Web3, cryptocurrency, NFTs — these were all imaginative ideas that appeared in lyrics from OutKast and Shabazz Palaces way before they became trending topics. Ideas that stem from an innate love that Black culture has with science fiction and world-building. If you YouTube Goodie Mobb’s "Cell Therapy," you’ll watch them highlight concerns about the technology that has now become your Face ID on your mobile device.\
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All of these concepts originates from Afrofuturism, a belief coined by critic Mark Dery in 1994’s Black to the Future, and combines elements of astral jazz, Black American sci-fi, and psychedelic hip-hop into an imaginative, alternative vision of tomorrow. Rooted in exploring the otherworldliness that exists in Black artistry, Afrofuturism is directly responsible for Black Panther’s global success, and how artists like FKA twigs and THEESatisfaction were able to breakthrough in a crowded soundscape.\
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Culturally, Afrofuturism, as argued by author Ytasha L. Womack, is a "cultural and artistic practice that goes back to ancient African griot traditions and Egyptian astronomy," even describing it as" the intersection between Black culture, technology, liberation, and the imagination, with some mysticism thrown in, too." As Afrofuturism has become more visible and championed in pop culture, Afrofuturistic music offers a hopeful vision to a community whose existence has long been marginalized and ignored by mainstream gatekeepers.\
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This list champions the artists and creatives who have defined and iterated on Afrofuturism, inviting exploration of this rich sonic universe.
Sun Ra
Sun Ra is and will forever be a legend. Influenced by his Afrocentric spiritualism, Ra’s music is imbued with a powerful energy that levitated listeners to new galaxies, taking them on sonic voyages, while exploring themes that related (and released them from) to the trials and tribulations of everyday life.
Ra’s imagination was unparalleled and his music, which dominated spaces from the mid-1950s until his death, made him a svengali of symbolism, imagery, and sound. With his Arkestra, Ra blended ancient Egyptian mythology, the aspirations of the Black community, and multidimensional expression that continues to have significant impact. And even with his spirit transitioned onto another plane, The Sun Ra Arkestra remains active, performing under the leadership of veteran Ra sideman Marshall Allen.
Erykah Badu
Erykah Badu, a Queen Mother who defies description, ushered in a higher level of consciousness in R&B. Unapologetically Black and an effortless communicator, Badu spoke to the needs of Black women and the community as a whole.
Badu’s visual aesthetic — innovative music videos, remixed hip-hop fashion, and shaman-esque live performances — balanced our real-life, near-dystopian reality with the hope that the Black woman is not only the Alpha-and-Omega but the key to saving our world.
As Baduizm came into being in 1997, just as Mark Dery’s theories were taking shape, the two symbiotic pairings would open the door for new languages and practices. Through her music and presence, Badu pushed R&B forward in a freer and more eccentric way.
Shabaka Hutchings
The much-acclaimed jazz musician and bandleader, Shabaka Hutchings, says a lot in his music and if listening closely enough then you’re welcomed to already be in the know.
Hutchings, alongside his bands Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming, not only adopts Sun Ra and Afrofuturism into his work but are also genuine fans of the genre. From reading N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy to using messages that are squarely from a Black POV, Hutchings is a masterful innovator whose sharp social critique asks the necessary questions that could create a better future.
Betty Davis
In the vast realm of Blackness, which typifies Afrofuturism, there was an irreverent goddess and funk pioneer who averted simplistic viewpoints in favor of commingling contrasts, paradoxes and presumed oppositions. Betty Davis was her name and her broad, theatrical form of visual and musical storytelling has been adapted by the likes of the aforementioned Erykah Badu and new genre stars like Durand Bernarr.
With songs rooted in describing the Black working-class women’s experiences in street culture, she never bit her tongue. The cover of her 1974 album, They Say I’m Different, exemplifies this greatly, as she was photographed in a space-age outfit, and forever demonstrated how magically surreal she truly was.
