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Afrofuturism
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 aAfro-fantasy fantasy, alternate history and magic realism, and can also be found in music. The term was coined by American cultural critic Mark Dery in 1993 and explored in the late 1990s through conversations led by Alondra Nelson. Ytasha L. Womack, writer of ''Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture'', defines it as "an intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation". She also follows up with a quote by the curator Ing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sun Ra
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led The Arkestra, an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up. Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Music of Chicago, Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym." His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alondra Nelson
Alondra Nelson (born April 22, 1968) is an American academic, policy advisor, non-profit administrator, and writer. She is the Harold F. Linder chair and professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, an independent research center in Princeton, New Jersey. Since March 2023, she has been a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. In October 2023, she was nominated by the Biden-Harris Administration and appointed by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to the UN High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence. From 2021 to 2023, Nelson was deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and principal deputy director for science and society of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), where she performed the duties of the director from February to October 2022. She was the first African American and first woman of color to lead OSTP. Prior to her role in the Biden Administration, she served fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octavia Butler
Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer who won several awards for her works, including Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.Crossley, Robert. "Critical Essay." In ''Kindred'', by Octavia Butler. Boston: Beacon, 2004. Born in Pasadena, California, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. She was extremely shy as a child, but Butler found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. Butler attended community college during the Black Power movement in the 1960s. While participating in a local writer's workshop, she was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop which focused on science fiction. She sold her first stories soon after, and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author to be able to write full-time. Butler's books and short stories dr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Dery
Mark Dery (born December 24, 1959)''Contemporary Authors Online'', s.v. "Mark Dery" (accessed February 12, 2008). is an American writer, lecturer and cultural critic. An early observer and critic of online culture, he helped to popularize the term "culture jamming" and is generally credited with having coined the term "Afrofuturism" in his essay "Black to the Future" in the anthology ''Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture.''Yaszek, Lisa. "Afrofuturism, Science Fiction, and the History of the Future". ''Socialism and Democracy'', vol.20, no.3, November 2006, pp.41–42. He writes about media and visual culture, especially fringe elements of culture for a wide variety of publications, from ''Rolling Stone'' to ''Boing Boing, BoingBoing''. Early life and education Dery was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He grew up in Chula Vista, California. He earned a Bachelor of Arts, B.A. from Occidental College in 1982. He is of English people, Anglo-Irish people, Irish-Scottish people, Sco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parliament-Funkadelic
Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American musical collective, music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton (funk musician), George Clinton, primarily consisting of the funk bands Parliament (band), Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. With an eclectic style drawing on psychedelia, outlandish fashion, and surreal humor, they have released albums such as ''Maggot Brain'' (1971), ''Mothership Connection'' (1975), and ''One Nation Under a Groove'' (1978) to critical praise, and scored charting hits with singles such as "Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker), Tear the Roof Off the Sucker" (1975) and "Flash Light (song), Flash Light" (1978). Overall, the collective achieved thirteen top ten hits in the American R&B music charts between 1967 and 1983, including six number one hits. Their work has had an influential effect on subsequent funk, post-punk, hip hop music, hip-hop, and techno artists of the 1980s and 1990s, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deltron 3030
Deltron 3030 is an American hip hop trio composed of producer Dan the Automator (as the Cantankerous Captain Aptos), rapper Del the Funky Homosapien (as Deltron Zero/Deltron Osiris), and DJ Kid Koala (as Skiznod the Boy Wonder). They also collaborate with a variety of other musicians under many futuristic pseudonyms. History ''Deltron 3030'' The group's debut album ''Deltron 3030'', released on May 23, 2000, is a concept album set in the year 3030 that tells of the dualistic conflict of fatalism that takes place between the moral concepts of "righteousness" and "malevolence." The story tells a prophetic tale of a warrior's thirst for battle as Del's alter ego, who goes by the name "Deltron-Zero," along with his comrade who happens to be a time-traveling cyborg wizard named "the Automator," face-off against megalithic corporations that megalomaniacally rule over our thermodynamic universe. The lyrics were written in less than two weeks and are characterized by extravagant a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonzun Crew
