Otherworldly Videos: Juice Aleem + Sharon Jones and the Dap KIngs

Juice Aleem‘s “Anumals” From Juice Aleem’s press: “After the soaring heights of the MoorKaBa LightBikes… the journey is continued with AnuMal: the dominion of the Flesh. A dance between the sacred and the profane. Watch out for the AnuMals!” Keep in mind the woman with the wolf/fox mask at the end while watching the next […]

Otherworldly Videos: High Priestesses – Gira Dahnee + Omega Sirius Moon

Love and Death: Gira Dahnee – “Painted Waltz” Omega Sirius Moon – “OSM: DESTROY: The Trip to Shaman Rock”

Modern Griots Reviews: Yugen Blakrok’s “Return of the Astro-Goth”

In continuing with women this week who are taking hip-hop to higher spaces: Cosmic rap (or God Hop as some artists call it) is in South Africa by way of the Johannesburg independent label Iapetus Records (Saturn’s moon) and emcee, Yugen Blakrok. Influenced by other labels like Boogie Down Productions, The Bomb Squad and Ninja […]

Moving on the Wires: Colored Girls Hustle Hard Mixtape and Afro Aliens Video Premiere

After watching their Colored Girls Hustle videos, I wanted to give special highlight to these two women and artists, Taja Lindley and Jessica Valoris and their Colored Girls Hustle artistic creations, including jewelry, poetry and music. I am definitely attracted to their positive message and mission of self-affirmation and self-expression for women of color, whether […]

The My-Stery: Tribute to Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes

After reading Shadow and Act’s review about the TLC biopic, Crazy Sexy Cool: The TLC Story, I was reminded of how much Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopes is underrated as an artist. In TLC, some thought of her as mainly the wacky and crazy rapper of the group who burned her boyfriends house down. But if we […]

Otherworldly Videos: Mil-K + Dubbul O + Sparkz + Melo X + Sa-Roc + Katdelic (Children of the Mothership)

Jamil Kayin aka Mil-K’s “Mothership” Below are some other artists who reference “the mothership:”

Otherwordly Videos: The Seshen + Moor Mother Goddess + G&D

The Seshen – “2000 Seasons” Based on Ayi Kwei Armah‘s book, the meaning behind the psychedelic video “…addresses the sense of ownership that drives colonization of the land, the mind, and the body. Traveling through inner and outer universes, the video delves further into this concept of conquest with a diamond taking the central role […]

The My-Stery: Janelle Monae and the Struggle for Black Complexity in Mainstream Media

“Narrow views of Blackness lead to a sometimes stalled consumption of challenging art and media.” – Dara M. Wilson While reading the Pitchfork feature on Janelle Monae, some of the issues concerning her art process and the reception of her art reminded me of the balancing act between black intellectuality and black physicality and the […]

Modern Griots Reviews: “Finding the Funk…

…and getting the respect!” Author, music historian and filmmaker, Nelson George, said at a rough cut screening of his latest film, Finding the Funk, that funk music was a music for outsiders. Reaching its peak in the 70s and early 80s, the short time between the eras of soul and post-bop/funky jazz and the rise […]

Otherworldly Videos: Noise Gate + Spoek Mathambo + Fhloston Paradigm

Here is Donovan Vim Crony’s sci-fi short Noise Gate! The film is about a “dimension-traveling scientist who is in search of the ultimate reality. His only passage into that realm is something called the NOISE GATE.” It reminds me a little bit of Afrikan Boy and DJ Shadow’s ending for the video for “I’m Excited.” […]