Project Tag: Culture

Mischa Golebiewski | Interview

 

A New Era for Mischa G: Early Influences, Hair Futurisms and the Great Work of Believing in Oneself

“In this new era of Mischa being forty, if I wasn’t yellow, what would I be?” It’s on this open-ended question that we conclude our transatlantic tête-à-tête with sought-after hairstylist and sub pop culture icon Mischa G. Afternoon sun glazes her New York condo and signature yellow locks as she muses: “Back to my natural dirty blonde? A Britney-shaves-her-head meltdown with brown hair and light blonde highlights?” Then, after a brief pause: “I wouldn’t be Mischa.” An interview about roots, risk-taking, and the great work of believing in oneself amidst life’s surprises.

The four decades that have sculpted Mischa G’s unique approach to hairstyling are nothing short of fascinating. From early cinematic muses to rebellious teenage ventures and moving out of her parents’ home in Buffalo, NY at the tender age of fifteen, Mischa’s capricious path continues to defy convention. She draws beauty inspiration from the grotesque: Hollywood’s golden age allure, drag queens, and clowns—a legacy from her clown school-trained grandfather. Rather than trailing trends, Mischa G’s work is kindled by individuality and those with their own distinct styles.

As she reflects on turning forty, Mischa shares her evolving belief in herself and the transformative shifts in her career and personal life. After rejecting the confines of a potential future in medicine, her pivot towards hair artistry became a cornerstone of who Mischa G is today. In the midst of the global pandemic in 2020, she opened her own salon, Treehouse Social Club—another testament to how Mischa’s fearless dedication to self-expression is a driving force behind her creative success. Amidst these tales of audacity, Farrah Fawcett’s famous feathered coif makes an appearance, epitomizing Mischa’s mantra that “you need the right haircut to make a style work.” In her upcoming masterclass The Farrah with Grande Maison and as an educator, Mischa G encourages others to unleash their vision in hairstyling. She emphasizes that mastering the art is more than just technique: It’s an infusion of confidence, empathy and collaboration into every creation.

GM Who was the first artist to influence you?
MG I used to watch a lot of Marilyn Monroe movies with my aunt and grandma. And also John Waters movies when those started coming out, let’s say mid 90s. So I was 10 or 11 watching raunchy John Waters movies. A little bit of highbrow and a little bit of lowbrow!

GM What else did you do for fun as a teen?
MG Listen to Marilyn Manson and Korn and tattoo myself with needles and pen ink. My mom still tells the story of my bedroom in high school. I had one entire wall that I painted fairies on, and I stapled pictures everywhere. You know those little round see-through bingo coins? I glued those all over my ceiling fan and light. I dyed my hair in the basement and sewed my own clothes, like skirts with matching little head scarves. I legally divorced my parents when I was 15 and moved out. My mom said the people who came to redo my room had never seen anything like it. It took forever for the workers to pull all the staples out of the wall!

GM Do you believe in the American Dream?
MG Maybe back in the 50s and 60s, the American dream still existed. But now… More of the American Nightmare, I would say.

GM Do you believe in Mischa G?
MG I believe in myself because a lot of things have happened really amazingly in my life, and with minimal effort from my part. Good things often just keep happening, easily and wonderfully, all sparkles in my eyes. But right now in my life—I just turned 40 and these past two years things have gotten a bit harder. I feel like I have to believe in myself, force myself to allow these things to happen.

GM How do you do that, force yourself into believing in yourself?
MG I’m working on it (laughs). It’s not just turning 40, but the past few years there’s been this big shift in my career, and my personal and social life. I opened a salon right after COVID, then the next year got a divorce from my ex wife, moved into a new apartment by myself… My body doesn’t move the way it used to. It’s like a big reality check. So I’m working on finding a new way to believe in myself, instead of expecting things to just happen easily. I have to push myself more.

GM An opportunity to take agency.
MG Oh yeah! To do fucking awesome things. The whole getting older, body hurting in this job—it’s just a big ‘Okay, time to get serious.’ Or more serious—I’m not a serious person.

