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Recorded Conversations: Flavors of Black 004: Afro-Futurism

Photo by Leyre . on Unsplash

In this conversation, we discuss the concept of Afrofuturism. We dive into its history, how it’s evolved, and what it may look like moving forward.

We also list numerous resources where you can learn more.

Resources

List of resources mentioned in this episode:

About Framed Perspective: Recorded Conversations

These recorded conversations started as a way to explore the idea of what does it mean to be Black in the 2020s. The conversations are meant to explore this topic connecting pre-slavery history with all that has happened throughout the diaspora up to present day. The hope is that these conversations will spark deeper dives into these topics both for us the hosts and the listeners. Recorded Conversations is hosted by Duane Rollins, a Native Black (descendant of slaves) and Victor Udoewa, a descent of Nigerian immigrants.

Rough Transcript

SPEAKERS

Victor Udoewa, Duane Rollins

Duane Rollins  0:03

All right. So back end again, with recorded conversations really moving the conversation forward on the flavors of blackness, talked about wasn't meant to be black in America, or does it mean to be black and Africa was meant to be black in the Caribbean paddles into play. And today, we want to have a follow up conversation about Afro futurism. So we're going to start off and just go into Victor just say, you know, when you think of Afro futurism, what does that mean to you? And how are you thinking about that concept today?

Victor Udoewa  0:41

Yeah, it's a tough term. I was thinking about afrofuturism, the concept before we came together to meet and I was like, how do I even how do I even define what that is? So there are different there are different ways to look at it. And it it is a it's a cultural aesthetic, it's a philosophy. It's an outlook that really addresses issues, themes, concerns of the African diaspora, you know, broadly, even wherever they are in the world, through technology and culture and science fiction, and a range of various genres, specifically trying to envision black futures, that that stem from these Afro diasporic experiences in groups. There's a, there's an afro futurist named Tasha Womack, that defines it as which I really love the intersection of technology, future imagination, and liberation. And there's another one that I saw that says, it's kind of a way of imagining possible futures through a through a black cultural lens, which is really cool. And actually one of one of the things that I think is cool about like artwork, or you Duane and myself, in terms of our password is that there is a type of design called futures design or speculative design, etc. I see future design is a bit of a broader umbrella than speculative design. But just to help frame this, you know, you can do future designs, speculative design for a few different reasons. So, one, you might do speculative design future design, because there are, there's no comparable thing that exists, there's no we don't know how to design something. So a good example, would be thinking about the iPhone, which I know it wasn't the first phone that had like a touchscreen interface. I think it was a second, but the first one wasn't really widely known. So that it was the first big large scale phone. How do you design that when that has never existed before? Like, what should that interface be like? That in some sense, it's it's a real actual design that it that people will use, but it's speculative, because it's just new, there's nothing comparable to there's a there's an element that's just for like, I would say, inspiration, right? Think of it in Fiction or Science Fiction, think of designing languages, or costumes in Star Wars or Star Trek. Like, it's not necessarily to build something or do something in real life. It's just for fiction, but it can inspire people and have all kinds of ripple effects. The third, which is kind of what I'm starting to do in my work is where you imagine multiple possible futures, for a particular situation people, program, whatever, and then you back casts, which can be done qualitative qualitatively, or quantitatively, say, to say, what are the different milestones or states we have to pass through if we want this future to happen in 10 years time? So we do we do futures design in a lot of different spaces, even outside of afrofuturism. So afrofuturism is applying that type of speculative design design fictions, specifically, in a way that centers on the black experience. And I can talk more about that, but I'll start I'll start there.

