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(frenetic music)
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(applause)
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My talk,
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about Afrofuturism and the African.
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Afrofuturism is considered
what speculative fiction,
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myths, legends, science fiction,
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and the stories of that genre
are to African Americans,
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Africa, Africa of the Diaspora,
and black people in general.
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What (inaudible) refers it to is
what blackness looks like in the future,
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real or imagined.
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Now, the history of Afrofuturism
comes from America
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and was first coined
by a man called Mark Dery
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and when he started talking
about Afrofuturism
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he talks about the idea of literature,
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so the books
that Octavia Butler would write
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and things like that,
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but then it also moved
into a new region of music
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so we would have people
like Sun Ra and George Clinton
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but for me, especially Sun Ra because
he has a special place in my heart,
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He believed that he came
from the planet Saturn
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and came to earth to spread
the message of love and peace.
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Like in his movie, "Space is the Place"
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he introduces the idea of "alien"
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to black people in America.
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But that was very specifically
about African Americans
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and I wanted to find a place
for Afrofuturism in Africa.
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The first place that that led me
to is Mount Kenya, obviously,
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where the god of Mount Kenya lives
according to the Kikuyu tradition
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so Mwene Nyaga is seated
on top of this mountain
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and he introduced ourAdam and Eve,
Gikuyu and Mumbi,
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and from that were descendants
of the nine children.
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But even before the idea
of the myth of Gikuyu and Mumbi,
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the idea of Afrofuturism
or legends and myths
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and stories that were told
to me by my mother
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and she is a great storyteller
as well as a pediatrician
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so I'd have to say that her stories
were truly science fiction, truly.
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(laughter)
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I remember her telling me stories
about the way if I ate the pumpkin,
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my hair would grow.
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Or if --which is strange--
if I attach leeches to my nipples,
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my breasts would grow.
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And also... I did it.
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(laughter)
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And also, she would talk about the way
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that in the Kikuru tradition,
if you circle the Mugumo tree seven times,
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you would change sex.
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Growing up, obviously,
past my mother's stories,
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I began to read stories of my own
and they were inevitably filled
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with the ogre and the young girl
who wandered off into the forest
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and what would happen
if she wandered off into the forest
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and how she would meet this terrible ogre
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because she departed
from the ways of the society.
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That's also when I met Ben Okri
and the idea of the spirit child
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and the idea of using spiritualism
or mythical realism within storytelling.
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That, for me, is also
a link to Afrofuturism.
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But what really inspired me about Ben Okri
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was his ability to merge seamlessly
the idea of the spirit world and fiction.
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And the idea that we live in a continent
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that is so closely linked
to the spirit world
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that we use it in a very
everyday sort of way
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and that is true
when we come to witch doctors,
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sangoma, or people who deal
with the spiritual realms.
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It's also true of genies of the coast
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and I don't even know how many of you
have gone to Mombasa or Zanzibar,
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but I know from personal experience
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there was a cat that followed me
for five kilometers,
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or every time I turned around it was there
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and I could have sworn it was a genie.
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I'm positive about it.
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In fact, I have friends
who attest to the fact as well.
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So Afrofuturism has always been
part of our culture, part of us.
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But more interestingly, it has been part
of the history of West Africa.
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Now, West Africa is believed,
especially in money,
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there is a nation
of people called the Dogan
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and the Dogan people believe
that they were told
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about a planet called Ceres B
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before it was discovered
by Western scientists.
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They were told of this planet
by a race of amphibian-like aliens
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who came in from the ocean
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and told them, not only about a planet,
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but also about the rotation of the planet
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and how it worked in space.
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Some of the cave drawings, like these,
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showed the amphibian creatures
at the bottom of the people,
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or the people who came
to speak to them about this planet.
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Then, later on, it was discovered,
so they had the knowledge in 1930
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but it wasn't until the '70s
that the actual planet was seen.
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If that isn't curious science fiction,
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history, I don't know what is.
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But also from South Africa
we have people like Credo Mutwa
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who believes there is
a reptilian race of people
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whose bloodline extends
into modern day royalty
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and modern day business people
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and is what, I guess, theorists
would call the Illuminati.
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So we've established that fact--
fact or fiction.
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Myths have always existed
very, very closely to us,
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but there's been a growing need
for the idea of Afrofuturism
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and I'd have to ask why?
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And when talking about it,
I talked about it to a friend of mine,
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and he said, "Africans are inherently futuristic,
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given the sheer capriciousness
of our present situation."
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That was my friend Michael