From Freestyles to Fame: Lady London's Bars, Beauty & Brains

Naked Beauty

Lady London, born Zaire Stewart, shares her journey from a young girl in the Bronx immersed in New York's unique beauty culture to becoming a

Key takeaways

• Lady London's beauty and confidence stem from deep self-awareness, spiritual fulfillment, and emotional stability rather than external validation.
• Her upbringing in New York City's vibrant culture—especially within Dominican hair salons—shaped her lifelong relationship with beauty and identity.

Main topics

• New York City's influence on Lady London's identity
• The role of Dominican hair salons in shaping her beauty journey

Notable quotes

"I don't take direction from people that haven't been where I'm trying to go."

"When do I feel most beautiful? When I feel spiritually full, when my family and friends around me feel good, when bills are paid in full. I feel like I can conquer the world."

Conclusion

Lady London's journey reflects the power of authenticity, cultural roots, and self-mastery. Her evolution from a

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) I don't take direction from people that haven't been where I'm trying to go. Speaker 1 (0:33) thoughtfulness and deep sense of self come through every single thing that she does. There is this calm confidence, a clarity and a control that feels so striking. And I'm so excited to get to the bottom of what gives her that composure. In a world that often moves fast and loud, she's built a voice that feels intentional, grounded and incredibly smart. And to me, that is as much a form of beauty as everything else. But guess what? She's also a beauty girl. She is always in the most incredible looks. She always has her signature glam. And I'm excited today to hear from her directly from the source, what inspires her, how she's approaching her career, and what's next for Lady London. So join me in welcoming Lady London to the Naked Beauty Podcast. Today's episode of Naked Beauty is brought to you by K18. And I want to pause here because there's something I've been thinking a lot about lately, which is longevity. So we all talk about longevity for skincare, right? We wear our SPF. We take collagen. We use retinol. That's going to keep our skin looking really great 5, 10, 15 years from now. But when we think about our hair and longevity for our hair and how our hair ages, we often overlook the scalp. But guess what? Your scalp is... is skin. So the same way you take care of the skin on the rest of your body, you really need to take care of your scalp if you want your hair to be its best. And here's the thing about hair health. Most of us don't think about keeping our hair healthy until we notice a problem. So your hair starts shedding, you start seeing like more grays popping up than usual, and you reach for something to cover up the grays you reach for maybe a thickening spray to like get your hair looking thicker but you have to really address it before the issues begin and what i learned by just diving into the science of this with k18 is once you see those visible changes at the strand level they've been happening below the surface for quite some time. I am so excited about K18's new Future IQ Biomimetic Hair Longevity Serum because it takes a completely different approach to hair aging. Rather than simply creating a cosmetic fix for hair changes that we're seeing, it was designed to support the underlying biology of healthier hair and scalp over time. And I'm going to refer to my notes here because I want to tell you all the exact science of what went into this serum because anytime a brand comes to me and they say, like, we have broken barriers, we're doing something. no one's ever done before. I'm like, tell me the science. Like, how does it do what it actually does? So they have their proprietary multivital technology. It was created to support follicle health. So we know follicle, that's like at the strand level. Melanin production, which is what's going to help you see less gray hairs over time. and scalp barrier. All of these things influence how our hair looks, feels, and changes as we age. K18 is already one of those brands you all know from listening to Naked Beauty. People revere them for the science, the clinical trials that they do. They test things for years before they even come to market. And the clinical trial results of this new product are already incredibly promising. After one month, participants experienced reduced hair fall. By month two, they saw increased hair density with up to 10,000 more hairs within... two months of using this product. And by month three, the serum was clinically proven to deliver fewer visible gray hairs and up to 19,000 more hairs along with improved scalp barrier. So this is something that has been tried and tested and actually