Tzu Pore Cuts Deeper Than Skin

Detroit is known as the hair mecca, from weaves to colors and even cuts… if you want dope hair, you will find it in Detroit, especially in the downtown with Tzu Pore who as you get to know him is more than a DOPE Barber:

City.Life.Style: How you got involved with the profession of cutting hair or being a Barber?

Tzu Pore: I got involved in the profession of Barbering through a series of exposures to the craft of Barbering. The first of which was, of course, going to the Barbershop, getting my haircut in Detroit on the east side. Seeing how men operate, seeing what I /came to know as the wise counsel. Barbers have insights on experience, fashion, society, education, and community. They were like pillars. So I aspired to be that in whatever profession. I wanted to contribute to my community in similar ways, so meant to be a resource for people. I started working on my brother’s hair, I have four younger brothers, and my mom was sweet, but she wasn’t styling our hair the way that socially we expected. So I started working on my brother’s hair, and tiptoeing around mine in the mirror, and became pretty good at it, enough to get us by. I had an uncle who compelled me over a few years to consider taking it seriously and go to school to become a Barber, which I did and later. I went to school in California and after while I was cutting hair for the people in the neighborhood and they trusted me to care for their hair and that’s how it kinda began.

CLS: Your designs are dope and unique. What inspires your designs? Is it by your clients, or is it your own designs? Where does that inspiration come from and do you consider it an art?

Pore: Me personally, I don’t consider it an art. It’s more of like the way of life. The designs come from many sources, mostly self-generated, and my creative take on anatomy or endocrinology or different things that I know relate to the body, relate to the Cosmos. I also draw from relating to just us as humans being along with ancient Egyptian symbols and hieroglyphics images through what they mean to us psychologically and physiology. I try to represent creatively things that I’ve been exposed to and what has deepen my understanding as far as having knowledge of self and being what I consider to be an operational being on the planet. So, that’s what I try to offer to the craft of Barbering as a whole. Our indigenous process is within the craft of Barbering.

CSL: What’s next for you or where is the next project or where is the next level of the business going?

Pore: The next project is, myself and a friend of mine just acquired some property in Detroit on the east side, [in pre-primed area]. We intend to create a garden based on a concept that I’ve been working on for a few years now. The concept is “hair in the garden we wear”. So what I plan to do with that concept is developed systems of agriculture, physically utilizing hair as [salstrait] into soil to help with irrigation and drainage. This is our aesthetic garden and [soundgarden] that visually and audibly evoke things that deal with our brains and our emotional state and [gettis] with the things like that.

Want to connect with the dopeness that is Tzu Pore?

Follow Tzu on Instagram @eastmadebeast or visit www.eastmadebeast.com