Duane Rollins  4:17

Now, it's actually a great place to like, jump off from because I'll tell you how I understood afrofuturism, which is, for me, it was it was a reaction to a lot of science fiction, where it felt like black people and black culture didn't exist when you thought of like the intergalactic universe, right? So it was this claim that there are black people in the future and there's black culture. Now. What is that? What would it look like as we continue to evolve when we imagine you know, 100 200 300 years into the future? Right. What how we operate on the intergalactic life. spectrum like, how does what? How does what we do like today? Like resume? like then? And what can we extrapolate from my god and lessons in the past like from it. So it was almost like a revolutionary way of saying, Hey, we exist in the future. And we want to imagine a future that is shaped by the black experience. Right? And not just, we are either a big character, like in the thing, or oftentimes, like in the sci fi genre, black people were seen as there were kind of covered by the animals or the creatures or, like, those will be the ones that had like, say that ethnic voices, like, in a sense. So that's how I kind of first came across the term in and of itself. And as I started looking into it more and seeing how it's evolved. I think one good representation of it today would be the Black Panther. Don't branch out, which is, like a really good take one like, like a future technology future state. Right. And what would a country look like? When wears black? And isn't that necessarily affected by colonialism? Yeah. Freedom. Yeah. So I really love like, how you broke down the first parts of it. And that was like, just a general understanding I had of it.

Victor Udoewa  6:19

Yeah, I love it is fictional. Just like you said, Black Panther is fictional. It has a whole bunch of technology involved in it. There's also elements of Afro futurist design, like the fashion, the types of clothes they wear, and the costume designers work on that film has that in it. There's a bit of a pan africanism in it, right, with African Diaspora people from all over actors, actual actors, whether they're British, African, British, African American, Afro Caribbean, African, you know, and they use access from all over. So it has it has. And the really cool thing about that example, you use, it pulls from the past. So it's, it's imagining the future, but also, reimagining the past right to say, in the past, there was this country that was untouched and never touched by colonialism. And so today, or in the future, this is where they arrive at. So there's all these connections. The other thing you brought up for me was the I think that there is a, there seems to be a natural connection from what you said to why there is a science fiction link in afrofuturism. Because when you think about science fiction, or just space, right, because you talked about space, we always think about things like aliens, right. And that whole alien, alien nation of black people, I think has a connection to aliens in what it means to be extra extraterrestrial versus an Earthbound be. So a lot of the narratives talk about, they're there. They're trying to revive attempts to build new truths outside of some dominant cultural narrative, like you said, and looking at alienation in various different ways. There's even one there's one half a futures text, science fiction story, where the I don't know, I don't know if it's the US but people why people, when they went to the moon, they they put it's called the dark side of the moon, they they establish an African enslaved people on the other side of the moon that you don't see. So it's exploring, again, alienation that we have historically experienced here on Earth, through the use of space and being alienated out there, when we think of aliens or things like that. It's kind of interesting. So yeah, I hear you on all that.

Duane Rollins  8:42

is actually we've been exploring this and all of our conversations, like when you think about the diaspora, and I think afrofuturism forces us to confront this notion of in the future all the black or do we identify with a country for all this consider by Urban humanoid? sex? Right. And, and those are, I think, some of the works that we're seeing now and what people are exploring is wrestling with that one, because you look at Lovecraft country.

Victor Udoewa  9:17

Yeah.

Duane Rollins  9:18

And what's happening there is just like, Alright, you know, they're definitely black. Yeah. But there's other aspects where I was like, This Supreme Being, that's also black, per se, but it's not necessarily like, it has black culture and black identity, but it's just a human in and of itself. And I think that's what we're continuing to try to figure out and wrestle with, and it goes back to that notion of like in France, you don't think of yourself as like, you know, African, French or Caribbean French is they say in French or just French, right? Whereas America, you can hyphenate right. And again, these are tensions that I think almost A lot of people are exploring as we see writers from different parts of the world really take on this concept. They're doing some really thought provoking stuff, in my opinion, around like what it looks like, right? from both those in the culture and outside of the culture.

Victor Udoewa  10:15

Yeah, is it it is fascinating because you can find it. And I think he's talking about this in fashion, in visual art, in, in literature, especially fiction literature, in music. So it's it's a lot of replays, and it's really cool. Like, a lot of times I I, unfairly or I don't, I don't give enough credit to the act of naming. Right. So I think it was 93 might have been 94. There's a particular scholar mark. Dairy that gave gave the actual name afrofuturism. Right. It, it. It he coined the term. But once that term was coined, it got actually applied to things that existed before the coining of the term. Right? Which makes sense. Usually, you coined the term after there's already been a sufficient movement, you know, so like, I didn't grow up thinking. I'm trying to think of a good example, in music, parliament and George Clinton. funkadelic I didn't think of his afrofuturism But yeah, Comic Con is right. Go ahead. were you gonna say some

Duane Rollins  11:25

Now I was gonna say like, even building on that, I think outcast?