Jonzun Crew was an American electro and early funk–hip hop group that was active in the 1980s. The group was led by Michael Jonzun, his brothers Maurice Starr and Soni Jonzun, and Carl (Captain Fingers). Overview The Jonzun Crew was formed by Florida-born brothers Michael, Soni, and Larry Johnson (also known as Maurice Starr) in Boston in 1981, with Gordy Worthy and Steve Thorpe filling out the lineup. The group carried its spin on Parliament-Funkadelic's loopy sci-fi themes of Afro-futurism throughout the 1980s and early 1990s for several albums. The group's most famous tracks, “Pack Jam (Look out for the OVC),” “Space is the Place,” and “Space Cowboy” were featured on the group's debut album, ''Lost in Space'' (1983). Other notable tracks included “We Are the Jonzun Crew” and “Ground Control.” All of the synthesizer parts were played live as opposed to sequenced, and despite using drum-machine hits in its tracks, most of the group's songs used a live ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space exploration, time travel, Parallel universes in fiction, parallel universes, and extraterrestrials in fiction, extraterrestrial life. The genre often explores human responses to the consequences of projected or imagined scientific advances. Science fiction is related to fantasy (together abbreviated wikt:SF&F, SF&F), Horror fiction, horror, and superhero fiction, and it contains many #Subgenres, subgenres. The genre's precise Definitions of science fiction, definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Major subgenres include hard science fiction, ''hard'' science fiction, which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and soft science fiction, ''soft'' science fiction, which focuses on social sciences. Other no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warp 9
Warp 9, an American sci-fi themed electro-funk, hip hop group is best known for its ground breaking, influential singles including " Nunk," " Light Years Away," and " Beat Wave," which ranked among the most iconic groups of the electro hip hop era. Described as the "perfect instance of hip hop's contemporary ramifications," Warp 9 was the brainchild of writer-producers Lotti Golden and Richard Scher. The duo wrote and recorded under the moniker Warp 9, a production project at the forefront of the electro movement. Background Lotti Golden and Richard Scher were among the early electro production teams in New York City, utilizing the Roland TR-808 drum machine and the casio keyboard, which built its brand of electro by layering multiple keyboard textures over drum-machine tracks, which became Warp 9's signature sound. Although the sound of the Roland TR-808 was the basis for Warp 9's rhythm tracks, Golden and Scher began to introduce live percussion in Warp 9 recordings. For ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. He started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. Hancock soon joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, he experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro-funk, electro styles using a wide array of synthesizers and electronics. It was during this time that he released one of his best-known and most influential albums, ''Head Hunters''. Hancock's best-known compositions include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man (composition), Watermelon Man", "Maiden Voyage (composition), Maiden Voyage", and "Chameleon (composition), Chameleon", all of which are jazz standards. During the 1980s, he had a hit single with the electronic instrumental "Rockit (song), Rockit", a collaboration with bassist/producer Bill Laswell. Hancock has won an Academy Awards, Ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth, Wind & Fire
Earth, Wind & Fire (abbreviated as EW&F or EWF) is an American band formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1969. Their music spans multiple genres, including jazz, R&B, soul, funk, disco, pop, Latin and Afro-pop. They are among the best-selling bands of all time, with sales of over 90 million records worldwide. The band was formed by Maurice White, originating out of the Salty Peppers; its history includes a hiatus from mid-1984 to mid-1987. Prominent members have included Verdine White, Philip Bailey, Ralph Johnson, Larry Dunn, Al McKay, Roland Bautista, Robert Brookins, Sonny Emory, Freddie Ravel, Ronnie Laws, Sheldon Reynolds and Andrew Woolfolk. The band is known for its kalimba sound, dynamic horn section, energetic and elaborate stage shows, and the contrast between Bailey's falsetto and Maurice's tenor vocals. The band has won six Grammy Awards out of 17 nominations and four American Music Awards out of 12 nominations. They have been inducted into the Rock a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel R
Samuel is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the biblical judges to the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), United Kingdom of Israel under Saul, and again in the monarchy's transition from Saul to David. He is Veneration, venerated as a prophet in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In addition to his role in the Bible, Samuel is mentioned in Jewish rabbinic literature, rabbinical literature, in the Christian New Testament, and in the second chapter of the Quran (although the text does not mention him by name). He is also treated in the fifth through seventh books of ''Antiquities of the Jews'', written by the Jewish scholar Josephus in the first century. He is first called "the Seer" in Books of Samuel, 1 Samuel 9:9. Biblical account Family Samuel's mother was Hannah (biblical figure), Hannah and his father was Elkanah. Elkanah lived at Ramathaim-Zophim, Ramathaim in the district of Zuph. His genealogy is also found in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
