by Natachi Onwuamaegbu
with help from Dianne Saliamo
Photos by Elsa Kariuki
Kenyatta Market has over 500 hair braiders. Of those 500, some have a college degree, most do not. Some are mothers, some are breadwinners, some are serial entrepreneurs, and some just started their careers. But there is one thing most of these braiders have in common: they are women.
Well, except for Willtson Okello. The 23-year-old has met plenty of men in the market – they work as butchers or barbers or nail technicians – but as far as he’s aware of, there are no other male hair braiders in Kenyatta. And while Willtson has always wanted to defy the odds, this isn’t a stereotype he was hoping to break.
Braiding Nairobi is a celebration of female entrepreneurship, of women who create jobs when there aren’t any, who figure out how to support their families while supporting themselves. We’ve talked to men who are adjacent to the market, who appreciate hair braiders, who’s wives get their hair braided, who work next to hair braiders, but never a man who can braid himself.
Or one who’s given their head to the box braids craze.
“My sister put extensions on me a few times,” said Willtson. “Now I know the pain of getting my hair tugged.”
But what makes Willtson’s story unique is not just his gender, but rather his age, his stage in life, and why he’s working in Kenyatta Market in the first place.
Unlike the women he’s surrounded by, those who are working here to support their children, those who have been working at the market for decades, Willtson is a newcomer to the market – and he’s working there to support his blossoming music career. Seated in the back corner of braiding stall 378, Willtson lets one airpod remain in his ear the entirety of the interview. His left hand grasps his phone, glancing down in between questions and during moments of silence. At one point, he taps an app on his phone, and the TikTok logo shines bright on his screen.
“I post some of my work here,” he smiles and begins to scroll.
Willtson has always been an artist of sorts. Growing up, school wasn’t his thing – he preferred life outside of the classroom. There was his mother's salon, he would follow her around as she braided clients’ hair. There were the fields outside his family’s home in Western Kenya, where he’d braid long strands of tan grass. And of course, there was his favorite spot next to his radio, listening to anything from American rap to Sauti Sol.
Willtson knew he wanted a life full of music – one where he could create the sounds he loves so much. He just needed to figure out a way to fund that dream.
After high school, he started working in construction, lugging steal beams and dodging spare shreds of metal for hours and hours and hours a day. It was as dangerous as you might imagine, but it funded his first trip to the recording studio. But he, along with a few of his friends and coworkers, knew that the danger of the construction job wasn’t worth the 30 minutes of studio time they scrimped and saved for. So, they made a pact. Once they each had enough money to afford to record an album, they would come back together and make it happen.
Then Willtson moved to Nairobi. His sister, who is also a hair stylist, introduced him to a man in Kariobangi Market on the outskirts of the city. It’s there he learned how to do nails, dreads, and eventually braids. For the next few years, Willtson bounced around different markets both in Nairobi and in Western Kenya, until:
“I was called," Willtson stops and thinks, his leg jostling. "Yes, someone in Kenyatta Market was looking for a braider. I didn’t turn around, I just went.”
At first, Willtson viewed his hair braiding career as a temporary means to an end – but upon reflection, he’s come to admit that braiding is in his blood.
Three years later, Willtson would say he’s quite a skillful braider with a loyal client base and a home in Kenyatta. On a weekly basis, he can get anywhere from 10-20 clients, and while there’s no recorded average for the braiders, that’s pretty high.
Willtson gets a lot of attention for being a man. Enough so that women come to him to get their hair done partially out of curiosity, and partially out of doubt.
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The privileges Willtson holds in the market because of his gender are immense. He does not worry about safety, he’s enough of a hot commodity to out perform braiders who have been in the market longer than he’s been alive, his face is relatively recognizable in a sea of older women. But it’s safe to say Willtson would not be in the market without the teachings and welcomes of many, many women. Women who work in the market because of discrimination and abuse they’ve faced at the hands of men.
The influence of women in Willtson’s life started at home. His mother was the one who taught him how to braid, before he can remember going to school or learning how to ride a bike. She would coach him through the strands of glass, show him how to weave, where to place his hands, how to move deftly, quickly, and with precision.
His sister’s urging got him the job in Kenyatta Market, introducing him to a successful salon owner and convincing him that braiding doesn’t need to have a gender. If he was smart about it, his sister said, he could make a lot of money – and stay out of harm’s way.
Once he was in the market, he interacted with dozens of women on a daily basis – those who took him under their wing and taught them how hard to pull a customers hair, those who slotted him in their already well-oiled machine and allowed him to make mistakes over and over and over again. Sure, there were the side glances, the jealous stares when his customer basis grew and grew some more, but there were also the warm smiles, the braiders who greeted him every morning when he entered the market. The women who gave him jobs and shared their customers and expertise.
“I’ve learned so much from working with this many women,” said Willtson. “Kenyatta market is kind of my home now.”
Willtson with his employer, Doris.
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Willtson hasn’t given up on his music career, but he’s not giving up on hair braiding either. To him, these two different careers satisfy two different missions.
“I want to be a businessman and I want to be an artist,” said Willtson. “Even if I become a big artist, I still want to eventually have my own salon in the market.”
But Willtson’s ambitions don’t stop there. It’s not lost on him that he’s the only male braider he’s aware of in the market – and it’s not lost on him that other men in his position (people trying to make money to fund their music career) turn to less than legal methods to achieve their goals. Willtson wants to change that, destroy the gendered stigma around hair braiding and teach more men that this is a valuable trade.
“People have the talent but it’s the support they lack,” said Willtson. He’s comfortable in the salon chair, legs splayed out in flip flops. “Men have not risen to the occasion for this job. I want to help them. Mentor them.”
Visit Willtson at Doris' salon and check out his social media pages below:
Instagram-@willybalak https://instagram.com/willybalak?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Facebook-@willybalak(willtson) https://www.facebook.com/willy.balak?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Tiktok-@willybalak https://www.tiktok.com/@willybalak?_t=8YbTGrvfB7a&_r=1
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