There's an outstanding featurette on Disney+ about "Soul" (part of the "Inside Pixar" series, I think) where Kemp Powers, the co-director and screenwriter talks specifically about adding the barbershop scene(s) because it's such an important part of the African-American culture.
The barbershop scenes from Soul were one of the things that made me think they were trying to make an authentic, specifically black movie that nevertheless had universal resonance (and they succeeded).
