2021 African-American Oscar Winners

The makeup and hairstyling team from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom has won an Oscar. Hairstylists Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson are the first Black women to win in this category. Makeup artist Sergio Lopez-Rivera is also part of the Oscar-winning team.

Neal created 100 wigs for the film, including two for actress Viola Davis, who plays Ma Rainey, the “Mother of the Blues.” The hairstylist, who studied at Juilliard, worked on the Broadway productions of Julius Caesar, A Raisin in the Sun and The Iceman Cometh and designed Oprah Winfrey’s wigs for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

In keeping with the real-life Ma Rainey’s preferred hairpieces, Neal told Vogue she handmade one of the wigs with horsehair imported from England. She said the horsehair arrived covered in manure and lice eggs, and that she had to oil, sanitize and boil it in order to make the custom wigs soft and lightweight.

The wigs were then fashioned by Wilson, Davis’ personal hairstylist since 2008. “She wanted someone who could style her hair and handle it,” Wilson told NPR. “African Americans are familiar with both types of hair, y’know? We just don’t do one texture of hair. We can do it all. And by actors now speaking up and saying that they want someone who can handle their hair, they have to bring an African American hairstylist because there’s not very many Caucasian hairstylists that feel comfortable doing African American hair.”

Wilson was the hair department lead for How to Get Away with Murder, the TV series costarring Davis. Since the same show, Lopez-Rivera has been Davis’ makeup artist. For the character Ma Rainey, he fitted her with her gold teeth, and gave her face a sweaty greasepaint look, with smeared-on eyeshadow and cheek rouge.

Daniel Kaluuya has also won an Oscar for the best supporting actor for his role in Judas and the Black Messiah at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

Kaluuya, 32, a British actor who rose to international fame after his starring role in Jordan Peele’s Get Out, was favourite for the prize, having won in the same category at a slew of preceding awards, including the Golden Globes and the Baftas.

In a wide-ranging, effervescent acceptance speech, Kaluuya started off by thanking God – “I can’t be here without your guidance and protection”, before acknowledging his mother (“you gave me your factory settings”) and offering his praise for the man he played, Fred Hampton: “What a man, how blessed we are that we lived in a lifetime where he existed… When they played divide and conquer, we say unite and ascend.”

He added: “Thank you so much for showing me myself, and there’s so much work to do. That’s on everyone in this room. This ain’t no single man job. I look at every single one of you. We’ve got work to do.”

Kaluuya closed up by urging everyone to “celebrate life” before pointing out, to embarrassed laughter from his family: “Mum and dad, they had sex. It’s amazing! I’m here!”

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