When Beyoncé tells you she wants to wear 9-metre braids for a music video, you give her 9-metre braids. At least, that's what you do when you're a "challenge accepted" type of person like celebrity hairstylist Kim Kimble [1]. "She always challenges me," Kimble told POPSUGAR. "And I love a challenge. I was like, 'Oh, yeah. Let's do it!'"

In addition to having worked with Beyoncé on a number of large projects like Lemonade and her historic Coachella performance, Kimble is one of many who aided in the creation of several mesmerising hairstyles worn in Beyoncé new visual, Black Is King [2], which dropped on Disney+ on 31 July. More specifically, Kimble had a major hand in the 9-metre braided hairstyle Beyoncé wore in the "Water" video, an undertaking she said took three days and six stylists to finish.

"That had to be the most challenging because we hadn't done 30 feet of braids [before], and we weren't sure how it was going to be used yet," she said. For the entire project, Kimble worked alongside a handful of other talented celebrity hairstylists, including Neal Farinah [3], Xia Charles [4], Nakia Collins [5], Kendra Garvey [6], and Safiya Warner [7].

An extension of her 2019 album, The Lion King: The Gift, Black Is King [8] is essentially a love letter to African culture, and many of the hairstyles featured in the visual were directly inspired by specific tribes across the continent. When Kimble began working behind the scenes on the project, she didn't know the full details of what was being created — she just knew it was going to be something big.

"She is just a trailblazer and a leader. Any time I work with her, I know it's always going to be something great, and I love to be challenged by her," she said, referencing the aforementioned hairstyle and the beaded braids Beyoncé wore in an Ivy Park ad. "Those are things you don't just look up and find; you have to dig deep and create them."