OAKLAND — It all started with a direct message on Instagram in March 2013. Lionel Harris, a lifelong Raiders fan and barber of 22 years, reached out to new Oakland Raiders linebacker LaMarr Woodley and offered him a free haircut.

“I’m like man I don’t even know this dude,” Woodley recalled. “He looked legit. But I didn’t know too much about Oakland. I heard Oakland was crazy.”

Woodley gave him a try anyway. Less than two years later, Harris found himself on the set of a Foot Locker commercial shoot with Kevin Hart and Draymond Green, Harris acting as Green’s personal coiffeur. A celebrity barber was born.

Harris, 37, has become a confidant to some of the Bay Area’s top pro athletes, and a shining example of Oakland’s tradition of blending creativity, hustle and realness into a success potion.

With business partner Joe Cannon, Harris owns KJ’s Barbershop in Tracy, one of a chain of franchises also in San Leandro, Newark, Hayward and Brentwood. But Harris doesn’t spend much time in the shop. He is limited to Saturdays.

The rest of the week, he is hustling around the Bay cutting the hair of local pro athletes.

Raiders’ All-Pro linebacker Khalil Mack. NBA Finals MVP Andre Iguodala. Raiders receiver Amari Cooper. Warriors guard Shaun Livingston. Raiders running back Latavius Murray. His list of baller clients is long. His clientele includes most of the Warriors and many of the Raiders, in addition to several local rappers and businessmen.

They all know him as Brownie Blendz.

“He hooks it up every time the way you need it. The way you want it,” Mack said. “Blendz come over and do it the right way every time.”

In July, when Team USA’s tour stopped at Oracle Arena, the man summoned to cut the hair of NBA superstars was Brownie Blendz.

His work is seen on TV screens, in magazines, at hot night spots. And he is well compensated.

Harris charges $40 for a haircut at his barbershop on Saturdays, the only time the general public has a chance of sitting in his chair. When it comes to the professionals, no one gives him less than $100 and some pay as much as $300.

Once, a player who Harris declines to identify, unloaded all the cash he had in his pocket after his Brownie Blendz cut. That was a $1,200 haircut.

When Harris does commercial shoots, usually with Green, his fee gets wrapped into the commercial budget. He usually pockets about $3,000 to make sure the player looks immaculate on camera.

“Fifty thousand barbers, and I’m blessed enough to do this. And I’m doing it right here,” Harris said as he cleaned up his station in the players’ locker room at the Warriors’ facility. “God is good.”

Harris’ interest in barbering began as a teen. He was friends with Philip Nelson, now also a barber with KJ’s. They grew up in the rough parts of East Oakland and looked up to Nelson’s older brother Anthony. He was their barber and a budding rap star in Oakland’s underground hip hop scene.

But with Anthony doing shows and making music, Harris needed a new barber and found himself at Hamilton’s, a granddaddy of Oakland’s barber industry. That’s when he became enamored by the performance of it all.

“It was like they were on stage,” Harris said of the barbers he watched while waiting for a chair. “The way it was set up, everybody was watching the barbers, watching them work, waiting to see the finished product. There is some showmanship to it. There is a lot of pressure involved in getting someone’s hair right and everybody can see it.”

He dabbled in barbering, like Nelson, but his heart was in rapping, just like Nelson. Harris was much more interested in bars than blades. He dubbed himself Playa Brownie and with a friend from the neighborhood formed a duo: Tymatale (a slang way of saying Time’ll Tell).

Harris could rap. His edgy voice matched his intense subject matter. His cadence and vocabulary flexed a skill that married well with his swag.

I could remember burning blunts in countless sessions/

To drown the stress and/

All the empty liquor bottles found in Brown’s possession sound depressing/

Grew up around aggression/

Was taught that pimps and hustlers had the only sound profession/

That is until I found correction

“He could be one of the dopest MCs on the West Coast if he really wanted to put something out,” said Derrick Robinson, better known as DJ DSharp during Warriors games at Oracle. “I used to see him all the time like, ‘Bro, what’s up with the music?’ … This went on for years. I never knew he was cutting hair on the block.”

Harris had his sights on becoming the next Jay-Z.

But before that could happen, Harris lost the taste for the industry.

He had his first daughter in 2000. He got married in 2001. His second daughter arrived a year later. Harris wanted something more secure, more respectable.

“I didn’t enjoy the process of it anymore,” Harris said of his rap dreams. “I didn’t like the environments I was in. I lost that fire for it.”

In cutting hair, Harris got a lot of the rewards he desired in rap. His creativity was relevant, the pressure of performing was ever-present with the heads of millionaire celebrities as his canvas.

Like rap, barbering is a craft that is to be mastered. It is an art form. And he is still developing his talent.

Harris ends many nights on YouTube watching barber videos, learning new techniques and styles. He attends seminars, such as those offered at the Western Barber Conference and follows other dope barbers on social media.

He has to be well-schooled because Harris can’t start a haircut until he knows what it will look like at the end. For his regulars, he already knows what they like. But for new clients, and old clients who need a new look, Harris takes his time to study. He surveys the head as a curator would a painting, examining the shape and color and texture for whatever inspiration the canvas offers.

“Before I even do anything, I’ve got to be able to envision the outcome first,” he said. “If I don’t see it, I can’t just go blindly into it and not know what’s going to come out. So I just start talking to them a little more. Asking questions and throwing out ideas about what I think would fit them better. I’m more like an image consultant than just somebody cutting their hair.”

One time, the vision didn’t exactly come to fruition — and it was bugging him. So Harris drove all the way back to Oracle Arena in an effort to get the taper fade Warriors guard Shaun Livingston wanted just right.

Harris’ perfectionism is rooted in the big-screen, HD world his clientele operates in. He once suggested a change for Iguodala because of the way the light reflected off his head while he was at the free throw line.

“It’s always centered around his craft,” Iguodala said. “He ain’t saying ‘I’m courtside at the game and I’m (showing off) on these people.’ He’s saying ‘My craft brought me here. I worked hard. This is what got me here.’ Those are two very different images of how someone portrays themselves.”

Another benefit: His impact on the community.

He could have done that in rap, but it probably wouldn’t have been the positive impact he desired. He and Cannon have created a community staple in KJs, highlighted by scholarships for local high school kids and BBQs for the neighborhood.

The house calls and locker room visits have helped shape him into an advocate capable of giving back.

When the Warriors clinched a berth in the 2015 NBA Finals, Harris — who has family privileges at Warriors games — was on the court for the historic moment. While Stephen Curry was holding his daughter Riley, as the confetti rained from the rasters, Harris was running into an old friend under the Warriors’ basket: DJ Sharp.

They celebrated together, two brothers from another mother who’ve come along way from School Street in East Oakland.

“It was beautiful,” DSharp said, “because we’re both from the same soil. And a lot of cats don’t make it. … I’m really proud of him.”

Read Marcus Thompson II’s blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/thompson. Contact him at mthomps2@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ThompsonScribe.