Moving on the Wires: The State of Black Science Fiction in 2012

Alicia McCalla, whose book Breaking Free will come out in two weeks, is part of a 7-week online discussion about black science fiction with several science fiction authors on her website. As part of the black history month celebration, each week McCalla will provide a question for everyone to respond. This is the Rasheedah Phillips (The […]

Moving on the Wires: Blackout

Just letting you all know that tomorrow many sites, including this one, will be involved in a black out to protest the SOPA bill that could severely hurt the internet. If you want to find out more, go to Web Goes on Strike and Fight for the Future

Otherworldly Videos: Wicked Scientist

This song is by English rapper, Juice Aleem (sounds like Jerusalem) and it is from his Wicked Scientist Mix. Reminiscent of the visuals of early Hip Hop & Rap video, it was partly inspired by an old VHS and TDK tape footage. Not only does Aleem use mystical elements in his song, but also the […]

The My-Stery: He Is More Than a Dream: Martin Luther King Jr.

Jay Smooth‘s “Ten Other Things Martin Luther King Said” When most people think of Martin Luther King, Jr., they tend to think of only his “I Have a Dream Speech” and they usually only think of a small fraction of it. Often they will use the speech to make King seem less radical than he […]

Otherworldly Videos: The Haunting of Sound

As I work on my honors thesis about percussive and body politics of black music, specifically in hip-hop, the focus of my paper is forming as how sound in black culture has been used as a subversive tactic. Both James W. Perkinson’s Shamanism, Racism, and Hip Hop Culture: Essays on White Supremacy and Black Subversion […]

Moving on the Wires: Mark Anthony Neal’s Left of Black

Professor of African & African-American Studies at Duke University and blog owner of New Black Man, Mark Anthony Neal began producing the weekly webcast Left of Black last year. Neal calls the series, “a contrarian view of blackness,” and it is due to his wide range of guests on the show who discuss a variety of […]

Otherworldly Videos: The Exquisite Corpse

Based on the surrealist parlor game, The Exquisite Corpse, this film series, called Little Minx Exquisite Corpse, consists of the films that were produced based on the last line of text of the previous director’s script and the Minx signifier only. The 2007 film series was created by Little Minx & Idealogue. Above is the […]

Modern Griots Review: Pumzi, The Power of Dreams

The best science fiction is the one is based on reality of the times we live in and given the current world crises of famine, water contamination and global warming, Pumzi is definitely an appropriate film. Written and directed by Wanuri Kahiu, the 20-minute film is about Asha (portrayed by Kudzani Moswela), who lives in […]

What Is Afrofuturism? Part 4

This is an article on Afrofuturism by Lisa Yaszek from The Journal of the Research Group on Socialism and Democracy. The focus of the article is Ralph Ellison’s speculative fiction novel Invisible Man. In his introduction to the 1989 re-issue of Invisible Man Ralph Ellison provocatively notes, “a piece of science fiction is the last […]

Modern Griots: Yaba Baker

Remember the Disney film, Princess and the Frog? Did you know Princess Tiana was based on another princess, Princess Briana. Creator of the Just Like Me series, Yaba Baker started the company in 1996 with How African American Inventions Changed America, Just Like Me – The Beginning of Civilization and Just Like Me – The […]