SISTER FROM ANOTHER PLANET

27 Dec

by Paola Mathe | Finding Paola *UPDATE Sadly, activist/model Mama Cax/Cacsmy Brutus passed away on December 16, 2019 at the age of 30. I once saw her on the subway and introduced myself, telling her how inspirational I found her; she was lovely. She was a real-live superhero. Here's a link to The NY Times article about her life. In the dark shadows of the night where women’s screams were unheard, and evil crept silently through back alleyways and hidden streets, four super heroes emerge to fight...

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13 Dec

Neneh Cherry: ‘Rap is a kind of freedom’

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MUSIC, SUBCULTURE/LIFESTYLE, WOMEN

British female rappers, left to right: Estelle, Ms Dynamite, Neneh Cherry, Flohio, Cassie Rytz. Composite: Atlantic Records, Redferns, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Lillie Eiger Thirty years after her debut, the singer recalls how hip-hop broke the mould for British women - and we chart the rappers that followed in her path, from Cookie Crew to Cassie Rytz by Jude Rogers | The Guardian/Observer One of BBC Four’s recent Top of the Pops reruns from the late 1980s features a performance that many of us who were young girls at...

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13 Dec

Betty Davis – ‘They Say I’m Different’ Documentary

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AFROFUTURISTIC, MUSIC, WOMEN

Funk Queen Betty Davis changed the landscape for female artists in America. She “was the first…” as former husband Miles Davis said. “Madonna before Madonna, Prince before Prince”. An aspiring songwriter from a small steel town, Betty arrived on the '70s scene to break boundaries for women with her daring personality, iconic fashion and outrageous funk music. She befriended Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, wrote songs for the Chambers Brothers and the Commodores, and married Miles – startlingly turning him...

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13 Dec

Wangechi Mutu and Carrie Mae Weems on the Profound Impulse to Make Art

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AFROFUTURISTIC, ARTS, WOMEN

Courtesy the Artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York Brussels. Photo credit Cynthia Edorh. by Carrie Mae Weems | Interview Magazine Wangechi Mutu builds worlds. In fact, the 48-year-old multimedia artistdoesn’t stop with terrestrial concerns such as material and form—she creates whole new mythologies for her vivid, ever-expanding artistic domain, in- venting radical cosmological creatures that can be seductive, monstrous, secretive, triumphant, and all-powerful, as if mating folklore with sci-fi cyborgian fantasy. Mutu has often been linked with Afrofuturism—the cultural movement that welds the iconography...

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13 Dec

Chadwick Boseman remembered by Ruth E Carter

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BLACK GENIUS

Chadwick Boseman photographed at the Toronto Film Festival, 2016. Photograph: Andrew H Walker/Variety/Rex/Shutterstock 29 November 1976 – 28 August 2020 The Oscar-winning costume designer – who worked with the actor on Black Panther – recalls a kind, self-assured man who would rather crack a joke than talk about his illness by Ruth E Carter | The Guardian/Observer In 2015, I interviewed for the film Marshall, about the supreme court justice Thurgood Marshall in the 1940s, and they told me that Chadwick Boseman was playing the lead. I really...

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12 Dec

‘The narrative is we don’t sell records’: the Black female singers uncredited by the UK industry

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IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MUSIC, WOMEN

Their vocals and songwriting feature on some of the biggest hits, but Black women are often not credited, leaving their solo careers stunted and causing them to lose out financially Elisabeth Troy, Shingai and Kelli-Leigh, three of the singers campaigning for better credit and representation in the UK industry. Composite: PR, Tom Oldham by Jumi Akinfenwa | The Guardian Through soul, funk, disco and beyond, black female vocalists stood proudly on the front of record sleeves and on stages. Then, in 1989, Italian dance...

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4 Sep

America’s Lost Generation of Black Conductors

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IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MUSIC

by David Patrick Stearns | WQXR Editorial The 1970s are hardly ancient history, but the decade seems like a distant world that had African American symphony and opera conductors in a few highly visible positions. Though not exactly common, Black conductors were a definite presence — long-emerging careers blossomed and young firebrands soared out of left field, each in ways that intersected around that time. This lost generation of African American conductors led major concerts by Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony, gave the...

