In his 1993 essay “Black to the Future,” Mark Dery, a respected cultural critic, coined the term Afrofuturism as a way to describe the cross-cultural philosophy of artists, and musicians, and writers who drew on a technology infused utopia, inspired by the space age, to reimagine Black futures in America. What made Afrofuturism so unique was that it looked back as much as it looked forward—equally indebted to the histories, cultural identities, traditions, and mythologies of the African Diaspora as it was to futurism. It wasn't an aesthetic but an approach. But it's been 30 years since Dery's original thesis, and I wanted to do a little deep dive into how Afrofuturism has evolved in those three decades and what the future of Black futures could look like in, um, the future.
It’s a Bugatti Spaceship.
If science fiction is the intersection of fiction, science, philosophy and technology, Afrofuturism is all that plus flava. In the late '60s and early '70s, it was a way for musicians like Sun Ra, Grace Jones, and Parliament Funkadelic, authors like Octavia E. Butler, and visual artists like Renee Cox to imagine an escape from the oppressive social and political climate of the Vietnam war and post–Civil Rights era somewhere in outer space. But the '90s saw a shift. With computers more accessible than ever, the 1990's ushered in an era of what I'm going to affectionately dub Cyber-core, or the techno obsessed, latex era. (Yes, ya girl did own a pair of lime green latex pants.)
During this time, Black futurism was probably most prominent in music—In his music video for "What's It Gonna Be?!", Busta Rhymes looked like some version of the T-1000 from Terminator. Missy Elliot's entire '90s canon consistently featured images of empowered Black women across space and time. And Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez was cyber perfection in a blue borg ensemble in TLC's "No Scrubs" music video, cementing one universal truth: There are no scrubs in space.
On the big and small screens Black faces were slow to become more prominent in speculative fiction—Whoopi Golden made her first appearance as Guinan, an enigmatic bartender who ran Ten Forward aboard the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1988, 1997's Men in Black, starring Will Smith, was once one of the highest grossing sci-fi film of all time, and 1999's The Matrix featured the most diverse cast young me had ever seen in a piece of spec fic—but these weren't Afrofuturist stories. Black people were an aesthetic, not an approach.
If You Weren't So Stubborn, You'd Make a Great Queen.
In her essay turned short story collection "How Long 'Til Black Future Month?", N. K. Jemisin recalls her early experiences with science fiction, namely watching The Jetsons, an animated series set in the far future, and being struck by how homogenous their society was. "There is nobody even slightly brown in the Jetsons world," said Jemisin. "Even the family android sounds white." And considering non-white people make up the majority of the world's population—even in the '60s—"What happened to all of those people in the minds of the show's creators. Are they down beneath the clouds where the Jetsons never go?" Jemisin would go on to have to hand in shaping Black futures in her own work, building on the legacy of the Grand Dame, the GOAT, Octavia E. Butler, to effectively contend with the violence and aftermath of colonialism...in space.
Because of authors like Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor (whose acclaimed novels for young adults include Who Fears Death and the Binti Series), and Nalo Hopkinson (whose dystopian novel Brown Girl in the Ring still gives me chills), the 2000's not only saw an uptick in Afrofuturist stories and new reimaginings of what Black futures could look like for the culture, but more specifically what the future could look like for Black women. The legacy of third wave feminism—addressing the dearth of women in positions of power, embracing the spirit of rebellion instead of reform, encouraging women to express their sexuality and individuality—was making waves in sci-fi stories, most notably Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale. And Black, female-identifying authors were keen on the fact that, like The Jetsons three decades earlier, there were no Black faces in Atwoods vision of a Gileadic future. But they were also adamant that they did not need white voices telling their stories for them.
Black lit of the early 2000's to early 2010's was an era of badass Black female space cadets, Goddesses descending down from heavens on sleek ships, and scrappy young teens using their wits not their fists to thrive on the Steampunk streets of Orleans. And as recently as two days before finishing this beast, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was (unjustly) criticized for having one too many woms—driven by its female heroes Shuri, Okoye, and Ramonda, Queen Mother of Wakanda. On this, Marvel Studios VP of Production & Development Nate Moore said "The female-centric vibe of the movie is just organic storytelling. Like, I guess, we could’ve introduced more male characters, and shoved them in there, or figured out ways to get other male heroes in there if our goal was just to have more guys. But that’s not a great goal for anybody to have..." Preach.