George Clinton/Parliament Funkadelic
There have been many who have embraced the funk, but none — other than its architect James Brown — have used it to totally rewrite the rules of music history. George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic directly addressed stigmas and taboos attached to race, gender, class and sexuality, incorporating theatrics that impressed young artists like Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar.
More than any other funk collective at the time, the group experimented with Afrofuturism. Their Mothership mirrored Sun Ra’s own plan for Black people to escape a racist planet, departing for a utopia that existed elsewhere in space. With funkier-than-a-mug characters like Dr. Funkenstein and Star Child, as well as avant garde players like Bootsy Collins — Clinton’s Afrofuturist funk reflected a "backward and forward" vision that is still being clamored for.
Janelle Monáe
A multifaceted phenomenon and serious force on the stage and screen, Janelle Monáe has gone from a recluse singer-songwriter under the Bad Boy label to a trailblazer for inclusionary rights in the LGBTQ+ community and an ASCAP Vanguard recipient. \
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Monáe has used Afrofuturism on concept albums like Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase) to her first full-length studio album, The ArchAndroid to Dirty Computer. By elaborating on funk’s theatrical nature and using the love of artificial intelligence, non-human lifeforms, and other worlds as a form of storytelling, Monáe differentiates herself among other Afrofuturists as a"free-ass-motherf—ker" and griot worth keeping on repeat.
Flying Lotus
Afrofuturism is a label that usually gets slapped on Flying Lotus, the Los Angeles, California native, but not one that normally sticks. The man born Steven Ellison was always known as being left-of-center, but in 2008, he delved into sci-fi as a way of processing grief around his mother’s terminal illness.
On "Galaxy in Janaki," an impressionistic space opera, he employed sounds recorded from the monitors and respirators that kept his mother alive. That effort grew into celebrated works like Cosmogramma, Until the Quiet Comes, and 2015’s GRAMMY-nominated ode to limbo, You’re Dead. A mad scientist who is as inventive as his lineage — his great aunt and uncle are Alice and John Coltrane — FlyLo proves to be deft at crafting emotion without using many words at all.\
Grace Jones
For years, Grace Jones has been more than a supermodel, more than a diva, and more than what any person can handle. The subversive Jamaican-born multihyphenate has always been ahead, forcing many to reframe how Black women were defined. Not overtly feminine or masculine, Jones' appearance and performance played with being non-binary at a time when only David Bowie was engaging with futurity with such ease.
The now 74-year-old artist still uses disruptions in her work. With her tenth album, 2008’s Hurricane, she delved into sonic landscapes with Tricky with much more success than more of her "alternative" contemporaries, making her live experience one never to miss.
OutKast
Those two dope boyz in a Cadillac have always been futuristic and plain ole’ funky. Before André 3000 and Big Boi became immortal legends, OutKast was the strangely cool outlier in the East Coast-West Coast-dominated rap landscape. Along with the Dungeon Family, Goodie Mob, Killer Mike, and a host of other legendary producers — the Mighty O changed how the culture regarded southern hip-hop. They definitely had something to say, and their messages are still being felt.
Billed as ATLiens, the duo channeled the imagination of George Clinton, the force of Rakim and KRS-One, and the effortless cool that led to audio revolutions all beneath the Mason-Dixon line. With themes such as knowledge of self, revolution, and dream-walking — OutKast might not have been the Afrofuturists that the culture expected, but surely were the ones hip-hop needed.
Shabazz Palaces
Ishmael Butler and Tendai Maraire are Shabazz Palaces, an atmospheric, bassed-out duo that comes from rap music’s id. Less interested in being formulaic, Shabazz Palaces is more about enrichment, offering solutions to one’s problems, embracing Afrofuturism, and emphasizing being socially conscious.\
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From their style of dress to their visual aesthetic, Ishmael, a former member of Digable Planets, may come off as plain weird to those who are only into the scam-raps and crypto-flexing found in today’s chart-topping songs. But this duo is progressive AF, laying down enough jewels for the next generation of hip-hop stars to stand out.
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