Three musical giants who have made monumental contributions to Afrofuturism as we know it today, George Clinton, Nona Hendryx, and Vernon Reid, in conversation with world-renowned scholar and critic Alondra Nelson. The panelists discuss Afrofuturism – where it came from, where it is going, and what it has to offer us. Featuring opening remarks by Gus Casely-Hayford, Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art. Panelists: Nona Hendryx: In the spirit of two-fisted political singer songwriters such as Nina Simone, and Joni Mitchell, Nona Hendryx tackles social issues, love and politics with a smoky vocal tessitura somewhere between funk and the end of the stratosphere. Hendryx’s legendary career spans decades of sound and style evolution. Fans know her as a founding member of the group who morphed from Patti Labelle and The Bluebells, into the Rock & Funk Glam Diva's 'Labelle' with the #1 record, Lady Marmalade. Nona Hendryx emerged as the chief songwriter of the group’s socially conscious and illuminating message songs. George Clinton George Clinton is one of the foremost innovators of funk music and was the mastermind behind the bands Parliament and Funkadelic. Clinton has become recognized as the godfather of modern urban music. Beats, loops, and samples of P-Funk have appeared on albums by OutKast, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliot, De La Soul, Fishbone, and many others. As Clinton has said, "funk is the DNA of hip-hop and rap." In 1997, Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Guitar Center's Hollywood Rock Walk, and earned a Lifetime Achievement Award at the NAACP Image Awards. Vernon Reid London-born American guitarist, founder of Living Colour and a co-founder of the Black Rock Coalition, Vernon Reid has done a great deal to undermine stereotypical expectations of what kinds of music black artists ought to play; his rampant eclecticism encompasses everything from hard rock and punk to funk, R&B and avant-garde jazz, and his anarchic, lightning-fast solos have become a hallmark. In 1980, he joined Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, and over the course of the decade, Reid went on to work with a wide variety of experimental musicians including Defunkt, Bill Frisell, John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, and Public Enemy. Vernon has also composed for noted film-makers Charles Stone 3rd, Shola Lynch, Gabri Christa, Brad Lichtenstein, Kasi Lemmons, Laurence Fishburn, & Thomas Allan Harris. Moderator: Dr. Alondra Nelson Alondra Nelson, President of the Social Science Research Council and Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, is an acclaimed researcher and author, who explores questions of science, technology, and social inequality. Her books include Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination, The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome and Technicolor: Race, Technology and Everyday Life. In 2002, Nelson edited “Afrofuturism,” an influential special issue of the journal Social Text, drawing together contributions from scholars and artists, who were members of a synonymous online community she established in 1998.
Video Duration:
1 hr 40 min 36 sec
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