How Does Blackness Sound in the Future Part 2.
A few weeks ago I wrote about two podcasts covering Afrofuturism. Neil Drumming’s episode “We Are In the Future” explains how Afrofuturism can take multiple forms including YouTube videos. Drumming discusses these videos envisioning a future where young Black boys are not harassed as they walk home form school. The final act of the episode felt a bit out of place to me, hearing him talk about the boys experiences did feel “futuristic” enough, but I had to remember Afrofuturism depicts horror in many dimensions of space and time. So the videos of their bodies being policed on YouTube are Afrofuturist documents. Additionally, they serve another purpose which is to remind the mostly white and educated audience of This American Life that the realities of Black Americans resonate through technology in a manner than can be joyful (e.g., Ingrid LaFleur’s Campaign) and torturous. This got me thinking about the many contexts in which video articulates Blackness in the future.
In my own work it begins with the concert space, by looking closely at Black artists performances of sonic Blackness often in front of thousands of white people, Black and Brown people. There are tons of online and face to face performances of sexual orientation, ability, class and more captured in these concert vlogs, especially when one considers the dynamics of crowd sizes and mosh pits. There is a palpable energy that lives in those spaces, supposedly anyone is allowed to be free there. Bodies knock up against one another, elbows and fists go a flying in violence. It’s cathartic. I saw a tweet this week of Beyoncé in a mosh pit before Jay Z and Kanye West perform “Niggas in Paris” during a London show. It was fascinating to read the comments. Some share their own footage from alternate angles. Others debate the legitimacy of that mosh in particular, noting the preparation and cleanness of bodies preparing to collide.
It could be that these comments are policing how mosh pits occur in the concerts. But I believe fans concerns about the optics of and politics behind uber celebrities engaging in this long held concert tradition are valid. There are more instances of this between fans and artists, like what happened to Drake at Camp Flog Gnaw last year. And I want to write about how these dynamics shift from popular artists and crowds. When I observe how people engage with Black music in video, I notice those white kids yelling “Nigga” with no shame. I recognize the silent disregard male fans exude to get to the front to the crowd, using their tall muscular bodies to push shorter women and femme fans towards the back of tightly packed crowds. These passive aggressive and violent behaviors are at play, just so they can get a glimpse of an artist. And supposedly, in these spaces everyone is allowed to be free there. And they are captured on film, heard in the audiences shouts and chants once the first melodic notes of a crowd favorite begin to ooze through the speakers.