works. I have been using the Biomimetic Hair Serum. I literally just got my hands on it. I am putting it in my scalp every day. I am so excited to come back to you all and tell you three months from now how I'm seeing my hair looking. thicker and more gorgeous. And I am someone you all know, I love a braid style. I love a protective style. While your hair is in protective styles, it is so important that you don't ignore your scalp. However you're wearing your hair, you need to be nurturing and babying your scalp. That's why I'm so excited about this serum because it is really, really working to support healthy hair at the scalp level. You can shop Future IQ at Sephora or get 10 % off your first order at k18hair.com with code BROOK. Thank you so much to K18 for partnering with me on this episode. Let's get back into it. Lady, welcome to Naked Beauty. I have been such a fan of yours since I first saw one of your freestyle videos in 2023. It was shorty lurking on my page, better watch me flow. I was like, yes, who is this woman with these incredible bars? But then like the beauty, the glam, the hair, the outfit, I was like, I need to know everything immediately. And I've been following your every move since. So I'm so excited to have you on Naked Beauty. Speaker 2 (5:12) Oh, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you for your support too. It means so much to me. Speaker 1 (5:16) Oh my gosh. Well, you are absolutely killing it. And I feel like we know you today as like glamorous female MC personality, but I want to go back to the beginning. You're a New Yorker like myself, right? You grew up in the Bronx. Yes. Speaker 2 (5:29) Between the Bronx and Jersey. Amazing. Speaker 1 (5:31) Now growing up, what kind of girl were you? Were you a girly girl? Were you a tomboy? Speaker 2 (5:37) Um, I feel like. I was more nerdy, if that makes sense. I wouldn't say it was either one or the other. I was really into studying, so I don't know if I had a complex style or any type of style. I feel like I was just more to myself and just really into reading the dictionary and learning how to solve a Rubik's Cube and just nerd stuff. So I don't know if I had a complex style at all. Speaker 1 (6:07) Yeah, I mean, I heard that you travel with Rubik's Cubes, right? Like, it's just fun for you to solve. Speaker 2 (6:12) Yeah, it, like, soothes my anxiety to an extent. So. Speaker 1 (6:17) That's how I know you're smart, that you find that calming. Now, growing up in New York, I feel like there were these beauty icons that I feel like are very specific to New York, especially in terms of female emcees. I can remember paying a lot of attention to Foxy, paying a lot of attention to Lil' Kim, Nicki Minaj when she came up and had like that bang. Everyone wanted that bang. Who were like the New York style icons that you looked up to growing up? Speaker 2 (6:45) Definitely Kim, for sure. I think Kim and Misa pioneered a different thing that we hadn't seen before. Foxy actually was the first and I think the only female rapper to date to ever do a Christian Dior campaign. So I think when we think about how iconic that was for 2000 and I think it was either 01 or 02 that premiered. So definitely those two people as far as female rap specifically. Speaker 2 (7:12) Yeah, they just were pioneers and innovators in itself and to be from the town like that was like I don't know just like a thing Yes, Speaker 1 (7:21) and I feel like you know New York the Bronx specifically it has such a specific culture and like such a specific beauty culture were you going to the beauty salons growing up like did your mom take you to get like the Dominican blowouts like did you have that whole experience that the hair reading in Harlem Speaker 2 (7:38) Oh, yeah. Girl, I just left getting a blowout this morning, literally. So I'm still very much Dominican hair salon girly. I've been getting my hair blown out probably since I was like three years old. I remember as early as like that young being like in the booster seat sitting down in a shampoo bowl, you know, like. And we went to the same people my whole life. Like I can go there now and it's like, you know, the same in the same area in the same situation. So leaving out with your pins in still. Yeah, I have like several videos where like I've made it a style in itself where we just accessorize the pins a little bit more. So, yeah. Speaker 1 (8:12) Yes. And so Lady London is your kind of stage name, but your actual name feels like a stage name as well. Speaker 2 (8:19) What's the Speaker 1 (8:19) back story behind your government name? Speaker 2 (8:23) So my name is Zaire. And around the time, just a little bit after that time specifically, there was a war in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was formerly known as Zaire around the time that I was born. And