Space is the Place: Afrofuturist Music Videos

By Ashley Clark

The term "Afrofuturism" was coined by cultural theorist Mark Dery in his 1994 essay "Black to the Future." While championing the work of pioneering African-American authors of speculative fiction including Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delany, Dery expressed surprise at the relative lack of African-American sci-fi literature. This absence was curious, he said, because “African-Americans, in a very real sense, are the descendants of alien abductees; they inhabit a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but no less impassable force fields of intolerance frustrate their movements; official histories undo what has been done; and technology is too often brought to bear on black bodies.”

Brooklyn Close-Up: The Wiz

Just a cursory glance at the roster of legendary talent behind The Wiz is enough to clue you into its prestigious position in black film history. Despite the enduring popularity of Cabin in the Sky, the original Sparkle, and recent big-budget successes like Dreamgirls, the African-American musical remains a small field of largely untapped potential. This ambitious, distinctly urban take on L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz—which had its first incarnation as a Tony Award-winning, Motown-bankrolled “Super Soul” Broadway production—remains one of the few black musicals to win a permanent spot in pop culture consciousness.