Vol. 12 No. 1 (2020)
Article

Afrofuturism: Blackness, Sound, and Counter-Narratives

Audrey Suzanne McDougall
Athabasca University

Published 2020-05-15

How to Cite

McDougall, A. S. (2020). Afrofuturism: Blackness, Sound, and Counter-Narratives. Journal of Integrated Studies, 12(1). Retrieved from https://jis.athabascau.ca/index.php/jis/article/view/336

Abstract

Afrofuturism is about black artists and intellectuals intervening in preconceived and projected dystopian ideas about Africa and black peoples and reframing these notions to highlight the vitality of blackness in the past, present, and especially the future (Eshun 2003: 290; Gilroy 1993: 75). Afrofuturism radically re-imagines the orbit of the Black Atlantic and has the capacity to “distort … categories of racialization” (Gilroy 1993:76). Engaging with Afrofuturist music necessitates an examining of mythic and documented diasporic African history, for it is the present which has had its makings in the past – both of which determine the future (Steinskog 2018: 85). Key Words: Black Atlantic, Afrofuturism, America, Black Lives Matter, Neo-soul