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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Rewind: “Cry of Jazz” and Restrictions on Black Excellence

Watching Ed Bland‘s short film, Cry of Jazz, this morning reinforced how times have not changed much. The 1958 controversial documentary-styled film sets on a discussion after a jazz club meeting and the discussions and arguments literally feel like deja vu – white dismissals of black cultural contributions, black suffering, black knowledge and black excellence while […]

Moving on the Wires: This Week’s News and Posts

*On this blog for this month will be “Black Retrofuturism Month,” so I will be posting throughout the month afrofuturistic cultural productions from the past in a series called, “Rewind.” *BUTCH DIVA, the Brooklyn-based fashion haus that I have featured before on my blog, has a new collaboration with Jamaican-bred artist Robin Clare. They teamed […]