GM One of your early ambitions was to become a vet. In college, you were a biology major going pre-med, then switched to art history and French before secretly dropping out to start hair school in your final year. What sparked that switch from university to the art of hairdressing?
MG I started beauty school above an Applebee’s chain restaurant in a strip mall in the suburbs. It wasn’t a great school; I did little perm rod sets on little old ladies all day long, combed their hair up to a bubble. It was a financial decision and also about freedom. I didn’t want to be bound by pharmaceutical companies. In the States doctors make more money based on what kind of drugs they prescribe to their clients. That seems like the opposite of what a doctor should be. I was like: ‘This is stupid. I want to make people feel better. And I want to get hand tattoos.’

GM Your first tattoo?
MG I’m a Cancer so the 69 infinity symbol was my first tattoo. My first ‘real’ tattoo I got with a fake ID. The name on the ID was Vicki Love—V love. It’s on my shoulder, a person meditating. I have never meditated. Ever. (laughs)

GM And your latest?
MG When I opened my salon, my friend bought me a tattoo gun. My former assistant Clover gave me a heart on her second interview. She had never tattooed before and I said, ‘Oh, you want to work here? Tattoo me.’

GM Where do you get your ideas for hairstyles these days?
MG The youth and the women over 70 in New York. There’s this page on Instagram called Advanced Style. The clothing and hair and makeup—it’s just so cool. The guy who created it, Ari Cohen, was obsessed with his grandmother and he would photograph his beautiful uptown grandmother all the time. He eventually started photographing older men and women all across the country. Iris Apfel is one of them. When you’re young or over 70 you don’t give a fuck about anything. You do what you want to do.

GM The hottest styles you’ve spotted on the New York streets recently?
MG If I had to pick a few, I would say the chelsea mullet: little bangs and really long extensions in the back. And super strict bobs, I want those to come back! The shag is still everywhere. I have a lot of gals that I give a big curly 70s style disco shag.

GM Besides the strict bob, any upcoming trends you’d be excited to see more of?
MG Shorter pixies and pixie styles for women. And for men I want more of the 90s heartthrob, slit-in-the-middle Leonardo DiCaprio-style hair.

GM Speaking of trends—do you think hairstyling will ever get obsolete with robots like the 1980s flowbee machine, today’s hairdressing drones or new developments in AI?
MG Hairdressing drones?! At Target they have a machine that paints your nails. That
seems terrifying, to have this laser machine in charge of your hand. I couldn’t imagine having a machine in charge of my head. I don’t think it’ll become obsolete, unless people just stop producing hair and everyone wears wig helmets.

GM So what is the next level of hairstyling?
MG It’s all cyclical. I feel like the next level is going back to people ‘dressing’ their hair, versus a quick air-dried look. I’ve been using rollers more in the salon. A few of my clients even bring in older pictures of women with dressed hair. There’s ‘doing’ hair and then there’s ‘dressing’ it—like doing a full Farrah or Marilyn Monroe, or styling it in an updo that holds for a while.

GM What’s the difference between doing and dressing?
MG It’s about the process: all the finishing touches to create a beautiful shape like in the 50s, 60s and 70s, that’s hair ‘dressing’. Versus in the 80s and 90s (mimics the sound of hairspray), that’s ‘doing’ your hair. Dressing means making it more of an art and placing things exactly where you want them.

GM Your upcoming masterclass The Farrah is all about dressing. What techniques or tools do you think Farrah wil be using in the 2030s to achieve her desired look?
MG There’s that viral video of a girl blow drying her hair with a round brush, all forward, and then the hair goes into the perfect, almost Farrah look, just by shaking it. I feel like there’d be a tool that would just do it all in once, something that would make it even easier.

GM Would that be dressing or doing?
MG A little bit of both, because you’re dressing it in the beginning… I’m gonna think about that one!

