G Perico thinks he's been under the hair dryer too long. Below the chemical-saturated cotton strip circling his head, his face and neck are a map of pink splotches and angry red trails. He leans forward, and the rotten-egg funk of ammonia pierces the air. He's about halfway through the three-hour process for a Jheri curl, right around the time anyone who's ever gotten a perm is thinking, "just wash this shit out, it's fine." Gingerly, he turns his head looking for Dana Dane of Dana Dane's Hair Connection in Inglewood.
"Hey!" he hollers toward the gaggle of stylists gossiping in the back of the salon on this dreary, soggy day. He's the only customer. "This been on long enough?"
Dana Dane shuffles over in her Uggs. "Yeah baby. You burnin'?" she asks, poking at the patch of plastic rollers sprouting from his head before turning down the heat a little and pressing him back in the chair. Beauty is pain.
"The OG homies used to always be on me—'pretty ass nigga.' I had something to prove just based on that," snorts the 28-year-old Los Angeles rapper. Wearing salt-and-pepper sweats and a "Fuck the Police" T-shirt, he stretches out his lean frame and taps a BC powder onto his tongue. "I grew up on 111th between Main and San Pedro, big hood. My cousin jumped off the porch before me. He dark skin, I'm lightskin, handsome. They look at my cousin like he the one. Like he gonna be the golden child of the area. But it turned out to be me."
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