A Fine Girl

[ambient music] [synth chime] [jazzy electronic music] ♪ - [Brandi] I think what makes a woman beautiful is her soul and her heart, as far as the inner beauty.

As far as the outer beauty, you know, hair, lashes, silhouette, a little [indistinct].

[jazzy electronic music] I started doing hair when I was probably like about seven.

I used to always play with my little cousin's baby dolls.

I started out just doing braids and, you know, lifts up and stuff like spirals and stuff.

And I was in like eight grade when I started making money.

We were always short of funds, so it just provided a living for me, you know, all the way from like eighth grade up until now.

[indistinct conversations] Oh really?

I don't really know.

[indistinct conversations] Lordy, I gotta get it together.

[hairdryer blowing] [jazzy electronic music continues] [hairdryer blowing] [hairdryer blowing] Oh, my God.

I got a migraine.

- From this?

- Yeah.

It's so tight.

My head is huge.

[chuckling] I have a man line like I still have, like you still see my hair, like, I used to to get my line before my transition.

I thought about getting a hair transplant around the part.

- If anything, I would cut it back.

- Girl, it would make it look even worse.

- No it would not.

- Girl, that's crazy cutting the edge.

It still would grow back.

Look at this perfect edge.

I want it like this.

[indistinct conversation] - [Kokoa] So listen, this is what I found.

It was already a salon at one point.

- [Brandi] I don't like the square footage.

- [Kokoa] It looks big.

I don't know if it's upstairs and downstairs.

You have to be there for 4:30, Brandi.

You cannot be late.

You heard me?

What I said?

- [Brandi] I heard you, 4:30.

- [Kokoa] What I said?

- [Brandi] I'm going to be there for 4:30.

- [Kokoa] [chuckles] All right.

Look, it's $3,500 a month.

- For 1600 square feet?

- [Kokoa] Look where it's at, though!

This is guaranteed customers.

- [Brandi] I feel like rubber.

You're gonna have to hold me up.

- Yeah.

[indistinct conversation] So tell me, talk.

- I mean, the place is nice, not exactly for what I'm going for.

First and foremost, it won't accommodate the staff, as far as the waiting area, stations and shampoo and drying area.

- So as far as the space, no, you will not be able to get all the stylists that you want, but we have, the places sectioned off, so you can do master suites.

- It's not going to work.

Master suites run 200, 250 a week.

- [Kokoa] Right.

- Most of their stylists are comfortable and they already have their own places.

- Okay.

- It can be, as long as it's not too bad, whatever is there, I'm gonna make it luxury, but I don't want it of course where it's drug addicts, and- - [Kokoa] Right.

- Car burglaries, and- - [Kokoa] Right.

- Potential salon rivalries, and all that kind of stuff.

- Break-ins, yeah.

Well, again, the city has changed, so.

- But if I do find like a big space in a not-so-good neighborhood for a good price, I wouldn't mind taking a portion and investing it into a detail.

- [Kokoa] Okay.

[jazzy music] - [Brandi] I've had three salons, and I did well, but the business itself didn't do well.

Salons in the barber and beauty industry are revolving doors.

A lot of stylists and barbers, they don't really take their chair rental extremely serious versus their other bills, so I wanted to create a chair rental price that they can afford whether, you know, they have like a hardship at home, or it's something that's not outrageous and something that's reachable.

So if I can create a high-end luxury environment at a cheap rate, you know, I'll always keep stylists, or barbers, aestheticians, or makeup artists there in the salon, because there's nowhere they can go that's really, really nice and an affordable rate.

[phone ringtone] [razor buzzing] - [Brandi] We going to church then, Daboo?

- Yes, but I don't go to church till 7:30.

- [Brandi] No, you gotta go to 10:00 service.

- Why do I gotta go to 10:00 service?

- [Brandi] Well, it's real nice, because that's what I'm going to be at, 10:00 service.

- Why y'all can't start for 7:30?

- [Brandi] The second one starts at 1:00, Daboo.

- Oh, Lord, please, I have things to do like cook, go home, get an hour's sleep, I mean I do.

[chuckles] - [Brandi] The second one doesn't start till 1:00.

[indistinct conversation] - [Daboo] What you think I am?

I aint' old.

I'll be 52 years old coming up in about 60 days.

Shoot.

- I have been doing her hair almost probably in a couple of days, it'll be like a year.

I love it here, actually.

Actually, whenever I reopen I will hate to leave.

- [Stylist] We welcome you with open arms.

- [Brandi] Thanks.

