Contents

Introduction

Race and class

Theoretical Approach

Mark Dery : Black to the Future
Paul Gilroy: The Black Atlantic
Kodwo Eshun: More Brilliant than the Sun

Practical Approach

Jazz & Funk: Sun Ra and George Clinton
Hip Hop: From Afrika Bambaataa to the Electronic Black Market
Techno: Black Secret Technology

Sources

Jazz & Funk: Sun Ra and George Clinton

Black people are carefully supervised so they'll stay in a low position. But I'm not down there, yet I come from one of the most discriminating states in the whole world - Alabama. [Sun Ra (1914-1992)]

In 1956 Sun Ra started to perform jazz concerts with his Arkestra using Egyptian and science fiction images. He was one of 1950s pioneer of synthezisers and electronic instruments. Ra also created the "Astro Black Mythology" as a context for his music and life with a thoroughly developed cosmology and he claimed to be not from this planet, but from Saturn - the planet that was associated with the color black in Old Egypt. For inspiration he looked at Egypt's civilization, which for him - in contrast to many white scholars - was a black civilization. Trombonist Tyrone Hill states: "Knowing about ancient Egypt makes me feel better as a person, 'cause those were black people. Our race don't know very much about ourselves. In America, education and the mass media tell you black people got nothing to offer, but we've done beautiful things. Sun Ra made me aware of this."

"I don't think this planet has treated me right," Sun Ra said and claimed that he will be rescued by some extraterrestial life forms. "The Impossible attracts me, because everything possible has been done and the world didn't change," he asserted. Sun Ra serves as an important source for many contemporary black artists, but also for European composers like Stockhausen.

George Clinton started a similar career in the 1970s with his funk bands Parliament and Funkedelic. The P-Funk performances were also characterized by alien space clothing, freaky slogans and the addaption of outer space icons. Clinton sees himself more as a media subversive than a musician. Under the cover of crazy comic style shows one can perceive either "a utopian cry from the heart of diaspora, a protest against the Caucasian chalk circle of cyberspace technology" or "satirical scatology and reductive sex".1) On a more popular level Clinton passes on Sun Ra's cosmic mythology - from the "Mothership Connection" to "Dr. Funkenstein's" black secret technology - with the underlying criticism of racism and social oppression. "You have to educate the people and tell them racism's not cool, but at the same time you have to give them some jobs", he explains in an interview.2)

1) Watson
2) Watson

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