The Kardashian's happened. The Kardashian's being aggressively open about their preference made the girls that looked up to them follow suit. Black men have always been the worlds biggest taboo and the Kardashian's, who are worshipped like royalty, tore the lid off all that shyt
The black mens change in hair is largely because of Wayne. Early-mid 2000s NOBODY had dreads. You had a low cut, the microphone fro, or you had braids
And even the braids were relatively bold for the time. As dreads became more ubiquitous more nikkas started getting bolder about rocking their grown out natural hair. Ross did the same for beards
This is where the foundation was laid for what we live in now
in Atlanta early 2000s is when folks started getting locs because of a fake weedhead rasta movement lol i.e Crime Mob