my aunt was really into like. just like Nelson Mandela and like just the movement and apartheid and just everything that was going on like in Africa politics at the time. And so she was like, I Speaker 1 (8:49) think you Speaker 2 (8:49) should name her Zaire. I think, you know, that should be it. And my mom didn't know what to name me at the time. It was a teenage pregnancy. She was kind of like, you know, already overwhelmed with it. And so I think my name originated from that. Speaker 1 (9:02) Oh, I love that. So given your mom was, you know, younger when she had you, were you guys close growing up? Did she teach you a lot of stuff around beauty and style and self-expression? Speaker 2 (9:12) Yeah, I think my mom was like, you know, I feel like everyone's as... As a young girl, everyone's mom is kind of like the it girl to them. You know, you're very inspired by your mom coming up, especially in New York culture. So I was, like, young. I had, like, mint coats at five and, like, this DKNY and Moschino this and, you know, Oh Lily for kids and matching hats and dresses with everything. So I feel like my mom was, like. really into making me like her mini me in a way and we grew up together essentially she was 17 when she had me and so we kind of like really really came up and and learned as we went you know together so yeah my mom's not even 50 yet she's just her 50th is coming up so like we're definitely still in this in this together in Speaker 1 (10:00) it together did you feel beautiful as a teenager or is it something that you grew into Speaker 2 (10:05) I think my beauty is definitely something that I feel like I grew into. I had braces from seventh grade to 10th grade. So that was like a kind of weird stage. And I went through this whole phase of like dyeing my hair repeatedly. And it was like, that was a whole nother situation that kind of went left. But I think I grew into my looks and I grew into my style. I think once you kind of like. give yourself an identity, I think it's easier to kind of navigate and, you know, like be able to really shine through as your, as your highest, your highest peak. So I think, um, my style feels more developed now. So now I kind of understand my look more. Speaker 1 (10:47) Well, I love that your mother even let you dye your hair because that's something that sometimes kids, especially girls, aren't allowed to express themselves. Their parents like block them from being able to express themselves and try new things. So the fact that she even let you experiment with your hair, I feel like it's a big deal. Speaker 2 (11:01) Yeah, it was huge. I mean, she by the time I was 15, she was like, OK, when you turn 15, you can like get highlights. And then it went from highlights to like I used to like sleep with bleach in my hair and wake up and then tone it to the color blonde that I wanted it to be. It was a time. But yeah. Speaker 1 (11:17) And to your Speaker 2 (11:18) point, Nicki Minaj at the time had like the pink in the back and I wanted that too. Speaker 1 (11:23) But it's like that era of like. Beam me up, Scotty. I can remember being at the hair salons in Harlem and people remember when people used to sell the physical mixtapes. There would be like the DJ Who Kid mixtapes and the it was like five dollars a mixtape and you'd be so excited to get your hands on them. And like there was datpiff.com. It was just like a very I feel like the kids today don't really know how good we had it. It was so much simpler then. Speaker 2 (11:48) Yeah, it was a good time. I remember those. You would buy them while you were getting your hair done. They would come in there and hustle the mixtapes and they'll be like all in different orders from how the songs really are on the real album. And then people would be like screaming over the track and stuff. Yeah, Speaker 1 (12:01) those were the days. Now, when did you first realize that you had presence, not just beauty? Meaning that people listened when you spoke like, oh, I'm actually able to command attention. I have a presence about me. Speaker 2 (12:14) I think I noticed that probably in high school, I think that was like the peak. This is when I kind of first started exploring, I guess, my passion for literature or writing in general. And I realized that like I could come in like open mics at that time when I was doing like poetry things and things like that. I realized that it was like a presence thing. But beyond me speaking, I feel like I have a presence in a room. It's an aura, a certain aura or a je ne sais quoi about. me in a room and that's not to be you know arrogant or anything but i do things like this it's a standout quality even in silence i feel like there's a command to that i think that i noticed back in high school Speaker 1 (12:54) absolutely now you were always very smart was