Afrofuturism

The prototype of an Afrofuturist, Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806) was a scientist, stargazer, mathematician, and polymath who produced knowledge for public good and used his platform to challenge racist misperceptions and the evils of slavery.  A descendant of the Dogon people, Banneker was born free in Baltimore and authored a series of almanacs that gained him broad recognition. He was also a vocal anti-racist, amplifying the cause of abolition and speaking truth to power “to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions” that echoed in the pervasively racist atmosphere of Colonial America. 

Groundbreaking author and Afrofuturist icon Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) emerged as a powerful voice in science fiction in the 1970s. Rather than mimic the styles of white male authors who dominated the field, Butler wrote stories aligned with Black cultural themes and with Black characters, often as heroic survivors in oppressive worlds. Many of her works, including Kindred (1979) and Parable of the Sower (1993), feature Black female protagonists challenging social hierarchies of race, class, and gender. Butler’s unique voice forged a path for other nontraditional voices in sci-fi.  

Bandleader and mastermind of Parliament, its sister group Funkadelic, and the musical collective of P-Funk, Clinton (b. 1941) merged the broad cultural influences of psychedelia, the Civil Rights Movement, and sci-fi pop culture to create the unique style, sound, and musical universe of P-Funk. Clinton paired the cosmic, sci-fi-influenced music of P-Funk with an array of outlandish and eclectic costumes, skits, and visual props, including this stage-worn wig.

Historian, sociologist, and scholar W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) developed these hand-drawn infographic charts of African American life in 1900 to document the varying aspects of the history and “present condition” of “the American Negro.” Du Bois, a proto-Afrofuturist, displayed these charts at the Paris Exhibition in 1900, using graphs and data visualization to present a scientific method to analyze the past and present living conditions of an underrepresented people. 

Musician, producer, mentor, and futurist, Nona Hendryx (b. 1944) is driven by her constant push to re-create and reenvision her art and image, utilizing technology to invent new musical and aesthetic forms throughout her career.  As a founding member of the pop group LaBelle, she wrote songs such as “Cosmic Dancer” and “Space Children” about Black futures, citing Superman comics, quantum theory, and the film Attack of the 50 Foot Woman as inspirations. She envisioned the space-age look of the group with Puerto Rican designer Larry LeGaspi. Creating art without boundaries within a music industry that historically imposes strict ideas around genre, gender, and race, Hendryx makes music to not only challenge but destroy existing norms.

When Henrietta Lacks (1920–1951) died of cervical cancer in 1951, cell tissue was removed from her body without permission. These cells became the source of the HeLa line, the first immortalized human cell line of paramount importance to scientific and medical research. Unwillingly providing the cellular makeup used to develop the polio vaccine, in vitro fertilization, cloning, and other scientific wonders, Lacks’s story, sacrifice, and history was disregarded for decades. Immortalized in portraiture, her image is reenvisioned in an Afrofuturist setting and reclaimed as the “mother of modern medicine.”

Evolving from the futuristic musical and aesthetic template established by Sun Ra, Nona Hendryx, and P-Funk, musician, songwriter, producer, actor, and activist Janelle Monáe (b. 1985) represents the 21st-century vision of Afrofuturism in music. Crafting songs and visuals about dystopian futures and android protagonists, Monáe employs similar tropes of the “hybrid-human” popularized in Afrofuturist sci-fi literature, mapping out narratives in her music to serve as a larger, symbolic platform for the advocacy of African American, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), and LGBTQ+ issues.

Lupita Nyong'o (b. 1983) is a Kenyan actress and producer. Her first feature film role was in the film 12 Years a Slave, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as multiple accolades, including the Screen Actors Guild® Award, the Critics' Choice Award, the Independent Spirit Award, and the NAACP Award. She has since starred in Mira Nair's Queen of Katwe, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ryan Coogler's record-breaking box office hit Black Panther, and most recently in Jordan's Peele's critically acclaimed horror film, Us. Nyong'o earned a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in Danai Gurira's play Eclipsed.

The musical and aesthetic foundations of Southern Hip-Hop that emerged in the 1990s were primarily laid by the Afrofuturist-inspired music of OutKast. Consisting of André “André 3000” Benjamin (b. 1975) and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton (b. 1975), OutKast’s music and consistently evolving image reflect the dreams, lives, and changing times of Black Southern culture in rural America. Forging new artistic ground along with other Southern-based musical artists such as Goodie Mob, Big K.R.I.T., and Erykah Badu, the style and sound of OutKast exemplify Afrofuturism’s reach to communicate ideas about Black futures across genre and geographic lines.