GM What can participants of your class look forward to?
MG Different approaches to doing hair and looking at things a little bit differently. How to free-think on your own, given what you’ve watched me do. The way I teach is: you’re only as strong as everyone else in the room. So bringing on community and how to teach and learn from people in the day to day versus competing with them.

GM What are you looking forward to?
MG I haven’t been back to Europe since right before everything shut down, so I’m looking forward to being out of the United States. And teaching a class in Berlin on my own, because last time I taught with Sabrina Michals, who was actually my teacher. Building my confidence back up! Always before I teach or before I do an interview, I’m a wreck. But then, once I start doing it, it’s fine. I’m looking forward to kicking myself in the ass and getting inspired by the people I’m teaching and what I’m seeing.

GM Do you ever get impostor syndrome?
MG 100 to 110%. Especially at a certain level of your career and as an educator, if you say you don’t have impostor syndrome, I just think that’s bullshit. There’s a modesty and humbleness that comes through in your teaching when you have a mild form of imposter syndrome. Some people can get too much like the straight male hairdressers of the 90s: ‘I’m the best. Look at me!’ I think it’s cheesy.

GM Mad Max or Barbie?
MG Those are so very different. What era of Barbie? Haven’t finished the movie, but just from that I’m gonna say Mad Max.

GM The world’s greatest living artist?
MG Off the top of my head, an artist I really enjoy right now is a hairdresser: Charlie Le Mindu.

GM The Farrah: Mess or perfection?
MG Perfect mess!

Interview conducted for Grande Maison. Full text available here.

BORN FROM EXILE | Songhoy Blues

 

Born from exile • the story of Songhoy Blues

Thinking of Timbuktu, an ancient city tucked between the sands of the Sahara and the Niger River, one might envision dusty roads and silent desert dunes. However, there is a distinctive sound that emanates from the Malian desert; proud and gripping, and surprisingly familiar. It is argued that Timbuktu is the birthplace of the Blues. Moreover, up until recently, the nearby town of Essakane was the site of the world-famous Festival au Désert, or ‘Woodstock of the Sahara’, where nomadic communities would gather to celebrate with song, dance and poetry. Everything was to change in early 2012, as separatists seeking autonomy for Northern Mali seized control of the country’s largest northern cities, effectively splitting the nation in two. The rebels began to clash with the Islamist extremist group that initially backed their move for independence, culminating in a trail of destruction, terror and death. Violent forces envenomed every aspect of life, including music, which was buried alive and banned, in keeping with strict Shariah law. 

Silencing Mali’s music meant more than killing bare sound, it meant the silencing of histories, denying the voices and lifeblood of the community. Musicians received death threats, their instruments were burned, and the majority of them fled – along with 350.000 refugees – to government controlled areas in southern Mali and to neighbouring countries. In a strange twist of fate, it was a path not dissimilar to this that would lead to the inception of the now globally acclaimed Malian band Songhoy Blues. Three of the band’s four members fled from Timbuktu to Bamako, Mali’s southern capital. They met whilst playing traditional Songhay music in a refugee camp, preserving and sharing their stories in exile and bringing the people of the torn-apart nation back together. A Bamako-based drummer joined the collective and Songhoy Blues soon hit Bamako’s clubs, gathering a large and diverse following. Today, their narrative sounds throughout the world. We spoke with lead singer Aliou Touré about the band’s formation in the midst of exile and insecurity, the unifying power of their music, and sharing their story against all odds.

“When you take music away you take the soul of the country away,” Aliou explains, over the phone. It’s why he refused to be silenced. Whilst international military forces pushed back the extremists, Songhoy Blues and fellow Malian musicians used songs as their ‘weapons’ of resistance. “We bring the music, the culture, the good energy, and we talk about the history and what’s going on,” he says. Raising their voice through music, the members of Songhoy Blues continue the legacy of the ‘griots’; traditional Songhay storytellers who transmitted history through music and poetry, and created cohesion between the Malian people. “Our story is much more important than the music we’re doing, because our music is basically coming from that story”, Aliou says, “and that story is coming from a situation we have to think about and try to make better.” Despite the tragic circumstances that led to their formation, it is the twist of fate that Aliou has chosen to focus on: “Everything happens for a reason, maybe Songhoy Blues was born just to [be able to] talk about that situation around the world.”

