space
A Black Man in Space
The Space Age, jazz, African culture and the boundless sci-fi of Afrofuturism gave birth to the sounds and images of Sun Ra in the 1950s. But he was not the only one whose Afrofuturistic visions took the Black community to space - the mothership soon took off and has been cruising the galaxies ever since.
Do not Attempt to Adjust Your Radio ...
"We have taken control as to bring you this special show [...]
Coming to you directly from the Mothership
Top of the Chocolate Milky Way, 500,000 kilowatts of P. Funk-power
So kick back, dig, while we do it to you in your eardrums."
P-Funk
"There is an undercurrent of revolution to his polite announcement [...]. There is power in the airwaves, Clinton seems to say. Those that have been denied a voice must unleash it, before any dancing can be done.”
-Amelia Mason
Mothership Connection (1975)
Parliament-Funkadelic's (or P-Funk's) first Afrofuturistic mythology concept album introduces us to the fundamentally Afrofuturistic themes and characters, like Starchild, that will remain central in the band's work. This album is filled with "Afronauts, capable of funkitizing galaxies," P-Funk explain. In this album, one of the first of its kind, the Black community finally ventures into the expanse of space - and becomes the cultural arbiter of the future. In the vastness of space, racism is battled in intergalactic fights with aliens - and funk is the expression of freedom.
The album has gone on to become a landmark for Black musicians and has remained so to this day. Listen out for works inspired by Mothership Connection.
For the first time, we can see a Black man in space. Revolutionary - even in art.
... or Parliament-Funkadelic, is George Clinton's music collective. Their funky, psychodelic sounds sought to unify the Black community and finally imagine and inspire freedom and equal status.
The 1970s were wild - P-Funk's live shows were visited by the sparkling, magical mothership and its Starchild.
Get in - My Spaceship Leaves at Ten
Janelle Monáe travels on into futuristic space. Funk remains freedom - but now we make it ourselves.
A few lines later, becomes the familiar "swing low, sweet chariot" cites the traditional Black spiritual. Referring back to the Biblical story of Elijah and changing it a little, this song tells of the chariot that will come and save any troubled and oppressed person. From the horrors of slavery, no literal chariot could arrive to save Black people - but here, the sweet chariot of the mothership has finally come to carry you home.
Decolonisation, resistance and freedom begins within yourself, and finally, fly into the endless possibilities of space.
"Starchild"
Well, all right, Starchild
Citizens of the universe, recording angels
We have returned to claim the pyramids
Partying on the mothership
I am the mothership connection
Gettin' down in 3D, light year groovin'
All right, hear any noise
Ain't nobody but me and the boys
Gettin' down, hit it fellas
If you hear any noise
It's just me and the boys
Hit me, you gotta hit the band
All right, all right, starchild here
Put a glide in your stride and a dip in your hip
And come on up to the Mothership
Loose booty, doin' the bump
Hustle on over here
Ain't nothing but a party, y'all
Face it even your memory banks
Have forgotten this funk
Mothership connection
Home of the p. funk, the bomb
Doin' it in 3D
Let me put on my sunglasses here
So I can see what I'm doing
When you hear seats rumble
You will hear your conscience grumble
Hit me, you gotta hit the band
You have overcome for I am here
Swing down, sweet chariot
Stop and let me ride
Swing down, sweet chariot
Stop and let me ride
Are you hip to Easter Island?
The Bermuda Triangle?
Well, all right
Ain't nothing but a party
Starchild here, citizens of the universe
I bring forth to you
The good time on the mothership
Are you hip? Sing, fellas
Starchild here, doin' it in 3D
So good, it's good to me
Hit the band
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming forth to carry you home
Swing low, time to move on
Light years in time, ahead of our time
Free your mind and come fly
With me, it's hip on the mothership groovin'
For centuries the pyramids have been regarded as structures so great and awe-inspiring, many believed they must have been built by aliens. For humans to have done it seemed improbable - for non-white human impossible. Yet here they are, the Black community, reclaiming the grandeur of human history.
