Month: February 2014

Rewind: Looking Back to Go Forward


For the last Rewind post for this month, here  is an episode from the Black History Month episode of Sister, Sister “I Have a Dream,” where Tamera is struggling with life changes and moving forward. She has a dream where she travels through the past meeting different well-known black figures who made a change in […]

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Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth: Langston and Lucille’s Magic of Simple


This month, I attended two poetry events, David Mills’ dramatic performance of Langston Hughes’ works and Elizabeth Alexander’s conversation on Lucille Clifton’s mystical, shaman-like poetry, reminded me that so much magic can condensed into few and sometimes simple words; they made magic out of the ordinary. Below are some poems from Hughes and Clifton as […]

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Modern Griots Reviews: Man From Tomorrow – The Time Wizard Jeff Mills


Last week, I attended the premiere of the Detroit techno icon Jeff Mills‘ film, Man from Tomorrow, and the film and following conversation stirred some thoughts. Overall, the 45-minute, Jacqueline Caux-directed film was a surreal journey into Mills mindset as a DJ, mixing his music with Caux’s otherworldly imagery. There are obvious abstract influences from […]

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Rewind: Retrofuturism of SteamFunk, DieselFunk, Rococoa, Black Medieval, and Black Westerns


When it comes to depictions of black people in history from the Medieval era to the 20th century, the tendency is to show us only as slaves or to downplay stories outside of that narrative. But black people have existed in various forms throughout these periods of time within and outside the narrow scope of […]

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Rewind: Dapper Ladies


Currently, when we think of a black woman artist who showcases an androgynous or gender-bending look, we think of Janelle Monae. But, before Monae, other black women have challenged gender coding and in less accepting times, and possibly with less conventionally attractive features. Black women doing gender-bending often received less attention than when it is […]

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