This segment originally aired Jan. 10, 2016, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.As President Obama moves out of the White House, he has at least one key aide who never saw the limelight: a man named Zariff. He works in Chicago’s Hyde Park Hair Salon, and he’s been cutting Obama’s hair for nearly 20 years — even flying to the White House to keep him looking sharp for the past eight.
Zarriff said he first realized Obama was special while he was sitting in his living room in 2004 watching Obama, then a Chicago senator, speak at the DNC. Today, many of Zarriff’s customers come in asking for a haircut like Obama’s.“If you look at our menu, we have it just like that: ‘the Obama cut,'” Zariff told VICE News correspondent Bijan Stephen in Chicago.