You might want to check out Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow if you haven't already. Ngũgĩ sort of asks, Why stop at the smoke? He shows that surrealism and revolution can go together.
i’m so fucked up and rusty, RA the rugged is my go to for afro surreal hip hop, followed by ODB i’m not sure if i’ll put andre 3k here…. i’ll check out the cats you mention
i feel like the jawn gets stronger as it ends….#14 is my favorite one”what is a freedom dream to…..
i think of my folks caring for elders, the old activists in nursing homes, all the go fundme’s in the community, even my own experiences getting sick and finding care separate from “the movement “ or “the dreamers”
we both ask: who is throwing hands, you in defense and me in care and is the dreaming really helping
people to move their hands in the present
Baba who was former principal of an African centered sxhool school which was shut down by The State once said “we had the curriculum game tight but the state got us with the administration “just like they be getting folks on taxes, mail fraud, paperwork inaccuracies etc. Not sure how that relates to surrealism but after the dreaming we got to wake up and work
Even as I mostly agree with you on afro futurism, I think what they claim to be doing is slightly different. I don’t think it’s just wishing or hoping, but I think many would claim that there descriptions if the futures are giving people tools to build desirable futures. One part art, one part instruction manual or maybe even divination .
I happened to read Franklin Rosemont's essays on the blues this weekend (https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1723) and you're making me think of how much belief he had that blues and hard bop (and I presume the freer jazz that came after) were surrealist. The blue note came from trying to make African sounds/meaning with European instruments, he said, and the jazz artists like Cecil Taylor, Pharaoh Sanders, etc visualized liberation through out-there improvisation. That section you quote from Frank Ocean's "Solo" comes just before he stops using words for the melody (bc of English being a European instrument, we might say), then the multivocal, computer-sounding bridge...falling apart as a sense being made.
it’s a long shot but if you make it to Detroit weekend of November 14, we can put you in the lineup my upcoming reading. These contradictions remind me of the last reading: this Afro future vs the detailed mess of the present, i
can just spend hours on yr first point alone. peace!
You might want to check out Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow if you haven't already. Ngũgĩ sort of asks, Why stop at the smoke? He shows that surrealism and revolution can go together.
A couple overviews of the novel: https://apracticalpolicy.org/2008/07/30/wizard-of-the-crow-by-ngugi-wa-thiongo/
i’m so fucked up and rusty, RA the rugged is my go to for afro surreal hip hop, followed by ODB i’m not sure if i’ll put andre 3k here…. i’ll check out the cats you mention
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qLuJSzs-3lE
i gotta tap in
i feel like the jawn gets stronger as it ends….#14 is my favorite one”what is a freedom dream to…..
i think of my folks caring for elders, the old activists in nursing homes, all the go fundme’s in the community, even my own experiences getting sick and finding care separate from “the movement “ or “the dreamers”
we both ask: who is throwing hands, you in defense and me in care and is the dreaming really helping
people to move their hands in the present
Baba who was former principal of an African centered sxhool school which was shut down by The State once said “we had the curriculum game tight but the state got us with the administration “just like they be getting folks on taxes, mail fraud, paperwork inaccuracies etc. Not sure how that relates to surrealism but after the dreaming we got to wake up and work
Even as I mostly agree with you on afro futurism, I think what they claim to be doing is slightly different. I don’t think it’s just wishing or hoping, but I think many would claim that there descriptions if the futures are giving people tools to build desirable futures. One part art, one part instruction manual or maybe even divination .
yeah that makes sense. i may have to do a follow up.
I happened to read Franklin Rosemont's essays on the blues this weekend (https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1723) and you're making me think of how much belief he had that blues and hard bop (and I presume the freer jazz that came after) were surrealist. The blue note came from trying to make African sounds/meaning with European instruments, he said, and the jazz artists like Cecil Taylor, Pharaoh Sanders, etc visualized liberation through out-there improvisation. That section you quote from Frank Ocean's "Solo" comes just before he stops using words for the melody (bc of English being a European instrument, we might say), then the multivocal, computer-sounding bridge...falling apart as a sense being made.
anyway, this is helpful, thank you!
glad it resonated
it’s a long shot but if you make it to Detroit weekend of November 14, we can put you in the lineup my upcoming reading. These contradictions remind me of the last reading: this Afro future vs the detailed mess of the present, i
can just spend hours on yr first point alone. peace!
yeah the rough drafts boys are prioritizing a detroit trip we just gotta figure it out
can't wait to dig into this ... and see what bounces off of me. peace!
yeah point five was highkey inspired by one of our exchanges about whether labeling something afro-surreal mattered