Duane Rollins  11:30

Yes, I would also like fit that genre, but I didn't necessarily consider it afrofuturism. But looking back when I might, oh, that's definitely what? Yeah, the mindset of the mentality. Missy Elliott. Yes. Right. And when she was doing her video, language and exploration along with Busta Rhymes, right, again, those are still explorations of the same concept. But it wasn't defined that way. When looking back.

Victor Udoewa  11:57

Yeah. And today, I think a really big in my mind, the biggest artists or let me say biggest mainstream artists is Janelle Monae. who's done some videos and some of their songs. So some, some people are full on in it. Like sunrise, if you ever know him in his arkestra. Or some people dabble in and, you know, dabble. They do a song here, but then they do other stuff. And they come back and do a song. So I've seen people even put reon in the category beyond saying the category with lemonade. And some of the videos and fashion and songs from that. So yeah, it's it's it's really interesting. And now like today, you can actually find conferences on it. Right. That focus specifically on especially especially in the art visual art room in terms of Afro futurist art.

Duane Rollins  12:47

You can find Afro tech.

Victor Udoewa  12:50

Yes. Yeah, I just went to Afro tech the first time this was November 2020.

Duane Rollins  12:57

Yes, still didn't have a pleasure to go. And of course got canceled probably the year that bottles will show up. So I got I got to make a trip out there to get that experience.

Victor Udoewa  13:07

Yeah, well, it was virtual this year because of the pandemic but seeing how much work they put into making in virtual it's, it's it was the most advanced virtual conference I've ever been to. Like they they they created an entire world virtual world like you had an avatar you walked physically through, not physically virtually you walk through this actual world and stop the different places and every time you entered a place or you went to a party then it opened you up into a it was it was it was pretty phenomenal.

Duane Rollins  13:38

Wow. So um, yeah. Yeah. Where you also talk about how a lot of this is seen, like in literature, like to write and particularly like fictional worlds, but like literature in general, would love for you to kind of like expand upon that a little bit.

Victor Udoewa  13:55

Yeah, in my, in my mind, the biggest, the biggest literary artists, specifically novelists that I have heard of doing this type of work is Octavia Butler. And I for those who don't know her, she's she's pretty big. She centers in her work themes of black women who are who are strong and powerful and don't take mess and are exploring various things of our history. And futures. There's there's a few others. there's a there's a I want to say Nigerian American author whose name is coming to me. Who has a I think I would call it a young adult series, but it's called first one is called blood and water. Have you heard of that?

Duane Rollins  14:55

I'll say NK Jemisin with the broken Earth series. I think really face Yes, also Yeah, but keep talking about the other artists I'll look them up author

Victor Udoewa  15:05

yeah so I'm glad you mentioned a Nk Jamison cuz she I would say she and Octavia Butler are the two biggest that I know of. And in fact, I want to say they're they're kind of award winning. So one of them I'm sorry, my it it's it's not staying with me one a an off MacArthur Fellow Genius Grant. I don't know if this passed in 2024 for her work, but yeah, her novels, Butler's novels associative afrofuturism sometimes it's controversial because it has a lot of multi ethnic multi species type things. She has a book called Wild see, that really fits specifically the the ideas of the afro Afro futurist themes and concerns that I think is really good. There are other people like Steven Barnes has a book called if not African lions blood. Another one called Zoo heart. You mentioned engage MK Jamison, there's Colson Whitehead, there's Hopkinson, I don't know how to pronounce the author's First they may lo nalo Hopkinson. So there's a few of them that are doing really cool stuff, sometimes for the adult audience, sometimes for the young adult audience. Like Nancy farmer has one called the ear, the eye and the arm. And then going back to what you said, you think about people that we didn't necessarily consider it. I remember in school reading Ralph Ralph Ellison's book, The Invisible Man, it was put on my high school literature list, and some people kind of think of it if not Afro futurist, at least as a precursor to Afro futurist literature. So yeah, there's a few different people out there.

Duane Rollins  17:05

And the author that we were talking about was totally out of me. Yes, who created the children of blood and bone, Syria? Along with? I think there was a follow up book. That was the children of virtue and budgets. Okay. What I actually saw that my, my wife actually has read that book, okay, halfway around the house, but I think that's a you know, again, is really like a really like, nascent topic to talk about, right, because it does explore both like the future but also like, black feminism, right, like and how those characters develop in the future. And again, you also have ones that when we talk about black masculinity, how we how that's developed in the future, too.

Victor Udoewa  17:55

Yeah. And black feminism has a name, actually, which I believe first I was seeing written down by Alice Walker. And she she used the term womanism. So now in different philosophy, philosophy departments, in different religious departments. If you do womanist philosophy or womanist theology, you're doing a theology or philosophy that centers on the black female existence being that black liberation philosophy or theology doesn't incorporate your experience enough and then the feminist philosophy can be seen as racist and non incorporating your your blackness and so it kind of sits in this intersection and then as that has gone on to inspire other now there's more chorister, philosophy and theology so the intersection of being a woman and a Latin American, I've seen Dali so like the lowest caste I think it is in in India being both a woman and part of that I've seen a soft South Korean version etc. So it is this kind of spawn on into this interesting intersection of liberation for an ethnic minority and the female gender

Duane Rollins  19:13

is there anything or any documentaries or videos podcasts, or just albums music that you would suggest people who are like really want to dive into this topic to get into I know we mentioned a lot of different things, a lot of books to kind of revisit but there may be some things that people can specifically start like exploring to get a feel for that concept.

Victor Udoewa  19:38

Yeah, that's a good question. Um, I think it's it's hard because there are some books that I would I want to mention mentioned that talk about it kind of as a good introduction there nonfiction. I know not everyone reads nonfiction, but I will mention one, I think at the beginning conversation I mentioned you, Tasha Womack and in how Womack defines afrofuturism as the intersection of imagination, technology, future liberation. So that comes out of a book. And that book is called Afro futurism. So that's a really good introduction. There's another there's another scholar Alondra Nelson. Let me see if I got the books, right. Yeah. afrofuturism this, the subtitle is called the world of black sci fi and fantasy culture. And that that came out in 2013. So it's, it's, it's still relevant. Then there is Alondra Nelson who's uh, who's another scholar. So I think what you can do is you can go on YouTube and do a search for Afro futurist futurism, in in type Alondra Nelson, and you'll see some quick interviews that kind of give a good introduction. Alondra is a lol Dr. A Nelson, but a larger Nelson does have some articles, you can look up but you might find them a little bit more academic. So I would I would go for the YouTube thing. But there's a book you know, Introduction to future introduction, colon future texts, by Alondra Nelson you can look that up. But Alondra does it does does some really cool stuff. There is a su books our mentioned by that by Alondra as well one also called afrofuturism colon past future visions. The other one is called Afro futurism a special issue of social text. So there's some books there. But what I would do my recommendation is to go on to YouTube, type afrofuturism search search Alondra Nelson, you will see some kind of interesting talks about that. The second is, there are a number of different films that kind of explore it, right? There aren't films that necessarily do a straight up like this is, this is alpha futurism. Let me define everything over there. There are a lot of films that explore it. afrofuturism, for whatever reason, I think, isn't as big on the film side as it is in the in the book or visual arts or music side. But there are some films, so I was trying to think of ones that might be good to, to mention. Um, there's like a number of different ones. And there's one that I thought was really cool. I mean, you've mentioned some you've mentioned some, you know, music, and books. There's a, there's a movie from 1993. So that's around the same time that the term was coined. It's called sankofa. It's directed by any Ethiopian born person. And it features an actual contemporary for that time model, who is in a photo shoot and during the photoshoot, the model, suddenly find yourself on a plantation in the southern US during, during the slavery plantation here, which I think is kind of an interesting juxtaposition of the present and the past and how does the plantation period compare and contrast with being a model on a photoshoot? And maybe in a in an industry that doesn't have enough black representation etc. Of course that that's me interpreting but you kind of see some some really cool stuff that people have done over there. poomsae is another cool one. If you look it up science fiction film by I think a Kenyan off, Director back in oh nine. moonshot monsoons over the moon that's 2015. So just five years ago, it's a two part. It's a short film, so you don't have to spend that much time. And it imagines Nairobi, Kenya in a dystopian future, and you have all these street gang fights that are trying to free people from a trap system. Again, using the future to talk about the president is a really cool one. I'm trying to think of others that might be back Black Panther you mentioned as well, which I think is a really cool one. The funny thing is, you know, Wesley Snipes, some people look at the human vampire movie series blade, as a type of afrofuturism where Wesley Snipes is protecting humanity from evil vampires.