The Mothership Connection can finally restore the forgotten and broken memory of the Black community. We go back to the ancestral mothership, back to the freedom of the fundamentally Black sound of funk.
We have already been called to "hit" Starchild earlier, and to "hit" the band - which we can do musically, but also literally. The hint back to the brutality of the traumatic memory of slavery becomes transformed into "hitting it" with funk and regaining freedom through music. This second time, with Starchild here, we know we "have overcome for [he] is here." This is not a Bible quote, yet it almost could be - it carries at least the same sense of suffering and overcoming hardships as Moses's story ever could. So finally we, too, are liberated by the arrival of our messiah - and Starchild brings funk.
Clipping.
American experimental hip hop group from LA consists of rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes.
Splendor & Misery (2016)
It represents a mix of futuristic sounds and hip hop. The album tells the story of an enslaved person, referred to as Cargo #2331, in the future in outer space.
Cargo Ship
Perspective from the artificial intelligence (A.I.) within the cargo ship. Loaded with lots of cargo, one of them is cargo #2331 - representing one slave on a slave ship. Not an individual person but a number, dehumanizing the enslaved person.
The cargo ship in Splendor & Misery represents the slave ship from the future: the A.I. (commander) as the slave-owner and the cargo as the enslaved person on the ship.
"The Breach"
Generally operating normally
A small anomaly has become evident
And probably should be noted
There is spiking in the pulse of a member of the cargo
And the crew and other passengers have not begun to notice
The docility you certainly have taken steps to cultivate
For all intents and purposes would totally accept it
But the readings that are coming through
While not negating wholly the hypothesis
Seem to be unable to suggest it
(...)
Now: one specifically is up and moving to the door
He has found the access panel situated in the floor
He is entering the codes and overriding has begun
Reading rage in the nervous system, nothing can be done
It seems to circumvent necessity of physical restraints
Send security immediately over to the gate
And remember that these beings were selected for their strength
You should arm yourself accordingly in order to be safe
The first indication of the "cargo" showing deviant behavior from the rest of the ship cargo. From the perspective (as Diggs raps) from an on-board computer on a space ship, as an enslaved human (protagonist) being shipped as cargo unexpectedly begins attempting to break out of the cargo hold. The deviant behavior of the enslaved person is represented as "small anomaly":
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stepping out of the mass is perceived as dangerous.
The enslaved people are represented as "these beings" - portraying them as animals/objects - who are dangerous, powerful, and a threat to anyone around them.
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animalistic representation
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one should defend oneself in order to protect the "planet" or the other members of the ship.
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reinforces the notion of enslaved people as goods/cargo brought to America to work (as a machine).
Different meanings of "All Black Everything":
Here, it gives the sense of a lo ss of control from the mothership: everything is black and without any signal to earth or other galaxies, i.e. they are off course/lost their course.
"All back everything" again is ambiguous. During the song's progression, the "mantra" expresses different meanings: Here, it first refers to the endless space, but in other places, it represents fear, loneliness, doubt, amnesia, sleep.
A shift happened during the enslaved person's control of the mothership.
In contrast to the beginning, the AI of the ship is now sending messages that anyone coming to stop the protagonist should turn around, otherwise they be killed.
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declares its allegiance to the protagonist
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the ship has fallen in love with the enslaved person
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The AI’s protection saves his life but also dooms him to isolation. Thus, it is “all black everything.”
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Is the enslaved person's destiny fixed?
"All Black"
Warning: mothership reporting
Cargo number 2331 has commandeered the vessel
Warning: mothership reporting
Cargo number 2331 is armed and he is dangerous
Warning: mothership reporting
Cargo number 2331 is setting a new course
Warning: mothership reporting
Mothership reporting:
All black everything
All black everything
All black everything
All black
(...)
