Afrofuturism in Black Music

In the first half-century after Mamie Smith recorded “Crazy Blues” in 1920, the spiritual ethos that permeated Black secular music was reflected in blues-based forms. The mid-20th century witnessed the first inklings of Afrofuturism in jazz and rhythm and blues. Sun Ra’s 1948 home recording “Deep Purple” included notes that later became associated with extraterrestrial signals. A few years later, in 1952, he organized a small band, the Space Trio, which became the foundation for his Arkestra, a larger band he created in 1953, modeled on swing bands, such as those of Fletcher Henderson, who inspired and mentored Ra as a young musician. But even in his remembrance of Henderson’s musicianship, Ra underscored spirituality. “Fletcher was part of an angelic thing,” he said. “A lot of things that some men do…come from somewhere else, or they’re inspired by something that’s not of this planet.” While some might attribute Ra’s comments to mere adulation, they actually reflect a mental process or conceptual approach to music-making.

Ra simultaneously identified with ancient Egypt and considered himself a space traveler. His cosmology was rooted in Black vernacular culture. He transmuted traditional Black folk images into an African American narrative of Egyptology that celebrated flight and freedom in an ontological context later described as Afrofuturism. Yet spirituality remained a common thread in his transition from a conventional big band of swing to a swinging, space-age Arkestra. Religious overtones are unmistakable in song titles he selected in 1957: “Call For All Demons,” “Transition,” and “Possession.” By 1962, Ra’s imagery was prototypically Afrofuturist in such compositions as “Where Is Tomorrow,” “Jet Flight,” and “Space Jazz Reverie,” but the foundation was clearly spiritual. These references demonstrate the connection between Ra’s most famous album Space Is the Place (1973) and his adoption of the Egyptian sun god as his namesake: “Ra left the world to rule the heavens,” and Ra signified metaphysical flight as freedom through his music. Ra’s futuristic sound aesthetic, resulting from his experimentations with group improvisation, led him to pioneer the use of electronic instruments, such as the electronic piano, synthesizer, clavioline, and celeste, which is best illustrated on Space Is the Place. 

Jimi Hendrix was a pivotal figure in the history of Afrofuturism in Black music. Most writers categorize him as a rock musician. But Hendrix not only once jammed with jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who’s known for playing as many as five instruments at once. He also influenced the likes of Miles Davis, the legendary Black trumpeter and composer who was regarded as an innovator in four decades—from the 1940s through the 1970s. Davis cited Hendrix as an influence on his groundbreaking jazz-rock album Bitches Brew (1969). Though few people associate Hendrix with jazz legends like John Coltrane, Sun Ra, or Pharoah Sanders, his blues-based experimentation and his affinity for science fiction dovetailed with jazz giants’ themes and techniques. The late Black feminist writer Ntozake Shange underscores this point when she quotes Hendrix’s cover of Bob Dylan’s song “All Along the Watchtower:” “…not only will the lord find a way/but there is a way outta here.” This is the litany from the spirituals to Jimi Hendrix, ‘there must be some kinda way outta here.’

Hendrix’s search is evident in his song “Third Stone from The Sun” (1967), which displays his innovative approach to the guitar and his imaginative storytelling as a songwriter. As was often the case among stellar blues-oriented musicians, Hendrix was adept at creating tonal illustrations that represented human experiences through the medium of sound. His controversial cover of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock, in 1969, provides a well-known example of this feature of his musicianship. Whereas Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s sonic effects in “Space Guitar” coincided with sounds in 1950s sci-films, Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock is considered a classic anthem against the Vietnam War. At several points in the song, he simulates the sounds of war, particularly bombs dropping and exploding. Hendrix used this same mode of tonal signification to illustrate his interest in science fiction in his 1967 song “Third Stone from The Sun,” a titular reference to Earth’s astronomical position to the Sun.  

Hendrix’s influence among funk artists was extensive. That Betty Davis, Chaka Khan, George Clinton, and Bootsy Collins expressed admiration for Hendrix, provides some semblance of his impact. Davis prefigured Megan Thee Stallion’s aesthetic. Khan is known as the Queen of Funk. Clinton led the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, and Collins cut his teeth playing with James Brown and later joined P-Funk, mesmerizing audiences with his uniquely designed “space bass.” Hendrix was therefore a rare musician who received great respect from musicians who played jazz, rock, blues, and rhythm and blues. Where jazz musicians generally expressed thoughts and feelings in wordless sound, notwithstanding Sun Ra’s forays into film and poetry, Hendrix demonstrated that it was possible to foreground Afrofuturist sensibilities with imaginative lyrics. And he accentuated the effect by developing a distinctive form of theatricality based on styles pioneered by guitarist T-Bone Walker, which became common features of blues performances during Hendrix’s apprenticeship playing the Chitlin’ Circuit. Hendrix’s audiences witnessed fluid, vernacular, dance gestures performed in androgenous, rock-inflected outfits that showcased a contrarian spirit of total rebellion.

