Black Panther’s Wakanda is the kind of Afrofuturist fantasy that’s been largely missing from the mainstream pop cultural canon. Unlike most other genre fiction that could scarcely imagine black people living in the future, Black Panther envisions a world in which an entire nation of uncolonized Africans became the…
Black Panther’s costumes weren’t just the garb of King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) and the people of Wakanda. They were also a loving tribute to the art, history, and culture of several African nations. Now, the film’s costume designer Ruth Carter is giving an inside look at how she mixed tradition and technology to…
When you play one of Janelle Monáe’s albums, you aren’t just taking a winding tour through the musical influences that have shaped the artist’s intoxicating, soul-piercing voice. You’re tapping into a part of an expansive Afrofuturist saga about identity, revolution, time travel, and (of course) androids.
When A Tribe Called Quest released their last album more than a year ago, a track called “The Space Program” blew listeners away with its pointed lyrics about systemic inequality in America. Now the song’s got an amazing video with a tearjerker credits roll.
Black Panther has been a lively topic of conversation for a bit longer now than most Marvel movies manage to be, and in wider circles. It owes a lot of that to its thoughtful take on producing politically relevant themes and pushing discussions about the worldwide black experience. Now, one teacher in Chicago is using…
We really dug the inaugural issue of the Journal of Science Fiction earlier this year, and the Museum of Science Fiction has just released their second issue.
W.E.B. Du Bois is probably best known as an essayist and the co-founder of the NAACP. But he also wrote a number of works of fiction, including the well-known apocalyptic story “The Comet.” But his newly discovered short story from around 1908 could be a foundational text of Afro-Futurism.
This stunning gallery on Blavity showcases eight up-and-coming visual artists influenced by Afrofuturism, science fiction that explores the experiences and culture of people of color. They’re amazingly diverse not just in their sci-fi visions, but the media they use to express them. Painting, comics, illustration,…
Earlier this morning, Bree Newsome scaled the flagpole at the South Carolina statehouse in Columbia and took down the Confederate Flag. But before Newsome became a national hero, she was known as a filmmaker—and you can watch one of her short films online.
Kenyan TV series Usoni plans to flip the script on immigration stories by imagining a future in which the sun is no longer visible in most parts of the world, leaving Africa as the sole oasis of sunshine.
In today's comments, we parsed out the procedure for the perfect selfie, chose the historical figures we wished would just stay in the past, and looked at the global reach of afrofuturism.
Ytasha Womack, the author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, is here to answer your questions today!
This month, a major fantasy series comes to its long-awaited conclusion. Anne Rice turns her attention to werewolves. Dan Simmons and Dave Eggers meet the Abominable Snowman and Facebook, respectively. Here are all the science fiction and fantasy books you must check out in October!
Afrofuturism, the movement that puts people of African descent at the center of futuristic and science-fictional ideals, has gotten a new avatar in the form of singer Janelle Monae. But there's also a new book coming out, two new art shows, an Octavia Butler graphic novel, and much, much more.
Fashion designer Rick Owens debuted his new line in Paris this week with this incredible, futuristic show featuring steppers. It's absolutely mesmerizing, and reminds me of Afro-futurist art or the movie Born in Flames. Just gorgeous.
Want to build your own robot spider tank? You can fund kits for your small robot army on Kickstarter. Plus, there's an anthology of Afrofuturism, a comprehensive convention database, and a photobook that takes us behind the scenes of cosplay creation.
There's so much great Afrofuturism going on, both online and in realtime, that you need a place to keep track of it all. Luckily, the Afrofuturist Affair Tumblr collects a lot of the best writing, event announcements, art, videos and random cultural detritus in one place.
In the Afro-futurist fiction of Walter Mosley and Octavia Butler, the heroes are often at the mercy of the system, writes blogger Christopher Bradley. That isn't so much the case for Cyberpunk's outsider heroes, he points out.
Spinning out of an off-hand comment at Comic-Con from Grant Morrison about how "artists tend to draw white guys," comic critic and commentator David Brothers offers up an insightful essay about what science fiction can represent with regards to black cultural identity.Considering the concept of Afro Futurism and the…