Wakanda. Forever.
While we're on the subject, no modern take on Afrofuturism would be complete without mentioning Black Panther, the one billion dollar juggernaut that pushed the genre into the mainstream, as we, unfortunately, live in a world where nothing is mainstream until white people know about it. (Insert joke about Keke Palmer "breaking out" in 2022, despite being a staple of the industry—albeit in black households—for nearly 20 years.) The film is a solid introduction to Afrofuturist themes with the African Diaspora and technology taking center stage in a hypnotic blend of African traditional art and dress and space opera. So while I won't go into depth about the film itself, here's where I'd like to point out that not all Afrofuturism is created equal.
While Marvel's cinematic masterpiece certainly qualifies and marked a milestone for the genre, the late 2010's also marked a need for clear distinction in Black speculative fiction; There's Afrofuturism, not to be confused with African-futurism, not to be confused with Black Speculative Fiction. So what's the difference? African Futurism is rooted in Native African experiences and aesthetics while Afrofuturism focuses on western Black experiences. Not all, but on the whole, African Futurism draws on themes of tribalism and mysticism, while Afrofuturism seeks to contend with a history lost to colonialism while simultaneously reclaiming a Black-led future.
On this, the aforementioned Nnedi Okorafor, a Nigerian American author, said, "I understand the necessity of it. I understand the uses of it. But I do not consider myself an Afrofuturist" as she doesn't write from the cultural lens of western Blackness. (If you've ever wondered why Black Americans use the term Black rather than African American, there's half your answer.) Her African mythology-inspired Binti trilogy and other works begin at a different understanding of history, which no doubt influence her conception of the future. But for many Black Americans, myself included, our histories are lost. This is why a common theme of Afrofuturism is the search for self—a way of finding and shaping a past to begin with in order look to the future. It's also important to note that a Black face in speculative fiction does not Afrofuturism make.
Alyssa Cole's 2020 novel When No One Is Watching, for example, is Black Speculative Fiction—touching on themes that plague western Blackness like gentrification, class, and privilege, but doesn't seek to look forward, and is therefore not an Afrofuturist work. Afrofuturism is not an aesthetic but an approach.
The same year Black Panther was released (2018), two more seminal works would garner mainstream appreciation for Afrofuturist narratives; Janelle Monáe's Dirty Computer, a short film tied to an album of the same name, with sterling electro-pop and dense thematic nods to sci-fi landmarks. It was (and still is) epically iconic, and Monáe’s musical exploration of life as an outsider, a reference to her own position at the intersection of queerness and Blackness. And Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone, a Nigerian-inspired fantasy series following a group of people working together to prevent the eradication of their magic by a vengeful monarchy. And though the latter is epic fantasy—a la Lord of the Rings—and not Afrofuturism as it's often miscategorized, I can't deny its hand in increasing interest for both science fiction and fantasy tales from not only a non-white, but a non-Western lens.
We Can Still Heal You.
In a post Black Panther Afrofuturist era the future is comparatively bleak. The discourse around Generation Zoom, modern policing, the ethical use of technology, censorship, government surveillance, and rise (again) of fascism—all of which sound like something straight out of George Orwell's 1984, yet are very much real and very much happening right now—have bled into fiction, leading to a slew of Black helmed dystopias. Dystopias offered a way for Black visionaries to grapple with harsh truths and the human condition in ways that still put Black faces front and center.
N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, which concluded in 2017 but surged in popularity post Black Panther, for example, takes place in a landscape blasted by regular periods of apocalyptic natural disasters. And Tochi Onyebuchi's Riot Baby (2020) spans the '90s to the near future and follows two siblings as they deal with systemic racism, police brutality, and mass incarceration...while they also develop superpowers.
At present, optimism continues to wane. And the bright, colorful, lively and thriving utopia of Black Panther has yet to endure. But that isn't to say it won't. Ytasha Womack, author of the seminal work Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, is more hopeful about the movement. “As people create more works and more spaces to share their work, growth will continue,” she says. “ultimately, creating more intersections of thought and a web of healing and inspiration that anyone can connect to and grow from.”
With this in mind, I do believe the pendulum will eventually swing the other way—with more Black Panther-esque, vibrant visions of peace and cohabitation and fewer broken people in broken places—with Afrofuturism leading the way in rescuing even the most staunchly pessimistic among us from despair.
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