Afropunk Festival | |
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Years active | 2005-Present |
Website | afropunk |
Afropunk Festival is an annual arts festival that features music, film, fashion, and art produced by alternative black artists.
The Afropunk Festival began in 2005, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. By 20218 Afropunk Festivals had also been held in various major cities, including Atlanta, Paris, France, London, UK, Salvador, Brazil, Dakar, Senegal, and Johannesburg, South Africa. The festival was founded and conceived by Matthew Morgan and the film component was co-founded by James Spooner, which grew out of the 2003 documentary titled Afro-Punk which studied black punks across America. [1] produced by Morgan and written by Spooner.
The festival was targeted towards black alternative-minded punks and supported by The Brooklyn Academy of Music. As the festival grew and the music industry became more diverse, the musical curation shifted towards reaching a broader black audience and the festival also began charging an admission fee. [2] Due to festival alterations that deviated from the original Afropunk culture, former co-founder, James Spooner ended his involvement in 2008. [3]
Jocelyn A. Cooper became involved with the festival in 2009. Afropunk Festival grew to hundreds and thousands of attendees, [4] expanding into the cities of Atlanta, Paris, London, Johannesburg South Africa, Salvador, Brazil, Miami, and Minneapolis. [5]
Afropunk is acquired by entrepreneur Richelieu Dennis and Essence Ventures. [6]
Having emerged from political punk roots, Afropunk Festival has faced criticism at times, [7] including backlash over booking artists such as MIA, [8] Ice Cube [9] and Tyler the Creator. [10]
Attendees have also critiqued the values of Afropunk's organizers surrounding LGBQT concerns, treatment of employees, and its corporate leanings. Some attendees critique the festival for appealing to white audiences, [11] including an instance of attendees being removed from an area of the festival for wearing a homemade t-shirt critical of the event. [12] In August of 2018, Afropunk's Editor-In-Chief resigned after over a decade of work for Afropunk citing mistreatment and a corporate agenda he labeled "performative activism". [13] [14]
Cancelled due to Hurricane Irene. [17]
Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afro-diasporic experiences. While Afrofuturism is most commonly associated with science fiction, it can also encompass other speculative genres such as fantasy, alternate history and magic realism, and can also be found in music.
Afro-punk refers to the participation of African Americans and other Black people in punk and alternative subcultures, especially in the United States.
James Spooner is an American film director, tattoo artist, and graphic novelist. He is best known for his 2003 documentary film Afro-Punk, and for co-founding the Afropunk Festival. He also directed the 2007 narrative film White Lies, Black Sheep. His first graphic novel, titled The High Desert, was published in 2022.
Afro-Punk (2003) is a 66-minute documentary film directed by James Spooner and produced by Matthew Morgan, exploring the roles of African Americans within what was then an overwhelmingly white punk scene across the United States of America—and taking place as the world shifted with the galvanizing power of the internet. The film focuses on the lives of four African Americans dedicated to the punk rock lifestyle, interspersed with interviews from scores of black punk rockers from all over the United States. Fans of the film and the music inspired an alternative movement, that later became the annual Afropunk Festival beginning in 2005.
Janelle Monáe Robinson is an American singer, songwriter, rapper and actress. She has received ten Grammy Award nominations, and is the recipient of a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Children's and Family Emmy Award. Monáe has also been honored with the ASCAP Vanguard Award; as well as the Rising Star Award (2015) and the Trailblazer of the Year Award (2018) from Billboard Women in Music.
American singer Janelle Monáe has released four studio albums, four extended plays, 23 singles and eighteen music videos. Monáe debuted with an EP, Metropolis: Suite I , which had a modest commercial impact, peaking at number 115 on the Billboard charts in the United States. In 2010, Monáe released her debut studio album, The ArchAndroid, through Bad Boy Records; it is a concept album sequel to her first EP. The album was nominated at the 53rd Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary R&B Album and peaked the number 17 on the Billboard 200. In March 2012, "We Are Young", a song by the band fun. on which Monáe makes a guest appearance, reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100, her first appearance in the chart. Monáe released her second album, The Electric Lady, on September 10, 2013, peaking at number five on the Billboard 200 and producing four singles. Her third album, Dirty Computer, was released on April 27, 2018. In December 2018, the album received a Grammy Award nomination for Album of the Year.
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"Q.U.E.E.N." is a song by American recording artist Janelle Monáe featuring the singer Erykah Badu. It was released on April 23, 2013, as the lead single from Monáe's second studio album, The Electric Lady. Stylized in the form of question and response, each line of the song has Monáe expressing her thoughts on subjects ranging from sexuality to religion. Prince, a mentor to Monáe, called the music video for "Q.U.E.E.N." the best music video of 2013.
Melt Festival was one of the biggest open-air electronic music festivals in Germany. The festival took place at the Ferropolis open-air museum, near Gräfenhainichen. It was hold since 1997.
Ho99o9 is an American punk rap duo founded in 2012 in Newark, New Jersey by theOGM and Yeti Bones. They relocated to Los Angeles in 2014. They were one of Rolling Stone's "10 New Artists You Need to Know" in 2014 and The Guardian's "New Band of the Week". They have performed at the Afropunk Festival in 2014, the SXSW Music Festival in 2015 and Primavera Sound Festival in 2016. To date, they have released multiple EPs, accompanied by grindhouse-style music videos, and two full-length albums, United States of Horror (2017) and SKIN (2022).
Nana Kwabena Tuffuor is an American record producer, rapper, singer, songwriter, DJ and sound engineer. He is most noted for co-producing Jidenna's certified platinum single, "Classic Man." In 2015, the song was nominated for a Grammy at the 58th annual Grammy Awards for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. Tuffuor also co-produced "Made To Love" by John Legend and "Yoga," featuring Jidenna and Janelle Monáe.
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