When I found out they were black, my world just stopped.
September 4, 2014 6:38 AM   Subscribe

“These are young people who refuse to be put in a box, but are still trying to make sense of themselves. Over the years, the concept of Black rock has been rejected by both Blacks and whites. Afropunk shows that there are other types of Black experiences. It’s exciting to see Blacks who are unafraid to go a different way.” Afropunk Before Afropunk

Also: 24 favorites looks at Afropunk and Meet you on the AFROPUNK Festival #1 & #2
posted by Brandon Blatcher (8 comments total) 31 users marked this as a favorite
 
The NY Times has had two or three photo sets from Afropunk in the past couple of weeks also. The music is clearly great, but now I want to go just for the people watching.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:47 AM on September 4, 2014


Love the sharp-dressed man in grey and black. Much more of this, please.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:47 AM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


The pics in the 24 favourites link are fantastic, love all the styles and looks.
posted by marienbad at 8:00 AM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Afropunk is a glorious, amazing event, and attracts a lot of fun fashionista types. This year's lineup didn't blow my mind as hard as last year (Big Freedia *and* The Coup *and* Chuck D), but was still damn fine. Plus NYC festivals are just consistently more chill than those held in the hinterlands, perhaps because it's so much easier to walk out the gate and buy some damn water.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 8:45 AM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Cool post.

The Bad Brains and Fishbone have the the post punk era covered, but there should also be mention of Death, the Detroit protopunk band that deserves as much credit for presaging punk as the more frequently mentioned Detroit bands the Stooges and MC5.

Here's a YT link to Death's album "For the Whole World to See".
posted by mondo dentro at 10:25 AM on September 4, 2014 [7 favorites]


To add, if I may, here is a link to AFROPUNK: The Movie

Note: it's on there legally, and was posted by the creators (at least, I assume that James Spooner approved of the upload to YouTube).
posted by Shouraku at 1:30 PM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Bad Brains (with Living Color vocalist Cory Glover subbing for bugged-out front-man H.R.).

That sounds great, gotta keep an eye out to see if they play here.
posted by InfidelZombie at 1:46 PM on September 4, 2014


Yay Afropunk!!

Seconding what ThatFuzzyBastard said: Afropunk is pretty much the best music festival in NYC year-on-year. Though last year's lineup was way more mind-blowing than this year's, it was still awesome to see Bad Brains, even without H.R.

The event is nothing if not inclusive and welcoming (I mean, this is the t-shirt), but there's definitely a ton of people people who are dressed to see and be seen. I always feel a little schlubby in the face of all the gorgeous people promenading around.

(One gripe: I wish they'd bring back the BMX halfpipes. Watching the skaters and bikers flip tricks was just as awesome as seeing bands play.)
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:15 PM on September 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


« Older Run Walter, RUN   |   Out of this world Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments