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 With just a week to go until Oceans 8 is released, we are all about female empowerment.

And we think you’ll struggle to find someone less badass than Rihanna, who has once again proven just how empowered she is, as well as how proud she is of her heritage.

We’re thrilled to hear that Ri Ri begged for her character Nine Ball to have dreadlocks in the movie, because of the significance of her and her character’s identity…

“She wasn’t just going to be some American girl in this movie,” Rihanna’s hairstylist Yusef Williams told Refinery 29

“Her locks would maintain that tie to Africa. She’d keep her accent.

“Nine Ball is still a Caribbean girl that just happens to be in America.

“All in all, the locks are just really badass. I couldn’t imagine her character without them.”

Here, here!

We hope that Rihanna’s faux dreadlocks in Oceans 8, as well as the ground-breaking celebration of natural African hair in Black Panther, will encourage some much-needed worldwide changes.

Let’s not forget that in some places in America, it’s still legal to ban dreadlocks in the workplace, as they’re deemed unprofessional. This just goes to show how behind the times some parts of the world really are, so we hope that natural African hair being spotlighted in the movies will have a positive effect on society in the near future.

We can only hope!