For more than three decades, multidisciplinary artist Thembisa S. Mshaka and celebrity makeup artist Ashunta Sheriff have helped define how Hip-Hop looks, feels, and lives across generations. And now, as co-founders of Hip-Hop Beauty Circa 1973, the duo is reclaiming the narrative with a debut photo exhibition premiering December 5 during Art Basel 2025 in Miami.
This will be an immersive tribute to the Black women who have shaped a global empire. Specifically, in partnership with Gen Art, the duo will be highlighting works from photographer and Author of A Few Good WMN Cheryl Fox, and multi disciplinary artist, featured in the NY Times, Mazi Smazi.
For Mshaka, this moment arrives after decades of uncredited creative labor inside the music industry. “Hip-Hop Beauty is equal parts reclamation and recognition,” she tells ESSENCE. “It’s my way of ensuring that the origin stories, the brilliance, and the innovation of Black beauty in Hip-Hop can never be erased.”
For Sheriff, the urgency is generational. She entered the industry over 30 years ago as a young MAC artist working a Run-DMC fashion show and went on to work with Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim, Usher, Alicia Keys, Ciara, and so many others. “Our teenagers do not know the history,” she says. “So many bricklayers remain invisible. And too often, the credit gets handed to others.”
Additionally, the celebrity makeup artist sees Hip-Hop Beauty as a love letter. “Hip-hop is in my DNA,” she says. “This is our moment to reclaim the narrative and document it with intention, pride, and love.”
Both women say Hip-Hop beauty was born in community spaces: in living rooms, salons, stoops, barbershops, school hallways, basements, and block parties across the diaspora. These areas weren’t just creating looks—they were creating declarations of identity, belonging, defiance, power, and self-definition.
The exhibition will honor legacy through portraits, archival inspiration, immersive visuals, and a fusion of nostalgia and futurism that mirrors Hip-Hop itself. Through LED screens, technology-forward formats, and AI portraiture used as a supportive tool rather than a replacement, Hip-Hop Beauty bridges generations while preserving the integrity of the work.
Today, with Gen Art as partner and the culture aligned around legacy-building, the project arrives in its most powerful form yet. Looking forward to the future, the duo is energized by the rising generation of Black creatives reshaping the beauty landscape with visibility, agency, and ownership. They see Hip-Hop Beauty as part preservation, part prophecy.
