THE CCCADI CRITICALLY BLACK DIALOGUE SERIES IS DEDICATED TO EXPLORING ISSUES AND TOPICS THAT EXAMINE THE DEEPLY ROOTED PAN-AFRICAN VISION THAT HAS ALLOWED US TO SURVIVE, DESPITE OUR STRUGGLES, AND HAS KEPT US INTERCONNECTED TO THIS DAY.

Our next Critically Black Dialogue Series: AfroFuturism within Black Globalism will curate a conversation that pushes new boundaries of how we understand AfroFuturism, thinking critically about AfroFuturism in a Black global context with Jamaica as a key city center and credible source as a producer of futuristic fables, songs and wisdom. 

This installment is part of CCCADI’s five-month-long program series, Rhythm, Bass and Place: Connections and Reflections on Music of the African Diaspora, a celebration of the migration and creative evolution of Black music that highlights the routes and circulations of rhythms and sound culture in a Diasporic context.

Led by moderator Lynnée Bonner, consultant for Rhythm, Bass & Place, and guest panelists Louis Chude Sokei and cultural workers Rianna Jade Parker and Cyndi Anafo of London, this upcoming February dialogue will explore Black British Music in relationship to sound system, bass culture, and the African Diasporic musical contributions to the UK sonic landscape.

Using Sokei’s piece Dr. Satan’s Echo-chamber, the conversation will introduce and guide audiences to think about the lasting impact of the futuristic nature of sound system culture and the Diasporic techno-obsessed musical genres created between Jamaica, the US, and the UK.

This virtual panel discussion will be available for viewing on this page, February 16th at 7 pm (EST) and via the CCCADI Facebook page and Youtube channel.

Meet the Speakers

Louis Chude-Sokei

Louis Chude-Sokei is Boston University Professor of English, George and Joyce Wein Chair in African American & Black Diaspora Studies, Director of the African American & Black Diaspora Studies Program. 

Louis Chude-Sokei teaches at Boston University and directs the African American and Black Diaspora Studies Program. His work includes the award-winning The Last Darky: Bert Williams, Black on Black Minstrelsy and the African Diaspora (2005), The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics (2015) and the acclaimed memoir, Floating in A Most Peculiar Way (2021). He is the Editor in Chief of The Black Scholar, one of the oldest and leading journals of Black Studies in America.

Chude-Sokei has collaborated with numerous artists and performers, including most recently the iconic Berlin electronic artists, Mouse on Mars with whom he has produced sound installations and the celebrated album Anarchic Artificial Intelligence (Thrill Jockey Records 2021) and the famed Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company with their recent performance, Curriculum II.

Chude-Sokei is also founder of the international sonic art/archiving project, Echolocution. He was also a curator of Carnegie Hall’s 2022 Afrofuturism Festival.

Cyndi Anafo

Cyndi Handson is a multipotentialite experienced across a variety of creative arenas that all fall into the pursuance of amplifying and celebrating Black arts and culture in the capital. A Gen X'er child of Ghanaian immigrants, born and raised in South London, Cyndi was immersed in Black Club music culture from the onset byway of a DJ/ record collecting father and the unique melting pot and innovation of the 80’s- early 90’s that introduced so many to the sounds of innovative Black club music.

After moving to Ghana in the 90's, she started professionally djing as a presenter and journalist working successfully in print, radio and TV before returning to the UK. Cyndi continued her love for music working under the DJ/ promoter alias manVSwife, later to be known as Handson Family with husband Chris Ellis. A keen believer in staking a claim in one's own community, Cyndi is a founding co-director of Peckham Palms, a multi-purpose commercial hub whose primary mission is to support Black and Black mixed heritage women in business.

Rianna Jade Parker

Rianna Jade Parker is a critic, curator and researcher based in South London and Kingston, Jamaica. She is a founding member of interdisciplinary collective Thick/er Black Lines, whose work was exhibited in the landmark exhibition Get Up, Stand Up Now: Generations of Black Creative Pioneers at Somerset House, London. She is a Contributing Editor of Frieze magazine and co-curated War Inna Babylon: The Community’s Struggle for Truths and Rights at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. Her first book ‘A Brief History of Black British Art’ was published by Tate in 2021 and she is represented by The Wiley Agency.

Photography Credit:

Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, 2022

Discussion Moderator

Lynnée Bonner

Lynnée Denise was shaped as a scholar and a DJ by her parent’s record collection. She is an artist, writer, and DJ whose work reflects on underground cultural movements, the 1980s, migration studies, theories of escape, and electronic music of the African Diaspora. Denise coined the phrase "DJ Scholarship" to reposition the role of the DJ from a party purveyor to an archivist, cultural custodian, and information specialist. Her bylines have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Black Scholar Journal, The Journal of Popular Music Studies, The Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, and the

Oprah Daily. Her writing is also part of anthologies including Women Who Rock, and Outside the XY: Queer Black and Brown Masculinity. In 2020, Lynnée Denise was invited to be an Artist in Residence at the Stanford University Institute for Diversity in the Arts, and she was invited to be the Sterling Brown '22 Distinguished Visiting Professor of Africana Studies at Williams College. She is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Visual Culture at Goldsmiths University of London.