The father of Afrofuturism and onetime local is having a big influence on six artists’ upcoming projects. What gives?
By Matthew Hendrickson
Published April 30, 2014
The artist Nick Cave models a Sun Ra-influenced Soundsuit on March 20Photo: Brian Sorg
May marks the centennial of the birth of Herman Blount, the father of
Afrofuturism. Born in Alabama, Blount moved to Chicago in 1946, claiming
that aliens from Saturn had told him to quit school and take up music.
He changed his name to Sun Ra, and by the 1970s he was at the helm of a
cultural movement that was a bizarre concoction of science fiction,
African American history, magical realism, and free jazz. Twenty years
after Blount’s death, interest in Afrofuturism is surging.
“Part of what’s appealing about Sun Ra to artists is the fact that he
was not constrained to a single medium,” says John Corbett, co-owner of
Corbett vs. Dempsey, a gallery in Wicker Park that collects Blount’s
early work. “[It’s] a sensibility that’s very current.”
To meet six innovative Chicago artists with new projects influenced by Sun Ra, see below.
The Guru
Sun Ra, 1914–1993
Photo: Chris Felver/Getty Images
Six Other Afrofuturism Acolytes Worth Checking Out
The Sax Man
David Boykin, 44
Photo: Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune
On any given Sunday, you can find multi-instrumentalist David Boykin
jamming with other free-jazz aficionados at the University of Chicago
Arts Incubator in Washington Park. “Sun Ra was among some of the first
records I heard, it was totally an awakening,” says the Greater Grand
Crossing musician who started playing jazz in college. “[Sun Ra’s] music
always sounded like it was happening right now. No one else sounded
like that.” On Sun Ra’s birthday, May 22, Boykin plans to invite 100
saxophone players to salute to the musician at the Arts Incubator (301
E. Garfield Blvd.). They’ll kick things off with “Happy Birthday,”
naturally.
The Performance Artist
Nick Cave, 55
Photo: Ratko Radojcic
Walking into Nick Cave’s South Loop studio—a behemoth of a loft
littered with piles of branches, neon-dyed hair, and thousands of
vintage tchotchkes—is like entering a wacky, warped world that is at
once tribal and futuristic. Famous for his wearable Soundsuits (opulent
assemblages that are part sculpture, part dance performance), Cave has
long said he culls inspiration from Sun Ra’s eccentric rhythms and
choreography. “I think we just need to keep everything funky and keep it
moving,” says the artist, who, like Sun Ra, often performs in costumes
that play off ritual African dress. Cave will perform on May 2 in
Millennium Park at the School of the Art Institute’s annual fashion
show. For tickets, saicfashion.org.
The Rapper-Writer
Lupe Fiasco, 32
Photo: Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP
This South Side hip-hop artist known for polarizing public appearances
is also a burgeoning author. Last December, he began writing a
noir-Afrofuturist novel on Twitter about Teriyaki Joe, a Harlem
detective. The blaxploitation–meets–Double Indemnity project
has 1.3 million followers, who get frequent updates such as “.45 on the
desk. Digital cigar burning. Sun-Ra coming out the speakers. Antique
Rick Ross poster on the wall.” The account is private, so you’ll have to
request access to @LupeFiasco.
The Sound Artist
Jamal Moss, 40
Photo: Celeste Sloman
A musician who uses the stage name Hieroglyphic Being, Jamal Moss has
recorded over 300 experimental electronic tracks and outlined another
3,000, all rich with spiraling, atonal melodies inspired by Sun Ra’s
1967 album Strange Strings. In March, Moss recorded an album
with Marshall Allen, the sax player who has led Sun Ra’s band, the
Arkestra, since its leader’s death. “[Sun Ra] stuck to his guns . . . no
matter how many people might have ridiculed him,” says Moss, whose new
untitled record is set to hit the shelves this fall. “He carved a niche
for himself on this planet.” For a taste of Moss’s music, hear the song “A Synthetic Love Life.”
The Guitarist
Jeff Parker, 47
Photo: Jim Newberry
This seasoned avant-garde guitarist and backbone of the band Tortoise says the 1970 album My Brother the Wind
“opened my mind to a lot of experimental stuff.” His side project
Isotope 217 also pays homage to Sun Ra with a noisy synth-heavy sound
that Parker says is influenced by the Afrofuturist’s 1974 film Space Is the Place.
“He is a very important musician to me conceptually, just in terms of
having a more metaphysical, spiritual connection through your music. . .
.[Afrofuturism] is a cultural reflection of what African Americans are
dealing with in their art.”
The Filmmaker
Cauleen Smith, 46
For this Kenwood artist and experimental filmmaker, inspiration struck
while standing in line at the DMV. “There was one song in particular,
called ‘Love in Outer Space.’ I just listened to it over and over and
over. I was like, I should be wanting to kill myself right now, but I
feel great,” says the artist. Smith became a Sun Ra scholar of sorts and
has spent the past four years knee-deep in his archives at the
University of Chicago and the West Loop gallery Threewalls. Recently,
she has been weaving his writings on American politics and the black
diaspora into multimedia installations, including the one on view at the
McKinney Avenue Contemporary in Dallas through May 3. Bonus: Here’s a behind the scenes look at the photo shoot with Nick Cave, as he tries out the Soundsuit in our lead photo.