Their message is, above all, one of reconciliation: “After all of that bullshit happened – war, shooting – we were just wondering: what about telling people how important it is to live together, even if you are from different religions, even if you have different skin colours, even if you are from different cultures?” For the band, cultural diversity is a cause for celebration: “Every single thing in this world has been mixed by something else,” Aliou says. “Its like the curry you eat, the taste of different flavours, of spices, put together to make a better sauce – that’s how everyone needs to get together.” The band’s emphasis on unity and inclusiveness is also reflected in the rich mélange of musical influences that have gone into creating their unique sound. Their Spotify playlist of the songs that inspired their album Résistance captures some of these flavours: from Iggy Pop – with whom Songhoy Blues collaborated on their track ‘Sahara’ – to renowned Songhay musician Toumani Diabeté, the Alabama Shakes, Fatoumata Diawara, and even Daft Punk. “We don’t have a specific influence,” Aliou explains. “It’s so mixed; a kind of cocktail. You can hear everything from rock ’n roll and blues to reggae and hip hop. That’s the way we want to make music: our music is for everybody, and through it we want to speak to all.”

Music is a crucial tool that enables them to write and share their own narrative, in all its complexity. Whether it be moving between joy and grief – or going through both at the same time – the absurdity of war, or the ability to carry on with life as normal, their music holds space for the intricacy of contrasting experience. “When people listen to our music, it seems like happy music. When they read the lyrics and [learn about] the background, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is about something sad’ – but it’s full of energy,” says Aliou. “That’s the paradox, because after everything people said about Mali, about the situation, people in Mali still have that good energy and that joy for life.” Whereas media representations of Mali maintain the image of violent and intolerable conditions, Aliou says this is far from the truth. “When you land in Bamako right now you will see that all the clubs and bars are full all the time. Everyone is partying, everyone is enjoying life like in Berlin, like anywhere in the world.” It’s like the African proverb, he adds, “One tree falling down makes more noise than the growing forest.” Instead of continual emphasis on acts of terror and division, it is the coming together of  people that is needed: “The things the media talk about are not right, it’s not the real face of the country.  You will see all the ethnicities – the Tuareg, Bambara, Songhay – everybody together around the music. That’s the real picture of Mali.”

It is this picture of Mali that Songhoy Blues will continue to share with unabated passion as they tour the world, dissolving cultural borders on their journey of unification. Theirs is a story of human connection and joy for life in a world threatened by violent extremism. It is a story born from the sudden silence of a desert city, that speaks to the freedom that all humans deserve. “When you are touring around the world you see problems everywhere, not just in Mali. There are terrorist attacks all over the world: London, Paris, Berlin… everywhere.” The struggle against radicalism is not a distant problem, it’s at our doorstep, and as Aliou would attest, the best way to resist is to bring people together. Wherever you are in the world, and however divisive the politics may be, people will always find a way to gather around music and around art, and to celebrate life together in peace. Today something is happening in northern Mali: a far sound is slowly rising again from the desert dust, growing louder as it travels home at last. Slowly but surely, as music returns to Timbuktu, a reborn city resumes its heartbeat.

Published in PANTA Magazine • Issue 13
Photos by Emma Brown

PANTA was an independent magazine published from 2009 to 2013 that celebrated global creative culture and artivism. It featured the work of emerging artists and writers whose creative endeavors have the power to address social, political, cultural and environmental issues. Issue 13 includes interviews with queer scene photographer Pepper Levain and Aliou Touré, lead singer of Malian resistance band Songhoy Blues; a feature on the PangeaSeed Foundation, which gives voice to the ocean through art; and The Bomb, an immersive art installation that guides viewers through the strange reality of nuclear weapons today.