nappy head, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

nappy head n.

also naphead, nappy

(US black)

1. (US black) someone with kinky hair or the hair/head itself.

[1892		‘Don’t A-Love Nobody’ J.F. Dobie Rainbow in Morning (1965) 163: Black mama had a ba-a-by [...] It’s head was na-a-ppy; / I wa’n’t its pa-a-ppy].
1924		Miles & Higgins ‘A to Z Blues’ 🎵 I’m gonna cut your nappy head four diff’rent ways.
1931		G.S. Schuyler Black No More (1971) 60: If she could ‘do’ a few nappy heads she would be in the clear.
1998		D. Senna From Caucasia, With Love (2000) 53: They were calling me ‘Miz Nappy’.
2008		Sun. Times (S.Afr.) 27 Jan. 21: Our role [...] is to defend our sistas, rather than cast stones at ‘nappy heads’.

2. (US black) an unsophisticated black person [ext. of sense 1 in an era when fashionable blacks straightened their hair].

1959		A. Anderson ‘Schooldays in North Carolina’ Lover Man 101: You old nappy head.
1994		P. Baker Blood Posse 15: Even those banana-boat nappy-heads got their names up.

3. (US campus) unkempt hair.

1992

Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 6: nappy head – greasy or unkempt hair.

In phrases

nappy-headed (adj.) (also nappy-head)

(US black) having kinky hair; by implication, being unsophisticated.

1857		Memphis Dly Appeal (TN) 11 Aug. 2/3: These nappy-headed natives are eveidently more insolent than they were before the April riots.
1866		Charleston Dly News (SC) 19 June 1/6: When [...] the white grandsire shall affectionately pat his nappy-headed grandson.
1879		People’s Vindicator (Natchitoches, LA) 19 Apr. 3/1: Joe Emmanuel [...] donated $20 to the city treasury for pounding a nappy-headed ‘nig’ in front of the [...] church.
1884		Sat. Press (Honolulu) 1 Mar. 6/1: What dat little nappy-headed fool name?
1898		Irving Jones ‘Ev’rybody Have a Good Time’ 🎵 You pretty yaller gals do the Creole scoot Now let them nappy-headed wenches come down the shute Dance lightly And act politely – But ev’rybody have a good time.
1922		‘Stand Back, Black Man’ T.W. Talley Negro Folk Rhymes 11: Git ’way, black man, / You jes haint fine; / I’se quit foolin’ / Wid de nappy-headed kind.
1929		J. Sale Tree Named John 13: ‘Ah’d a cut yo’ clo’s off’n you wid it, you nappy-haided, blue-gummed heifer! Git!’ Aunt Betsey met the whimpering girl at the gate.
1937–8		H. Robinson [former slave] in Yetman Voices from Slavery (1970) 253: Niggers come up from the cabins nappy-headed, just like they gwine to the field.
1945		Botkin Lay My Burden Down 229: Niggers come up from the cabins nappy-headed.
1960		T.C. Bambara ‘Mississippi Ham Rider’ Gorilla, My Love (1972) 56: I don’t sing no nappy-head church songs.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 139: Jackie [...] that little black nappy-headed girl down Eighth Avenue there.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 137: Some po stupid Nigger’s funky-ass, nappy-head Southern Mammy.
1970		A. Young Snakes (1971) 98: I was too dark and nappy-haired.
1972		T.C. Bambara ‘The Lesson’ Gorilla, My Love (1972) 88: I’m really hating this nappy-head bitch and her goddamn college degree.
1990		N. George ‘Pop Life’ Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos (1994) 98: Your average nappy-headed little black boys living in Brooklyn.
1999		Indep. Rev. 25 June 12: A stocky, soft-spoken, nappy-headed individual.
2007		Times (London) 12 Apr. 2/7: An American ‘shock-jock’, has been suspended from his show on CBS Radio [...] after calling members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team ‘nappy-headed hos’.
2008		J. Lansdale Leather Maiden 128: ‘She used the N-words a lot. She called black people nappy-headed and burr-heads’.
2013		F. Bill Donnybrook [ebook] ‘[W]here would that nappy-headed bitch go’.