created their own shades, stretched a budget across an entire glam team, and learned to make an impact with whatever was available. They came from artists, stylists, photographers, musicians, entrepreneurs, and everyday women who understood that beauty could be a form of authorship.
That is Black beauty history. It is also beauty industry history.
Five Days of Photography, Memory, and Recognition
The five-day exhibition brought photography by Keith Major, Mazi Smazi, and Stacy Gray into the lobby of The Beverly Hilton. Their work captured the confidence, glamour, experimentation, and cultural force of Black beauty across generations.
The lobby became a place where people paused.
Guests would stop and ask, “Whose mother is that?” or “Whose auntie?” Sometimes they asked what era they were looking at. Other times, they recognized a familiar gesture, hairstyle, lip, or expression before they could name the person in the image.
That reaction was the entire point.
This is our lineage.
The photographs did not present Black beauty as a trend that had suddenly arrived. They showed it as a continuum: one that existed long before beauty brands began using words like inclusive, expressive, or disruptive in their marketing.
Alongside the photography, the Hip Hop Beauty Bar in the Wilshire Tower offered complimentary touch-ups, product discovery, premium gifting, and programming. It gave guests the chance to move from looking at the history to participating in it.
The experience was generous, practical, and personal. That matters to me. Beauty should be aspirational, but it should also be accessible enough to touch, test, discuss, and take home.
Missy Elliott’s Supa Dupa Fly Beauty Still Leads the Conversation
Missy Elliott’s Supa Dupa Fly era came up again and again on the carpet, and it should have.
The black lip liner with a red center. The heavy contour. The willingness to ignore every rule about what a woman was supposed to look like on camera. Missy’s beauty language was futuristic, graphic, playful, and completely her own.
She understood that beauty did not have to make her smaller. It could make her more visible.
That was a radical idea then, and it remains powerful now.
Missy helped change the industry’s understanding of beauty by making room for unconventional color, exaggerated shape, strong contrast, and unapologetic creativity. Her looks were not designed to disappear into the background. They were designed to create a world.
That spirit continues to influence how I approach color in my own line. I still reach for an unconventional shade when the conventional choice feels too predictable. I still believe that a black-lined red lip, an unexpected contour, or a vivid eye can say something before we ever speak.
Missy’s influence is not only in the references we make to her old videos. It lives in the permission she gave artists and audiences to experiment.
For more on the beauty language of her most influential era, Essence’s retrospective on Missy Elliott’s iconic beauty looks offers important context.
The Programming Carried the Conversation Forward
The exhibition was designed to be experienced, but also discussed.
At 6 p.m. on Friday, June 26, Aliya S. King moderated the Founders Panel featuring exhibiting artists and innovators. The conversation gave the audience a deeper look at how Black beauty moves from lived experience into art, business, media, and cultural memory.
Kiyah Wright was also on-site providing hair touch-ups, creating the kind of intimate beauty exchange that has always been part of Black gatherings. Someone gets a quick adjustment, another person asks about the technique, and suddenly a professional insight becomes shared knowledge.
On Sunday, June 28, Stacy Gray brought her perspective as a hair artist, educator, and founder of the luxury braiding care line THEBO. The day included glam touch-ups and an opportunity to talk about the craft, business, and care behind the styles that have carried Black women through decades of culture-making.
The weekend also honored Missy Elliott, Bethann Hardison, Jermaine Dupri, and Suzanne de Passe at the 10th Annual Culture Creators Awards Brunch. Each honoree represents a different part of the ecosystem that allows culture to move: artistry, advocacy, music, television, fashion, business, and vision.
The event was presented by HelloBeautiful and Hip-Hop Wired, and produced with Hip Hop Beauty Circa 1973, Ashunta Beauty, THEBO, and Mshaka Media. Moët Hennessy returned as the official spirits partner and supported the Culture Creators HBCU+ Scholarship Fund, connecting celebration with investment in the next generation.
The Beauty Bar Was About Tools, Not Just Touch-Ups
At the beauty bar, we used the Black Velvet Makeup Puff and Beauty Water Fix-It Spray throughout the weekend.
The puff helped us press and refine makeup with control, especially around the eyes, nose, and contours of the face. The Beauty Water Fix-It Spray helped refresh, hydrate, and set each look while keeping the finish comfortable and radiant.
Those details matter because professional beauty is built on the tools. A great look is not only about the final photograph. It is also about the process: the touch-up, the conversation, the adjustment, and the confidence someone feels when they leave the chair.
The Lineage Lives in Black-Owned Pro-Artist Brands
The pro-artist tradition that Hip Hop Beauty documents is not frozen in the past. It continues through Black-owned brands built by people who understand the realities of artists, educators, and beauty enthusiasts.
The Crayon Case, founded by Raynell Steward, made professional-inspired makeup feel approachable for beginners and aspiring artists. Danessa Myricks Beauty, founded by Danessa Myricks, continues to push complexion, color, and artistry forward with products designed for creative freedom. And Yani’s Aesthetic, founded by Yaneek Proctor, former Global Senior Artist for NARS, carries that same artist-first spirit; the brand is stocked at the Black Beauty Collective flagship in Chicago. These brands trace directly from the era we were honoring: a time when Black artists did not wait for permission to create what the industry had not yet imagined.
This is what comes next. Not imitation, but continuation.
Hip Hop Beauty Is Still Moving
Hip Hop Beauty was never meant to be a one-weekend moment.
The Beverly Hilton exhibition was one chapter in a larger body of work. The project is still traveling, including a New York debut during New York Fashion Week. That movement is essential because Black beauty history should not live in one room, one city, or one annual celebration.
It belongs in galleries, hotels, classrooms, beauty schools, brand archives, museums, backstage kits, and family conversations.
It belongs wherever someone is learning that the look they thought was too bold may actually be part of a powerful lineage.
I want the next generation to understand that they are not starting from zero. They are inheriting a visual language shaped by women who were resourceful, creative, and unwilling to be erased.
The work now is to preserve that history, expand the record, and keep building.
Key Takeaways
- Hip Hop Beauty placed Black beauty history on display at The Beverly Hilton during Culture Creators’ 10th Anniversary and BET Awards Weekend.
- The exhibition honored the artists, innovators, and women whose creativity shaped modern beauty.
- Missy Elliott’s Supa Dupa Fly era remains a powerful example of avant-garde beauty without rules.
- The Hip Hop Beauty Bar connected cultural history with practical beauty education, touch-ups, tools, and product discovery.
- Black-owned pro-artist brands continue the lineage through artistry, innovation, and community investment.
- Hip Hop Beauty is an ongoing movement, with more exhibitions and creative chapters ahead.
Beauty is not just what we apply. It is what we remember, what we make possible, and what we leave for the people coming after us.
Explore Ashunta Beauty and discover professional, long-wearing, skin-conscious beauty created for expressive artistry at every age.