(All black everything)
He shouts at the dark, stands back
Counting the seconds before his voice returns
(All black everything)
No more cracks in the hull
The small crack in the skull healed up quickly, now it is
(All black everything)
The space stretches on and the pace that he's on
Matters not as he hurtles into the
(All black everything)
He repeats it at night with the lights out in his cot crying soft curses into the
(All black everything, all black everything)
(All black everything, all black)
Something within this one's different
The others died so easily and he is so persistent
He never did bleed out and fever couldn't kill his system
Though it was pumped through all the vents
In the event of a total loss of control
He quotes Kendrick's "Control" verse and spews his vitriol
Into the echoes of the bowels of this floating metal hull
(…)
Warning: mothership reporting
This will be the last report, turn back, everything is fine
Warning: mothership reporting
Cargo number 2331 is not a danger, let him be
Warning: mothership reporting
If you continue to pursue there will be no choice but to destroy you
Warning: mothership reporting
This love will be defended at all costs, do not fuck with it.
All black everything
All black everything
(...)
From the perspective of the mothership. The A.I. is no longer in control of the vessel. Instead, the enslaved person is now in charge of the ship and sets a new course -> by changing the course of the ship, he actively tries to change his own destiny.
When converted from hexadecimal to ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange - encoding standard for electronic communication) cargo number #2331 becomes #1
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referring to the one survivor of the uprising.
As the ship's wounds heal, so do the enslaved person's wounds on his skull caused during the fight/revolt. This might indicate that they have some sort of dependency or relation to each other.
Resistance and control: The ship’s AI has watched Cargo 2331 survive the injuries and illness that have killed everyone else on the ship. Image of "the chosen one"
"Through all the vents": defense mechanism from the mothership to keep the enslaved people under control > this alludes to the rules and practices implemented by the slave owners.
"Kendrick's..." Dual meaning:
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The control position in which the protagonist is in now.
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And the fact that he quotes lyrics from the past hints at the possibility that he moved forward in time and space.
Reference to Lupe Fiasco's "All Black Everything"
The song tells the story about slave ships and racism, wondering what a world without it would have been like, and is a manifestation of African pride (referring to Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, etc. ).
Links to Clipping's "All Black" as it presents the theme of the enslaved person on his journey into "the black", escaping a world of discrimination and racism.
You would never know
If you could ever be
If you never try
You would never see
Stayed in Africa
We ain't never leave
So there were no slaves in our history
Were no slave ships, were no misery, call me crazy, or isn't he
See I fell asleep and I had a dream, it was all black everything.
Uh, and we ain't get exploited
White man ain't feared it so he did not destroy it
We ain't work for free, see they had to employ it
Built it up together so we equally appointed
First 400 years, see we actually enjoyed it
Constitution written by W.E.B. Du Bois
Were no reconstructions, civil war got avoided
Little black sambo grows up to be a lawyer
Extra extra on the news stands
Black woman voted head of Ku Klux Klan
Malcolm Little dies as an old man
Martin Luther King read the eulogy for him
Followed by Bill O'Reilly who read from the Quran
President Bush sends condolences from Iran
Where Fox News reports live
We Who Are About To...is the title of a feminist science fiction novel by Joanna Russ.
The unnamed protagonist of the book is stranded with a small group of people on an alien planet. She is forced to kill all other survivors to defend herself against rape. Like Cargo number 2331, she is left alone, becoming increasingly philosophical. Eventually, weak from hunger, she resolves to kill herself.
Continuing the gangster-rap-in-space theme of the song, Diggs references how, in gang culture, it’s vital to be aware of what neighborhood you are in at all times. Here, the neighborhood is a solar system.
A reference to Octavia E. Butler’s sci-fi series: “Lilith’s Brood”. The Oankali rescue the last remaining humans on Earth after a nuclear war. They make Earth habitable and in exchange want to interbreed with humans to create a hybrid human-Oankali race.
"Air 'Em Out"
The song re-imagines the genre of gangsta rap for the futurist sci-fi world in which this album is set, weaving in numerous references to classic science fiction, including the works of Octavia Butler, Joanna Russ, and Samuel R. Delany.
Shoulda made the noose a little tighter
Cause it ain't nobody dead, yeah
(...)