As a person of African ancestry being the hero and leader in this type of sci fi fantasy world. So there's a few things like that I'd recommend people kind of go see but I actually think the movie you mentioned Black Panther is a really good intro to see what what it all means and some of the things that people explore in Africa futures.

Duane Rollins  24:53

Yeah, so one of the things that like I most look forward to like potentially getting my hands on one day is on hand bleacher. She designed Wakanda for the movie. And she has this 515 page, what they call the Wakanda Bible that she handed out to the cast members, as he's tweeted out, like a couple of pages, like from it, but it really describes like, you know, what this, like the nation of Wakanda is with maps and drawings and people and like their costumes and the different cultures that they're borrowing from, etc, from the time that they use, like research, like from the film. So that's something that I found to be very interesting is like reading the work that she did, like on that seeing a couple of the pages, I think I've only found two of the pages itself. But I am looking for an actual copy. So if anybody knows how to get my hands on one, please let me know. But hopefully, that's something to be published in the future, they did publish to two pages of that Wakanda Bible and a Marvel anniversary book. I also but that's a, I think, a really interesting way to start thinking about it in addition to those resources, but that's something that's strictly from popular culture. And I would go back and revisit, you know, the the musical parliament, right, and listen to those albums. And it really will take you to a different place and help you imagine like a different future. outcasts. Also revisiting their catalogue, kind of helps you see the world in a different way. And you can start with Speaker box, love, love. But there's other ones that have been at Allianz, or it's a really good album to give you that Bob and in the visual language of how it might look in the future for us.

Victor Udoewa  26:40

Yeah, I really like the Black Panther one because it it even though it's a film, it incorporates all of it. So the the fashion, the technology, the future, the writing. So the literature, it just has it kind of all in one, so it's kind of a really cool one. The other thing is you can also take a look at a few like, album album album covers. So there is a C. Miles Davis has an album cover. Which album is that? I think it's the album, a garter that the cover of it is is really cool. It was a Japanese artists created the cover, but it's afrofuturist influence cover that depicts like an advanced civilization, which I think is really cool. And then there's two, there's some artwork as well for genetic Janell Monet has an alternative Alter Ego called Cindy Mayweather. And she's this kind of person that's inciting a rebellion and kind of liberate her to help liberate citizens who fallen under an oppression. Again, those are those themes coming back from the African American experience. I was just really African experience, to be honest, globally. But specifically, there's our work in George Clinton, you mentioned in Parliament. And then soon raw, this kind of Afro futurist artists that came out of Alabama, we did a lot of work in Philadelphia, and his orchestra is still going on today. It's been carried on, they have some artwork that shows a lot of like, extra x, extraterrestrial beings rescuing African Americans from a lot of oppression on earth. And you can kind of check some of the artwork. So there's some artwork on some of these albums. It's kind of interesting as well, that is influencing the music, and then the music further influencing other art.

Duane Rollins  28:45

Yeah, Charlie says many of these books and people as I can in the show notes themselves, but this is just a beginning of exploration. Right down that path, though, what does the future look like? Or what could it look like, for black people and some of the questions that are raises and we'll continue to explore this, like just the conversation as you kind of figure it out, and try to understand it better try to help define it, right for future generations to

Victor Udoewa  29:12

And I just, I just want to mention one other thing that comes from our first or second conversation, I don't even remember. But specifically, the thing I love about afrofuturism is that it to me begins to speak about the gifts, the positive aspects, the things that we can celebrate about being a person of African ancestry. Yes, there still are elements of liberation and connections to kind of what that means, but it this is it afrofuturism you know, imagining future possibilities, re envisioning what it means to live in a world a human, a world of humanity, which a black person can be equal. That is a gift that is something want to celebrate and, and one of the questions that needs to be is how do we then get there. So I think about that activity.

Duane Rollins  30:02

I was always thanks for the conversation.

Victor Udoewa  30:07

Always, always, and I'll see you next time. I know we got some, some more really cool topics to talk about some. I'm excited.

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