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 […]

A Mirror’s Reflection

I was watching the video for “Tightrope” by Janelle Monae and recognized characters from her video in a 1974 film I started watching with the Jazz composer, Sun Ra, called “Space Is the Place.” The grim reaper characters with mirrors on their faces also appear in a 1943 short film called “Meshes of the Afternoon,” […]