Previously, I reviewed musician, dancer and DJ Daví‘s work, now here is an interview with him where he discusses his show at the Brooklyn Museum, The Beginning of Everything eating, his love for Wangechi Mutu’s work, his first EP, Got the Seed and lessons he learned from Kerry Washington, David Alan Grier, Melvin Van Peebles and […]
Read More Modern Griots Interviews: DavíLast Saturday, I went to to New Films/New Directors short film showcase, which included Frances Bodomo’s 14-minute film Afronauts. Based on the 1960s Zambian Space Program, which grade school teacher Edward Makuka Nkoloso set up and had amongst its crew a 17-year-old girl and two cats. In Bodomo’s film, albino model and actress, Diandra Forrest, stars […]
Read More Modern Griots Reviews: AfronautsIt’s not that often today that I come to witness an artist who reminds me of some of my favorite musical artists and excites me because of the force of the creativity that they bring to their performance and musical work. One of them is artist, choreographer and DJ, Daví I first saw him at […]
Read More Modern Griots Reviews: DavíThis is for all the Diesel Funk fans out there and for Women’s History Month! What legacy are we leaving for others when we dare to dream our special dreams, despite all the limitations that face us or all the naysayers? That is what Madeline McCray aims to answer in her one-woman performance, A Dream […]
Read More Modern Griots Reviews: A Dream to Fly – The Bessie Coleman StoryOne of the final events for The Shadows Took Shape exhibition, which recently closed at the Studio Museum of Harlem, featured a conversation between mythologist Li Sumpter of Myth Media:21 Studios, cultural writer and musician Greg Tate and painter and curator Danny Simmons, in which they discussed afrofuturism, the apocalyptic, myth and archetypes. Li Sumpter […]
Read More Modern Griots Recap: Li Sumpter, Greg Tate and Danny Simmons on Afrofuturism, Myth and “Image as Prophecy”Brooklyn Museum assistant curator Rujeko Hockley moderated a conversation at the Studio Museum last week with artists Sanford Biggers and Saul Williams and their relationship to afrofuturism. Here are some notes from the conversation: *Rujeko thinks of Afrofuturism as a process rather than a label, using it as a label may be too restrictive. But […]
Read More Modern Griots Recap: Sanford Biggers and Saul Williams in ConversationLast 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 […]
Read More Modern Griots Reviews: Man From Tomorrow – The Time Wizard Jeff MillsWe often imagine exploration into worlds beyond ours in outer space, but what about the mysterious depths of the watery underground, of utopian worlds like Drexciya or Atlantis. Below are notes from the panel featuring Jared Richardson, Alexander Weheliye and Edgar Arceneaux: Richardson– *Displacement and collective memory *Azealia Banks, queerness and fluid sexuality in blackness […]
Read More Modern Griots Recap: The Black Aquatic and AfrofuturismAttending the Black Comic Book Festival for the first time this year introduced me to a wide scope of the comic book world from the lens of the black community and so I wanted to share some of the creators and their works that I came across while there. It was difficult walking around the […]
Read More Modern Griots Recap: Highlights from Black Comic Book FestivalIf you have seen the top of my blog, you would see that the tag line is a quotation from Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), “the future is always here in the past,” which was one of the last lines in his essay, “Jazzmen: Diz & Sun Ra.” So, as you can see Baraka was an […]
Read More Modern Griots Tribute: RIP Amiri Baraka
Sherese Francis 