Afrofuturism
It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afro-diasporic experiences.
[9] Seminal Afrofuturistic works include the novels of Samuel R. Delany and Octavia Butler; the canvases of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Angelbert Metoyer, and the photography of Renée Cox; the cosmic avant-garde jazz of Sun Ra and his Arkestra; the explicitly extraterrestrial mythos of Parliament-Funkadelic; Earth, Wind and Fire with their overt Afrocentric symbolism, bold performance attire and hopeful visions of Black sovereignty;[10] Herbie Hancock's partnership with Robert Springett and other visual artists, while developing his use of synthesizers.
[15] It heavily features the artificial sounds of synthesizers and drum machines while incorporating lyrical themes of black history and cultural pride, progress, spirituality, and science fiction.
He was one of the many disc jockeys on the 70s New York music scene responsible for mixing Jamaica's signature hefty, booming sound systems with R&B and Rap, bass-heavy African American genres.
[17] Present-day Afrofuturistic musicians, such as Hip-Hop duo, Outkast, and Jazz composer, Nicole Mitchell, have traces of DJ Kool Herc's multi-cultural influences in their song arrangements and performances, utilizing his signature beat isolation and sound systems decades later.
[18][17] Afrofuturism was a label also retroactively applied to George Clinton and his bands Parliament and Funkadelic with his magnum opus Mothership Connection (1975) and the subsequent The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, P-Funk Earth Tour, Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome, and Motor Booty Affair.
[23][24][25][26][27] In 1975, Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo used elements of science fiction, along with Eastern subterranean myths, to depict an advanced civilization in his design of the cover art for African-American jazz musician Miles Davis's live album Agharta.
[32] A newer generation of artists are creating mainstream Afrofuturist music – for example, Janelle Monáe, Outkast, Missy Elliott, Solange, jazz composer Nicole Mitchell[33] and Erykah Badu.
[49][50] She is credited with proliferating Afrofuturist funk into a new neo-Afrofuturism by use of her Metropolis-inspired alter-ego, Cindi Mayweather, who incites a rebellion against the Great Divide, a secret society, in order to liberate citizens who have fallen under their oppression.
This ArchAndroid role reflects earlier Afrofuturistic figures Sun Ra and George Clinton, who created their own visuals as extraterrestrial beings rescuing African-Americans from the oppressive natures of Earth.
Monáe expands on this on page fourteen when Seshet goes out with Alethia, "With New Dawn, any gender nonconformity is enough to get you a deviant code appended to your number-dirty computer, recommended for urgent cleaning- and she doesn’t want to flag anyone tonight".
By embracing Afrofuturist themes and leveraging technology as a narrative device, Monáe invites audiences to confront uncomfortable truths and contemplate the potential consequences of unchecked power and systemic injustice.
Additional musical artists to emerge since the turn of the millennium regarded as Afrofuturist include dBridge, SBTRKT, Shabazz Palaces, Heavyweight Dub Champion,[29] and Drexciya (with Gerald Donald).
[56] Krista Franklin, a member of University of Chicago's Arts Incubator, is currently exploring the relation between Afrofuturism and the grotesque through her visual and written work with weaves and collected hair.
Artists like Demetrius Oliver from New York, Cyrus Kabiru from Nairobi, Lina Iris Viktor from Liberia, famed Nigerian-American solar muralist, Shala.,[58][59] and Wanuri Kahiu of Kenya have all steeped their work in the cosmos or sci-fi.
"[68] Russell Contreras, in Axios, noted that Afrofuturism is growing in popularity, even as some worry it will be co-opted, and black writers announced in 2021, "Afrofuturist projects around gaming and virtual reality".
Those focuses or direction take into consideration a wide scope of enunciations and theories regarding the dystopian or utopian parts of future (or potentially elective) lives or real factors, including, in numerous examples, contact with outsider others.
[89] Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture held a seminal group show of Visual Afrofuturists focusing on unambiguous science fiction and fantasy based art.
[91] The show featured artists such as Tony Puryear, Sheeba Maya, Mshindo Kuumba, Eric Wilkerson, Manzel Bowman, Grey Williamson, Tim Fielder, Stacey Robinson, and Shawn Alleyne.
Unveiling Visions liner notes state: "exhibition includes artifacts from the Schomburg collections that are connected to Afrofuturism, black speculative imagination and Diasporan cultural production.
[98] "Black Metropolis: 30 Years of Afrofuturism, Comics, Music, Animation, Decapitated Chickens, Heroes, Villains and Negroes" was a one-man show focusing on the career of cartoonist and visual afrofuturist, Tim Fielder.
[102] In 2022, the Hayward Gallery organised an exhibition of 11 contemporary artists from the African diaspora, who draw on science fiction, myth and Afrofuturism to question our knowledge of the world, curated by Ekow Eshun.
The film featured music duo Ibeyi, artist Laolu Senbanjo, actresses Amandla Stenberg, Quvenzhané Wallis, and Zendaya, as well as YouTube singing stars Chloe x Halle, ballet dancer Michaela DePrince, and 2015 Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year Serena Williams,[108] and the sophisticated womanist poetry of Somali-British writer Warsan Shire.
[109] The mothers of Trayvon Martin (Sybrina Fulton), Michael Brown (Lesley McFadden), Eric Garner (Gwen Carr) are featured holding pictures of their deceased sons in homage to the importance of their lives.
He writes that Afrofuturist texts work to reimagine slavery and alienation by using "extraterritoriality as a hyperbolic trope to explore the historical terms, the everyday implications of forcibly imposed dislocation, and the constitution of Black Atlantic subjectivities".
When Mark Dery coined the term, he saw Afrofuturism as giving rise to "a troubling antinomy: Can a community whose past has been deliberately rubbed out, and whose energies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces of its history, imagine possible futures?
Spiderman's executive producer Peter Ramsey supported the release of the series and stipulated "I really want people to come away with the idea that Africa really is as much part of pop culture as America or Europe or anywhere else."
[127] Wilson further outlined a list of stories and books from the genre, highlighting Africanfuturism: An Anthology (edited by Wole Talabi), Namwali Serpell's The Old Drift, Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon, Nicky Drayden's The Prey of Gods, Oghenechovwen Donald Ekpeki's Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon, and Tochi Onyebuchi's War Girls.
[130] Financial Times writer David Pilling wrote that Africancentrism "draws on the past, both real and imagined, to depict a liberated version of the future" which is planted in the African, rather than African-American, experience.
He also notes criticism of Black Panther from some like Patrick Gathara, who says its depiction of Africa "differs little from the colonial view",[131] and that one of Okorafor's books, Binti, is being "adapted for television by Hulu", arguing that its success is part of a wave of Africanfuturism.