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4 Sep

Jazz Has Always Been Protest Music. Can It Meet This Moment?

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IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MUSIC

Jazz remained a resistance music because it was the sound of Black Americans building something together, in the face of repression. Credit...

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13 Aug

Good Humor x RZA = New Jingle for a New Era

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IT'S ALL POLITICAL

RZA and Good Humor Craft New Ice Cream Jingle Since Famous One Has Racist History TARA C. MAHADEVAN | Complex and Good Humor| PRNewswire twitter ~ insta RZA and Good Humor—the brand of ice cream known for strawberry shortcake bars and vanilla king cones—have teamed up to create a new ice cream truck jingle since the current popular jingle that most trucks use has a bigoted history. Called “Turkey in the Straw,” the famous melody “has a problematic history,” RZA explained in an announcement video on Twitter. “We come to find out it...

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8 Aug

Koffee Drops The Perfect Quarantine Love Song With “Lockdown”

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MUSIC, WOMEN

by KEENAN HIGGINS | Hot New Hiphop After months of being on lockdown and social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Koffee gives the world a very relatable anthem about living it up to the fullest after this quarantine eases up. It goes without saying that many of us are completely over this global quarantine. As it looks like we may be approaching better days in the near future — keep those masks on, folks! — GRAMMY-winning reggae sensation Koffee just dropped a chune...

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8 Aug

9 Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories about Music

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MUSIC

Sarah Pinkser recommends fiction about otherworldly bands, songs, and concerts by SARAH PINSKER | Electric Lit Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . Translating one medium into another is tricky. Music is music and art is art and dance is dance; to try to convey the power of another art in fiction is its own sleight-of-hand. My own first novel takes on...

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8 Aug

For Black Pop Stans, the Bare Minimum Is No Longer Enough

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IT'S ALL POLITICAL, MUSIC, SUBCULTURE/LIFESTYLE

Photos in illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images, Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images, Larry Marano/Shutterstock, Charles Sykes/Invision/AP/Shutterstock by BRITTANY SPANOS | Rolling Stone Magazine Angela H. was marching in a Black Lives Matter protest in Hollywood on June 2nd when her friends pointed out something surprising. They’d spotted a man in black gloves, sunglasses, and a hoodie nearby in the crowd — and he looked just like Harry Styles, a pop star Angela has been stanning since 2011. She wasn’t convinced at first. “Every part of me didn’t want to believe it for...

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2 Mar

RZA Shares New EP of Guided Meditation Songs: Listen

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MUSIC, SUBCULTURE/LIFESTYLE

Music of spiritual aid—made for the tea company TAZO—from the Wu-Tang mastermind by Matthew Ismael Ruiz and Jazz Monroe | Pitchfork RZA has released Guided Explorations, a five-track EP that he produced in collaboration with TAZO® Tea. Early in the record, RZA instructs you to find a “chill environment” before conquering various adversaries of spiritual peace. He goes deep on the scourge of distraction and poisonous thoughts, explaining how “competitive pressure can stagnate you.” As the record continues, he spools out kernels of self-help advice over ambient...

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5 Dec

Astro-Yardies & Algoriddims: An Introduction to Jamaican Afrofuturism

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AFROFUTURISTIC

Still from Grace Jones' "Slave To The Rhythm" video. (Island/Manhattan 1985) by Richard Wright, MA a day ago in HISTORY | Beat Media (Alla this. ALL OF IT!) From the Black Star Line Legacies of Marcus Garvey to Grace Jones and Beyond I have an otherworldly memory from my young boyhood in Kingston, Jamaica. This was in the late 70s, and our family had recently moved there from New York City. I was navigating so many cultural shifts. It was...

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30 Nov

ICONS: Ideals of Black Masculinity | CCH Pounder’s Collection

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ARTS, IT'S ALL POLITICAL

Mario Moore, Red, Black and Green Armor, 2017 Imagine how I felt when my Aunt Meigan revealed that one of my favorite actresses of all time is also a family member! (Guyana is a small country, after all!) Icons: Ideals of Black Masculinity An Exhibition from the Collection of CCH Pounder at Xavier University Art Gallery The opening reception for ICONS is free and open to the public. The Xavier University and Greater New Orleans Community are invited to experience this extraordinary collection of works by...

