Solange shared some of the personal experiences that inspired this song on her website Saint Heron:

Within our neighborhood you had to have a residence pass on your car to be allowed in, and when we arrived there were a line of cars to be checked in by police. We watched them, one by one, get checked in assuming that they had their passes on their cars just like we did. When they arrived at our car, the police officer said, “This is for residents only,” even though we had a pass. Although we shared that we lived in the area, she continued, “Well.. we’ve closed the area and you have to go around and walk. We aren’t letting any more cars through.” It was the police and we knew that the situation would escalate, so we went around and had to walk blocks. I had on these crazy heels and one heel broke, and I just remember actually being humiliated internally that we had to experience that.

Themes of this album include self-empowerment and identity. In these lines, Solange suggests she is setting out to look for her “body,” alluding to trying to find her place in society as a black woman.

The writer Judnick Maynard discussed this line in particular in conversation with Solange on Saint Heron:

Judnick Maynard: I think that you speak to only yourself like when you say, “I’m going to find my body,” or even when you speak about being yourself so you can sleep at night. I think when you’re Black in this country, so much of you has to be hidden so that you can survive. You have to remember who you are when you get home, unpack and take off your clothes to get ready for bed. You have to remember that the parts that you keep hidden from yourself and the things that keep you up at night are not who you are. They’re done explicitly so that they get you off of the table and you never get back.

Solange Knowles: Yes, Nikki!

This is defiance codified into music. The questioning and rejection of European standards of beauty, as well as those who feel they have the right to question the bodies and personal choices of others.

In a conversation about the album on her website Saint Heron, Solange, her mother Tina Knowles, and the writer Judnick Mayard discussed the types of microagressions that prompt this question:

Solange Knowles: I think I’ve been on so many fashion shoots and anything in regards to fashion, which is still a predominantly white industry, and also feeling the void of tokenism through my hair being an afro and what that meant to the fashion world. There was a fashion editor of a major magazine who was white and for Halloween she wore an afro wig and had black face and called herself Solange. There was another magazine that composed celebrity-look-alikes, and they used a dog for me. They talked about my hair being like one of a dog, literally. So, hair just became so complex for me. I remember my mother came with me on a two-show run that I did, and all of the micro-aggressions of us traveling within those four days had me noting to her that whenever I would wear my hair straighter, I would typically have an easier time traveling. So, the song is as much as what it feels like to have your whole identity challenged on a daily basis, although physically touching the hair is extremely problematic!

Tina Lawson: When I heard the title of the song I said, “that’s genius,” because how many times has someone stuck their hands in your head and said, “is that weave?” or “does your boyfriend or your husband mind that you have weave?” or even, “how do you tie that up?” Questions that are so insulting and people just feel like it’s okay for them to come and stick their hand in your head, which is very offensive.