I get to do what I want.

[laughing] - [Daboo] That's the truth.

- [Brandi] But in a good way, you know?

[indistinct phone conversation] Thank you.

Very good.

- [Phone Speaker] Bye.

- So y'all had a good time last night, huh?

- Girl, it was always so good.

I was like, oh my God.

- [Rocky] Are you serious?

What's the new plans and stuff, you know, for the new place?

Like what's the vision, the ultimate goal?

- [Rocky] Okay, so you know how everything is, I have everything separated, like [indistinct] instead of yada, yada, I'm just going to call it The Candy Shop.

You know, like going into a candy shop?

You're going into candy shop, there's a whole bunch of stuff in there.

So it's just going to be The Candy Shop, and yeah, that's how I'm rolling.

- [Brandi] I like that idea.

- You know B, you really should come out this way, because it's upcoming.

I know people think that east is, da-da-da-da-da, but you know, they're about to open up a big old adult gaming center, We Dat is coming out here.

You know, this little strip about to be poppin'.

- I'm considering it because it's closer to my house, but I really wanted to be like more downtown.

[electronic music] I don't go to church without my makeup.

I'm sorry, and I love the Lord.

But I'm not going to church without my makeup.

I think I went to church like one time without makeup, and I couldn't even stay that long, and I had to put some shades on.

[church band and vocalist] - [Preacher] Television shows and award shows begin to tell you who [indistinct].

Whether you are a 43-year-old successful lawyer, or a 21-year-old successful business man, or the many people that started off with us last January, you did make it!

[preacher and choir singing] - [Brandi] We are in Carrollton area, also known as Pigeon Town.

We are at a old house that I grew up in.

This was actually the last house that we actually lived in before we moved out of the neighborhood.

It was dangerous, you know, a lot of crime.

I had two cousins actually was killed on this street.

On one that we found in the alley right over there.

They was shot up on the corner.

But like I said, everybody pretty much knew everybody, so it was kind of pretty cool.

I mean, it wasn't like the best neighborhood, but pretty much everybody who lived around here was born and raised.

It's a lot different now.

This is pretty much all I knew as a child, corner stores.

We'd be able to go to stores and get tabs, credit.

Everybody was related to everybody.

You can go around the corner by your cousin, or your aunt, or your grandmother.

It'll always be special to me.

This is actually, you know, what made me.

You know, well, I live in a pretty safe neighborhood, but you know, it's still that, you know like, I don't even know any of my neighbors.

I've been in my house over here before I ever even got to physically feed my next door neighbor.

[sad music] Money does a lot for me.

You know, it pretty much provides, you know everything I need and half of what I want, and it just creates a different life from what I was brought up on.

Down in New Orleans, you know, we're taught, get rich or die trying, whether it's selling for corn candy for $2, or jello shots for a dollar the second line.

It's just always ways to make money, you know?

And if you came it here, you can't make it nowhere, because this is definitely a hustle scene.

- [News Reporter] Health officials say the Coronavirus is spreading faster in New Orleans than in other cities.

- [News Reporter] There's now 14,867 cases reported in 62 parishes across the state.

512 people have died.

1,809 are in the hospital, and 563 of them are on ventilators.

Globally, we're nearing almost 1.3 million cases, and have surpassed 70,000 deaths in the United States alone.

[sad music] - I signed the lease at the beginning of COVID-19.

I've been on it for a while, just to see if this is exactly the space that I wanted, and an area that I wanted.

And I think it's a really good, a good move.

I mean, it's a lot of money to put out on the front end, but I think it's going to be very rewarding once it gets up and running.

I am definitely nervous, because business is extremely slow after quarantine due to COVID-19.

But I have faith that everything will work out.

I have like about eight stylists that's confirmed, but hopefully the coronavirus is gone by the time we open up, and we'll just ensure that everybody wear a mask, and just keep everything clean and disinfected, you know, daily.

With good hygiene and proper protocol, I think we'll be fine.

Daboo was like a good friend of the family, basically like my aunt and one of my mom's best friends, and he passed away due to coronavirus.

It's one of the things that I'm kind of iffy about opening the salon, because it's going to be so weird to open it without Daboo.

We couldn't have a funeral.

We just had a viewing, and like a really big repast and stuff, so as soon as the city is open fully, you know, I'll give him his own little second line, because he loves second lines.

[New Orleans band plays "Brandy You're a Fine Girl" by Looking Glass] ♪ ♪ [music only] [speech is not audible] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [crickets chirping]