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29 Nov

Popular African Dance Moves (2018)

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SUBCULTURE/LIFESTYLE

I've seen folks break out into the Gwara Gwara in Jo'burg--it's NO joke! :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPK8eJH0pVM...

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29 Nov

8-Year-Old Prodigy Drummer’s Amazing Zeppelin Cover

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MUSIC, WOMEN

by Hank Shteamer | Rolling Stone Yoyoka Soma’s spot-on version of “Good Times Bad Times”--this little girl is a joy to behold! John Bonham’s drum part in Led Zeppelin‘s “Good Times Bad Times” is one of classic rock’s most legendary grooves. And, thanks to the skipping kick-drum part in the verse, one of the trickiest to pull off. That’s just one reason we’re so impressed with the above video of eight-year-old drummer Yoyoka Soma. The young Japanese prodigy has been at it since age two,...

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26 Nov

‘It was like a family’

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IT'S ALL POLITICAL

31 October 1970: A demonstration takes place in Notting Hill organised by the Black Defence Committee. Photograph: Ian Showell/Getty Images Remembering the Mangrove, Notting Hill's Caribbean Haven The west London cafe, which opened 50 years ago, became a symbol of black urban resistance by Diane Taylor | Observer, The Guardian Atwo-bedroom flat on Notting Hill’s All Saints Road can fetch up to £2m these days. But half a century ago, when property prices were a small fraction of what they are now, the road was on...

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25 Nov

The Zambian “Afronaut” Who Wanted to Join the Space Race

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AFROFUTURISTIC, BRAINIAC, IT'S ALL POLITICAL

In 1964, Edward Mukuka Nkoloso wanted to join the space race. Was he for real? ILLUSTRATION BY HEIDI & GARETH CHISHOLM At the height of the Cold War, a schoolteacher launched the Zambian Space Program with a dozen aspiring teen-age astronauts. Was he unfairly mocked? by Namwali Serpell | The New Yorker My country was born on October 24, 1964. The former British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia, taking its new name from the great Zambezi River, would henceforth be known as Zambia. A week...

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25 Nov

ALL EYES ARE ON THE WOMEN OF WAKANDA

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FASHION/STYLE, WOMEN

by Clover Hope | ELLE [WHERE IS MY SHURI...

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25 Nov

Meet the 10-year-old DJ taking Ghana by storm

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MUSIC, WOMEN

Erica Armah Bra-Bulu Tandoh, better known as DJ Switch, is the youngest person to win the prestigious Ghana DJ award in June 2018. The 10-year-old, who began DJing a year ago, attracts hundreds of people to her shows, which feature music, singing, dancing and even horses. Despite her love of music, Erica hopes to be a gynecologist when she is older and is an advocate of education. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1zLIr7Msd4 See more of DJ Switch's music on her YouTube channel ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnm1...

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Older posts

A New Squad of Superheroes

Neneh Cherry: ‘Rap is a kind of freedom’

Betty Davis – ‘They Say I’m Different’ Documentary

Wangechi Mutu and Carrie Mae Weems on the Profound Impulse to Make Art

Chadwick Boseman remembered by Ruth E Carter

‘The narrative is we don’t sell records’: the Black female singers uncredited by the UK industry

America’s Lost Generation of Black Conductors

Jazz Has Always Been Protest Music. Can It Meet This Moment?

Good Humor x RZA = New Jingle for a New Era

Koffee Drops The Perfect Quarantine Love Song With “Lockdown”

9 Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories about Music

For Black Pop Stans, the Bare Minimum Is No Longer Enough

RZA Shares New EP of Guided Meditation Songs: Listen

Astro-Yardies & Algoriddims: An Introduction to Jamaican Afrofuturism

ICONS: Ideals of Black Masculinity | CCH Pounder’s Collection

Popular African Dance Moves (2018)

8-Year-Old Prodigy Drummer’s Amazing Zeppelin Cover

‘It was like a family’

The Zambian “Afronaut” Who Wanted to Join the Space Race

ALL EYES ARE ON THE WOMEN OF WAKANDA

Meet the 10-year-old DJ taking Ghana by storm

SISTER FROM ANOTHER PLANET™ 2024