Afrofuturist icon Sun Ra.

Black music is often stereotyped as simple, emotional and down-to-earth, dealing with themes like love and loss (blues, soul), or fast bucks, sexy girls and gangland violence (rap/hip hop). But there is another side to black music as well, an eccentric and visionary streak present in the work of artists like Sun Ra, George Clinton (Parliament, Funkadelic) and Lee Perry - a kind of cosmic consciousness where black people assume the role of aliens or infiltrators who possess mystical knowledge and have the power to transform reality by applying arcane lore in the form of experimental music. After all, Africans were "abducted" by slave ships in the 17th century and became "aliens" in their new, unfamiliar country, America.

Kodwo Eshun, who writes for the British ID, The Wire and other publications, has accomplished a remarkable feat of modern pop-culture archeology in his book More Brilliant Than The Sun; Adventures in Sonic Fiction, where he goes wild with the English language, spinning his own remix of the themes present in the music of the aforementioned artists and many others. Eshun expects a high level of cultural sophistication from the reader, who is assaulted by strange neologisms ("grooverobbing", "futurhytmachine") as the writer outlines new imaginary scientific disciplines ("remixology", "breakbeat science") at lightning speed.

The same supercharged prose is in evidence in the postings on a new Internet mailing list, afrofuturism-l, home of several prominent black countercultural voices, like Paul D. Miller, also known as DJ Spooky. Some of the aims of the list are to "explore futurist themes in black cultural production and the ways in which technological innovation is changing the face of black art and culture, and to discuss whether science fiction has become the most effective way to talk about black experience". This list is in itself proof of the power of new technology to change our ways of communication; instead of reading second-hand information in journals or books, you can watch new ideas and concepts as they are born - and you can participate in their birth.

Black people have been grappling with the questions about fluid identities and appropriation of cultural forms that have become fashionable only recently in the white world, and so it is no wonder that a certain science fiction sensibility should be a part of the picture. The most exhilarating part of following the list is that while participants are extremely knowledgeable in contemporary cultural theory, they still manage to give their writings a funky, humorous feel; in the words of one observer "Everyone here speaks fluent Postmodernese." Everything of interest is explored on the list - from the metamorphoses of Michael Jordan through character stereotypes in movies like Matrix to spiritual work in cyberspace - the latter started by guest list moderator Ron Eglash, who is a scholar working on ethnomathematics and African fractals. DJ Spooky treats the readers to excellent mini-essays and travel reports where he draws upon everything from Plato and Freud to blaxploitation movies. One of the list regulars, Mark Fisher, has posted a series of suggestive texts which serve as good examples of the kind of ideas explored by the afro-futurists:

"As we approach the Millennium, the Bureau has noted a marked increase in the activities of the enigmatic group known as Hyper-C. Agents will be aware that Hyper-C is a clandestine distributed network, dedicated to "aquatic return" and the "liquidation of Babylon". Hyper-C is associated in particular with "sonic intelligence weaponry", and has taken credit for many recent examples of info-terrorism, which have been conventionally but erroneously labeled as musical recordings."

Afro-futurist resources

Afrofuturism
Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant than the Sun [Amazon]
Kodwo Eshun interview [Crash Media].
Ron Eglash's pages on ethnomathematics.
Negrofile e-zine.
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