Marvin X and Sun Ra at Marvin X's Black Educational Theatre, Fillmore District, San Francisco, 1972. Sun Ra and Marvin X both lectured in the Black Studies Department, University of California, Berkeley during this time. Marvin performed coast to coast with Sun Ra's Arkestra, reciting his poetry. Sun Ra arranged the musical version of Marvin's play Flowers for the Trashman, retitled Take Care of Business. They produced a five hour concert at San Francisco's Harding Theatre, with a cast of fifty, including the cast of TCB, Arkestra, Ellendar Barne dancers, Raymond Sawyer Dancers.
Acclaimed novelist Toni Morrison, while promoting her new novel God Help the Child,
proved that she’s certainly not insulated from the racial climate in
America. Morrison has often written about race, and explained in The Telegraph why she’s grown tired of people who keep calling for a conversation on race.
.
“People keep saying, ‘We need to have a conversation about race,’”
she explains. “This is the conversation. I want to see a cop shoot a
white unarmed teenager in the back,” Morrison says. “And I want to see a
white man convicted for raping a black woman. Then when you ask me, ‘Is
it over?’, I will say yes.”
Morrison is drawing attention to the disparity of how blacks are
policed in comparison to other communities. Recently a black man in
South Carolina was fatally shot in the back as he fled a police officer.
The officer wasn’t arrested until video of the incident surfaced.
Morrison explained during the interview that we’re having a hard time getting past racism because there’s so much money in it.
“Race is the classification of a species. And we are the human race,
period. But the other thing – the hostility, the racism – is the
money-maker. And it also has some emotional satisfaction for people who
need it.” She explains that slavery “moved this country closer to the
economy of an industrialized Europe, far in advance of what it would
have been.”
In a separate NPR interview, Morrison discussed why categorizing people by skin tone is problematic.
“Distinguishing color — light, black, in between — as the marker for
race is really an error: It’s socially constructed, it’s culturally
enforced and it has some advantages for certain people,” she says. “But
this is really skin privilege — the ranking of color in terms of its
closeness to white people or white-skinned people and its devaluation
according to how dark one is and the impact that has on people who are
dedicated to the privileges of certain levels of skin color.”
Rick
was a happy dope fiend. He loved shooting dope in the Tenderloin of San
Francisco, though he used to shoot dope in the Fillmore, but that was
in the old days when the Fillmore was jumping, bumper to bumper cars,
Negroes with big hats and long coats, ladies strutting like peacocks.
Jazz clubs everywhere. That was before Negro removal came to town. When
Negro removal came, Rick started hanging out in the TL, that funky
multi-ethnic ghetto a block from downtown.
He was happy in the TL, along with all the other dope fiends, sex workers, derelicts , mentally ill, homeless and working poor.
Whenever
Rick was on the streets of the TL, he had a big smile and laughed so
hard you had to laugh with him, even if what he was laughing about
wasn't funny.
He dressed clean like a real dope fiend from the old days when dope was good, not like that punk dope they have today.
Sometimes Rick would be in the middle of the street loaded to the gills, laughing out loud with one of his dope fiend friends.
Then something happened to Rick. He disappeared for awhile. We heard he was in a drug recovery program. We were happy for him.
He
came out of recovery a changed man. He got a job driving yellow cab. He
moved out the TL to Oakland. He'd found a house, bought two cars, one a
Cadillac Seville.
But when we ran into Rick he was somber,
quiet, mellowed out, didn't laugh anymore. He wasn't the Rick we knew.
But he was clean and sober, had money in his pocket. But he didn't have
that old smile, the laughter was gone.
Time passed.
We saw
Rick one day down in the BART or subway station. He was with a girl.
She was telling him to hurry up, come on. Rick did as he was told. He
had a smile and was laughing.
It was the last time we saw Rick. We know he died happy, doing his thing.
--Marivn X
4/12/10
Dope Man Blues
Hey, Mister Dope Man
please bring ma dope
please mister dope man
bring ma hope
hurry dope man
wit proper dope
ain't no hope
witout dope
come right mister dope man
get me high as a kite
give me dat paramedic blast
to the future and da past
let me see thangs dat ain't dare
spare me dem punk bitch ass nigguhs
spare me dem squares
hurry mister dope man
come take me dare
come wit justice
don't play wit da scales
Maa'at will get yo ass
litter dan a feather
come right dope man
let me see dat dope sparkle
Peruvian flake
gimme dat 30 hitter shit
don't be fake
Call da paramedics! dis dope too good
dis what a nigguh need
down here in da hood!
Hey, dope main
gimme dope make me sane
gimme truth dope fada mind
brainwash me dope
better get in line!
Marvin X and Sun Ra at Marvin X's Black Educational Theatre, Fillmore District, San Francisco, 1972. Sun Ra and Marvin X both lectured in the Black Studies Department, University of California, Berkeley during this time. Marvin performed coast to coast with Sun Ra's Arkestra, reciting his poetry. Sun Ra arranged the musical version of Marvin's play Flowers for the Trashman, retitled Take Care of Business. They produced a five hour concert at San Francisco's Harding Theatre, with a cast of fifty, including the cast of TCB, Arkestra, Ellendar Barne dancers, Raymond Sawyer Dancers.
