The "Robot Voodoo Power" thesis: Afrofuturism and anti-anti-essentialism from Sun Ra to Kool Keith

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorRollefson, J. Griffith
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-30T10:33:22Z
dc.date.available2017-05-30T10:33:22Z
dc.date.issued2008-03
dc.date.updated2017-05-30T08:17:05Z
dc.description.abstractIn the 1990s the term Afrofuturism emerged to describe a vein of science fiction inspired artistic production that repositions black subjects in a purportedly race free future that is nonetheless coded as white. While ostensibly about the future, Afrofuturism in fact works dialectically with an equally overwritten past to critique the reified distance between racialized fictions of black magic and white science. This study examines this dialectic by focusing on three Afrofuturist musicians: the experimental jazz bandleader Sun Ra, the funk bandleader George Clinton, and the hip hop artist MC Kool Keith. Using the concepts of Ra’s myth-science, Clinton’s P-Funk, and Keith’s robot voodoo power, the article tracks a historical continuity of collapsing fictions of both past and future in Afrofuturist music. Following from Paul Gilroy’s discussion of the unsatisfactory nature of the two critical positions most commonly taken with regard to black identity—the essentialist and anti-essentialist arguments—the article proposes that such Afrofuturist constructions reflect strategic versions of what Gilroy refers to as anti-anti-essentialism. The robot voodoo power thesis thus recognizes in Afrofuturism a dialectical third way out of the double binds and unproductive debates about racial essence and non-essence.
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationRollefson, J. G. (2008) ‘The "Robot Voodoo Power" thesis: Afrofuturism and anti-anti-essentialism from Sun Ra to Kool Keith’, Black Music Research Journal, 28(1), pp. 83-109.en
dc.identifier.endpage109en
dc.identifier.issn0276-3605
dc.identifier.issued1en
dc.identifier.journaltitleBlack Music Research Journalen
dc.identifier.startpage83en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/4030
dc.identifier.volume28en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherCenter for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois Pressen
dc.relation.urihttp://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/bmrj.html
dc.relation.urihttp://www.jstor.org/stable/25433795
dc.rights© 2008, Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Black Music Research Journal, 28(1), Spring 2008. To access the final published work see http://www.jstor.org/stable/i25433789en
dc.rights.urihttp://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/preprints.htmlen
dc.subjectVoodooen
dc.subjectAfrican American cultureen
dc.subjectSoul musicen
dc.subjectParliamentsen
dc.subjectFunken
dc.subjectSubjectivityen
dc.subjectRobotsen
dc.subjectScience fictionen
dc.subjectUniversalismen
dc.subjectNarrativesen
dc.titleThe "Robot Voodoo Power" thesis: Afrofuturism and anti-anti-essentialism from Sun Ra to Kool Keithen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
2966.pdf
Size:
443.43 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Accepted Version
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
license.txt
Size:
2.71 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
Music - Journal Articles
Publication Exchange Project - Journal articles