Funk artists elaborated on Hendrix’s model in the 1970s. Davis, LaBelle, Parliament-Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire and other artists showcased elements of Afrofuturism during this period. Women songwriters played an invaluable role. Francesca Royster has discussed Nona Hendryx’s work in her analysis of LaBelle, but Davis’s contributions to Afrofuturism have been largely ignored. Part of the difficulty is that her songwriting doesn’t highlight such themes. Rather, Betty Davis projected an Afrofuturist image in live performances that exemplified her largely southern, blues-based sensibility. Recall Ray Charles’s expression of gutbucket blues in “Cosmic Ray.” Thus, Davis remarked, “The one thing that I wish was an advantage, but isn’t, is being the first to do something. I made it easier for people like Patti LaBelle and Chaka Khan. Hell, I even had a silver space suit…when Labelle were still in jeans.”  

Davis’s simultaneous embracing of past and future realms of blackness, which typifies Afrofuturism, also exemplified conceptual elements of funk aesthetics, which tends to delight in commingling contrasts, incongruities, paradoxes, and presumed oppositions, while demonstrating aversions toward simplistic, either/or logic as well as a preference for contrarian or eccentric expression. Even the word “funk” signifies good (e.g., artistic excellence) and bad (e.g. foul smell), depending on its context. Most discussions of Davis highlight her irreverent aesthetic and attitude regarding gender and sexuality. Her songs often describe Black working-class women’s experiences in street culture; and again, she rarely, if ever, describes space travel as such. But Davis’s space-age outfit, photographed on the cover of her 1974 album They Say I’m Different, represented one component of a broader, theatrical form of visual and musical storytelling that other funk artists embellished into funklore—what George Clinton calls funk operas.

Several writers have pointed out that “ATLiens” addresses what W. E. B. Du Bois called the double-consciousness in Black people’s worldviews: “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” Similarly, André 3000 asks whether Black parents and children can avoid the “nigga syndrome” that results in loathing and intolerance from virtually all quarters of American society. But “ATLiens” also addressed alienation as a southern artist within hip-hop. He says, “They alienate us cause we different.” 

The young artist’s statement harkens back to the Source Awards in 1995 when they were “reject[ed] by New York’s ‘hip-hop’ purists.” Benjamin said, “The South got something to say.” Indeed, part of the message in “ATLiens” is spiritual. He says that “God” “speak[s] through” the rap duo and rhymes that OutKast feels compelled to be “sincere with this here.” Incidentally, Benjamin’s meaning of “sincere” is identical with the core meaning of “funk:” utmost emotional sincerity. And in the context of his storytelling, sincerity meant abstaining from intoxicants to “get [God’s] signal clear.” His phrase reflects considerable self-consciousness, particularly the capacity to question norms and the extent to which our actions reflect such influenced. Like blues artists before him, Benjamin’s verse tells a story of how he confronted his contradiction: the artist curtailed his use of guns because his spirituality constitutes a “stronger” and more resourceful “weapon.”

Among major recording artists, Badu’s collaboration with Janelle Monáe in her song “Q.U.E.E.N” points to a generational transition toward embracing and celebrating queer sexuality in Afrofuturism. “Being a queer Black woman in America,” she says, “someone who has been in relationships with both men and women—I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.” An indication of which is Monáe’s 2018 “PYNK” video, which she describes as a “celebration of creation, self-love, (sic) sexuality and pussy power.” Nonetheless, “Q.U.E.E.N.” remains an important index to her intersectional view of Afrofuturism. Included on her 2013 album The Electric Lady, the song’s title is an acronym for the following marginalized groups: queer people, untouchables, emigrants, excommunicated, Negroid. And as Monáe demonstrates, all these words cohere with the meaning of “freak.” “Am I a freak because I love watching Mary?” she sings. Badu’s genius is that she inverted the denigrating term into an emblem of (Black) feminist respect: Q.U.E.E.N. Ytasha L. Womack might as well have specified Monáe when she said Afrofuturism involves “speculation about the future rife with cultural critiques.” Chief among which is the narrow-minded, zero-sum, either-or logic that informs capitalism’s social constructions of gender and sexuality. Monáe visually projects alternatives through her both/and sensibility reflected in her androgenous image. In the “Q.U.E.E.N” video, Monáe wears her signature tuxedo with a pair of heels. Her pompadour hairstyle recalls pre-1968 photographs of the Godfather of Soul a.k.a. James Brown. The uniform reflects her own experiences and those of her family members as part of their economic survival. Monáe worked as a maid; her mother worked as a janitor; her stepfather worked a postal worker; and her father worked as a trash collector. They all wore uniforms. 

