The My-Stery: “Get In-Formation: Black Performance, Black Code and Black Spies”

The Mask as Technology Part 3: Although I tried not to add onto the dozens of think pieces that are already out there about Beyonce’s latest video, “Formation,” sometimes I like to jump on the bandwagon to either use it momentarily like a free ride to a needed destination or to veer it off into my […]

Otherworldly Videos: The Spirit in Music – Vaudou Game + Ibeyi

Vaudou (Voudou, Voodoo, Vodun, etc.) and Yoruba Orisha religions have spread all over the world despite efforts to quiet it and here are two musical acts who incorporate the spirituality from the various variations, related and descended religions, like Santeria, Lucumi, or Candomble into their work. First is Vaudou Game’s “Pas Contente” video and their […]

Moving on the Wires: Recent News and Posts

*Become a patron and support my blog and other writing endeavors on Patreon! __________ This post has been missing for the past couple of weeks, so here is a combined one: *Should Science Fiction and Fantasy be Included in the “New Wave of African Writers”? on Books Live: Since Science Fiction and Fantasy are still considered […]

Art of This World: Sol’Sax + Maksaens Denis + Kara Walker

Become a patron and support my blog and other writing endeavors on Patreon! ____________ Despite having a cold last week and recovering from it, which is why I have not posted in a week, I managed to go to three exhibitions — Sol’Sax’s Medicine from Heaven: How African American Culture Was Used to Cure the […]

Modern Griots Reviews: Salome Da Voodoo Princess of Nawlins

One of the most compelling aspects about art is that it can make you feel different emotions at the same time depending on the multiple contexts that you bring to it and the representations presented to you. For example, there is a lot of conversation surrounding the multiple receptions and audiences for Kara Walker’s Marvelous […]

Modern Griots Review: The United States of Hoodoo

Darius James and Oliver Hardt’s film The United States of Hoodoo has a deceptive quietness with a hidden power underneath it. But then again, it is just another variation of the film’s themes of the trickster and the crossroads. Returning home to Connecticut, the film follows James’ coping with his father’s recent death and his […]

Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth: My Poetry

For Black Poetry Day, I will celebrate by doing the first post of my own poetry. Here is a poem I wrote for my friend who has to deal with the deaths of a a friend and a family member this year: Turn, Turn, Turn Death visits us all But for some it comes Sooner, […]

The My-Stery: Wiccan and Voodoo?

While looking for the System of a Down’s “Chop Suey” video, I saw the video for Godsmack’s “Voodoo.” The song was supposedly influenced by Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow, a movie that is problematic in of itself, portraying Vodou and indigenous religion in a kind of simplistic view, using them once again as […]

Otherworldly Videos: United States of Hoodoo

German director Oliver Hardt, who produced Black Deutschland, and writer Darius James, author of That´s Blaxploitation!!!! and Negrophobia: An Urban Parable, have come together to produce the “spiritual road movie,” United States of Voodoo. The documentary explores how voodoo and hoodoo are still present in contemporary society through music, art and culture. The filmmakers describes […]

If I Had My Way…

Soul Sci-fi posted this as a potential comic: “Dominique finds herself trapped at The Crossroads, the pathway between flesh and spirit, where she faces an inquisition from a handful of lethally unpredictable voodoo gods. From sailing the River of Souls with Baron Samedi, god of death, to confronting the overwhelming vastness of the Universe from […]