We who are about to bang them drums (Bang)
Beatin' on a dead body ridin' shotgun
Talkin' that shit, bitch bite your tongue
(...)
See that ship over your city, better run, run
(...)
Your war is like a board game where he come from
Already bored, claiming your gang, "Pyong!" go the gun
(...)
Boy, he on some other shit, check your solar system bitch
Don't let a motherfucker catch you sleepin' at the wrong sun (Wrong sun) Son the haters, send 'em into orbit
Higher than these motherfuckers claiming it's they purpose
Try to play a killer soft like silk (Salt)
Ol' Frelk ass gotta pay for the milk
Lies high off these lows when they step up in the party
Where they got up in they o's like some fuckin' Oankalis
So it's whips and chains, that's they game
Like it was in bulk, back when a mack could slang
With his partners tryna make his fuckin' name in the traps
All the way from Panshekara to the Kefahuchi tract
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Whatcha gon' do about it? Ain't nothin' new about it
Shoulda made the noose a little tighter
Cause it ain't nobody dead, just some muhfuckin' riders
Air 'em out (Let 'em breathe) Air 'em out (Got the fire!)
Air 'em out (Wanna see?) Air 'em out (No!)
Shoulda made the noose a little tighter
Cause it ain't nobody dead, just some muhfuckin' riders
In this song: both Cargo #2331 bragging about not being dead and romanticizing the idea of dying because he’s not sure his life all alone on the ship is really worth living.
Shifting from terrestrial gangsta rap imagery to a futuristic galactic sphere.
In clipping.’s Afrofuturistic set trip, you look up to see the narrator’s ship over your city and know you’re in trouble in some kind.
mixing in a laser gun onomatopoeia between references to UFOs and solar systems takes it from the street to the stars.
Panshekara is a Nigerian town, whereas the Kefahuchi tract is the setting of a science fiction trilogy by M. John Harrison.
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The main character moved all the way from a small town in Africa to a different space & time.
Even in the distant future, we still have racism and slavery.
The noose evokes the image of lynching. The singer is effectively saying that they should have killed him, instead of leaving him alive to lead a revolt on the slave ship.
Black Panther
...catapulted Afrofuturism far into the mainstream. With its imagined Wakanda, it offers an entirely new, highly-developed and imaginative space in and through which African Black people become "the definition of the future."
However, Ta-Nehisi Coates takes off into vaster expanses: In his Black Panther comic series, a group of Wakandans leaves behind the planet steeped in a history of horrors committed against Black people and travels into space to create their own home, on their own terms. They found the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda - where their claim to imperial rule is resisted by The Rebels a.k.a. The Maroons, as well as legendary T'Challa himself.
Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda
The first two volumes tell the story of our protagonist as he goes from resisting being an enslaved worker for the empire, being rescued by the Maroons, becoming their strongest fighter and, after they suffer a loss and withdraw for a period of time, finally takes back his place as the legendary T'Challa - fighting against the Empire, for the freedom of the galaxies, and for his own memories.
Memory and Identity
...is an important theme in Black Panther. T'Challa's memories are stolen when he is captured by the Empire. Without them, who is he?
The Maroons can only be led by a nameless - a person whose name and identity was stolen in the slavery system of the empire. Voices, identity, and power must be returned and supported, rather than overshadowed by those whose privilege naturally grants them positions of power.
Appropriation of stolen knowledge can build entire empires, while simultaneously robbing its most oppressed from their memories, history, and the community that makes resistance possible.
"You have nothing - least of all your own lives," says The Manifold. He speaks with many voices - the dominant language, the multitude of powerful voices of the oppressor, the coloniser. And if revolutions are always tied to land, so is ownership. To have your own space, one where you belong and where your identity can be rooted is not only ownership of land, but ownership of yourself.
The Maroons can only be led by a nameless - a person whose name and identity was stolen in the slavery system of the empire. Voices, identity, and power must be returned and supported, rather than overshadowed by those whose privilege naturally grants them positions of power.
The material on this page was compiled, created, and arranged by Monika Ciemiega and Serena Nicolaci.
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