Monáe’s futuristic vision coincides with—and may actually require—the medium of film to represent effectively. Even the sound of Monáe’s music has been described as “a sci-fi cinema soundtrack.” Yet there are parallels with Clinton’s funk operas. Just as the funkmaster converted the sci-fi dichotomy (i.e., human/good versus non-human/evil) into allegories of funk (wherein Dr. Funkenstein and his crew extolled previously demeaned values as positive or good), Monáe created Cindi as a symbolic figure whose exploitation and alienation invoke ongoing forms of margination in present-day America.  

Interestingly enough, listeners learn much about Cindi from liner notes included on compact discs for The ArchAndroid and The Electric Lady. Of course, liner notes are yet another page from the past. Record companies used them to introduce jazz musicians and their compositions on albums in the 1950s and 1960s. But Monáe’s versions are miniature short stories: fictional accounts written in letter-format by a fictional author named Max Stellings. As Vice Chancellor at the Palace of the Dogs Arts Asylum, Stellings reveals that Monáe is Patient #57821 at the asylum. “Dear Listener,” he begins. Then he tells the dystopian story of Metropolis. We learn that the patient Monáe is the genius behind the beautiful songs and imagery on the banned albums; that she has been “snatched,” “genoraped,” and “sold illegally to the highest bidder on a body farm;” that her DNA was stolen; that she was “forced into a time tunnel and sent back to our era;” and that her DNA was used to create the android Cindi Mayweather who lives in 2719 and creates a new form of music called cybersoul. She accordingly achieves rock-star status and becomes the leader of a rebellious, android movement. As such, Cindi is the Arch Android. Her ultimate transgression, though, is her forbidden love affair with Anthony Greendown, a human. And quite naturally, Cindi’s story of forbidden love between an android and a human is a thinly disguised reference to xenophobia and homophobia in everyday American life.  

But while Monáe and Clinton certainly address alienation from different vantage points, she echoes his credo that dancing is a major fault line of social inequities. In her song “Givin Em What They Love,” featuring Prince, not to mention a mutual attraction between Cindi and a shapely built woman, (Janelle Monáe - Givin Em What They Love - Lyrics) the climactic statement dovetails with Starchild’s victory over Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk in Parliament’s “Flash Light.” He says, “Dance, sucker.” Likewise, Cindi proclaims: “the last one standing will order/and command you to dance.” And after repeating this demand, she satirically invites the listener to give preachers and teachers her message. Naturally, the not-so-subtle critique here concerns conventions of morality and education that disadvantage marginalized groups at the expense of elites. A similar conflict plays out in Monáe’s song “Tightrope.” The opening scene of the video reads: THE PALACE OF THE DOGS Asylum. 

The fact that the asylum associates dancing with “subversive effects on residents” is indicative of the totalitarian nature of the Metropolis. But the image is also a satire on the process of alienation. On a basic level, Monáe’s “Tightrope” video criticizes false justifications used to define social groups as less moral, less intelligent, less beautiful, and ultimately less valuable. Once these definitions are established, discriminatory practices based on race, gender, class, creed, and/or sexual orientation become increasingly normalized—this is Monáe’s premise in a nutshell.

Afrofuturism has become increasingly meaningful to many writers, scholars, visual artists, and musicians. And while this is especially true for Black artists and intellectuals, it is also true for critical thinkers who are not African Americans themselves. DJ Spooky and Meshell Ndegeocello, who emerged in the 1990s, have also made important contributions. More recently, artists such as Flying Lotus, Future, RZA, Thundercat, Moor Mother, and others, including singer and songwriter Candice Hoyes, have made contributions. A graduate of Harvard who earned a JD degree from Columbia University, Hoyes is an artist-intellectual whose 2021 EP Blue Lagoon Woman exemplifies several Afrofuturist characteristics. Two of her songs, “Zora’s Moon” and “Waiting for the World (Tired),” were inspired by Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, respectively. Her scholarship on such luminaries of African American cultural history represents a noticeable departure from the usual practice of isolating creativity and critical analysis, and the textures of her sound exemplify Afrofuturism as well.  

As Hoyes states, “‘Waiting for the World (Tired),’…features the 1930 poem ‘Tired’ by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes set in a lyrical Afro Futuristic soundscape.” But in the final analysis, maybe it’s most notable that the Black London-based jazz piantist Ashley Henry reprised Dr. Funkenstein’s motif in his 2019 song “STAR CHILD.” Evidently, the Mothership made a stop in the UK.