afrofuturism
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Parable of the Songwriter: Toshi Reagon Explains Why an Octavia Butler-Inspired Opera Is More Relevant Than Ever
When Octavia Butler published Parable of Sower in 1993, she fictionally forecasted the year 2024 as a dystopia under immoral and ignorant leadership, wracked by climate change and corporate and political avarice. In Butler’s vision of America, our so-called civilized society buckles under unbearable wealth inequality, a lack of basic resources like clean water and…
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Space Is the Place: Nona Hendryx Takes NYC Out of This World With the Disciples of Sun Ra
When I was a child watching reruns of Star Trek, one of the things I always wondered was … where did all the black people go? Sure, there was actress Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura and she was amazing. And later, on series like Star Trek: Next Generation there was Geordi La Forge and, even later, Benjamin…
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With Bright, Will Smith Misses an Opportunity to Launch a Real Afrofuturistic Revolution
My friends and I constantly talk about how we want a bunch of black movies across the spectrum, from romance to science fiction. White actors get all the fun and we get all the supporting (and usually dying) sidekicks. Will Smith has been serving us all those movies we crave for years. He took a…