Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o is a member of the remarkable cast, in the lead role but the other talents are impressive as well:  Pascale Armand, Akous Busia, Zainab Jah and Saycon Sengbloh.
The powerful script is well rendered by the impeccable interpretation of these women that we would love to see more often and on the big screen.
If you are in New York or are just passing through, I recommend you see it!

Translated by Alberta Wilson

Referring to the permanent “state of emergency” in America, he cited the murder of young Mike Brown in Ferguson, the prison system that disproportionately jails Blacks and concluded with his long-time hero, Nat Turner.
Nat Turner is the main character of The Birth of a Nation.  His name may be relatively unknown in France but he is by no means a fictional character.  This slave, a hero of the Black struggle, organized a slave uprising in 1831. Nate Turner’s film tells the story of that bloody uprising.

The title of the film deliberately echoes the D.W. Griffith movie, well-known for its depiction of the abject state of the racist ideology that flourished in the U.S. at that time.  To ensure that his film would be seen by the greatest number of viewers, especially high school students, Nate Parker refused Netflix’s financially attractive offer to finally settle with Fox Searchlight.

Like most of those at the conference, I was impressed by the powerful presentation of this committed actor whose sharp reserve is more remiscent of media personalities.

Let’s hope this film will shake up the white consensus that has pervaded the Oscars for the past few years and obtain its due in the 2017 ceremonies.

Traditionally, the ceremony is held in February, Black History Month.  But snowzilla hit, pushing it into March. BET HONORS began in 2008 to recognize African Americans who excel in such varied fields as business, entertainment, film or public service.

This year’s awards went to:

Lee Daniels (TV and Film) – Director of The Butler, among others and creator of the hit TV series, Empire; Eric Holder (Public Service) – former US Attorney General; Mellody Hobson (Corporate Citizen); Patti LaBelle (Music Arts) – iconic singer with over 50 million albums sold worldwide; L.A. Reid (Excellence in Entertainment) – CEO of Epic Records who launched the careers of several musical talents, such as Jermaine Jackson, P!NK and Outkast.

Honoring them, a slew of celebrities whose lives and careers they touched, took to the stage.  Among them were Toni Braxton and Usher, discovered by L.A. Reid, Jussie Smollet, star of the series, Empire, created by Lee Daniel, Janelle Monae, acknowledging the advice she got from businesswoman, Mellody Hobson and Monica Brown, still floored by Patti LaBelle’s astounding talent.

I was privileged to interview the honorees and those closest to them.  You can see it all on BET this Sunday.

The host for the evening was Arsenio Hall (Coming to America, Harlem Nights, Black Dynamite) and it took place in the famous Warner Theater in Washington D.C., not only the US capital but the historically Black city where Martin Luther King, Jr. made his immortal I have a dream speech – the dream to see all talents recognized with racial distinction.

As your network correspondent in the US, I’ll keep you posted on goings-on in the heart of African American culture and will bring you exclusives on the biggest events through reports from New York, interviews and conferences, like for example, the one I took part in at the iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem.  I’ll also take you inside the BET Studios in Washington and backstage at the network’s most important ceremonies like BET HONORS, coming up in March.

I’ll tell all about Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month. You will also be introduced to celebrities on a regular basis.

As usual, you can watch me on BET presenting exclusive documentaries.

BET BUZZ – Monday through Friday at 8:10 PM All the lifestyle and celebrity news presented every week by RAPHAL, HEDIA and myself.

LES DOCS INEDITS – every Sunday at 9:05 PM Every week, a new BET exclusive documentary presented by ROKHAYA

Dr Eddie Glaude, Jr, , Ph.D. – Author and Chair of Princeton University’s African-American Studies Department and Taylor Branch – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author and historian best known for his award-wining trilogy of books chronicling the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, were among the panelists. AT the standing room only event,  our moderator, Brian Lehrer, asked each of us  to share our views  on racism and white privilege.
It was a magical moment!

As the latest edition of Afro-Punk Fest comes to a close, let’s have a look at a phenomenon that has gone global in less than a decade.

This year’s New York festival featured such heavyweights as Lauryn Hill and Grace Jones, among others under the Brooklyn sun.  A few weeks earlier, the first ever edition outside of the US took place in Paris to a packed house at the Trianon.

The story begins with a young Black American.

James Spooner loved a kind of music that many believed was only appreciated by Whites. Punk Rock in the 80s belonged to a universe and used formulas that didn’t seem to correspond socially, culturally or musically to Black artists at that time.

James Spooner was bicoastal before settling in New York with his family at the age of 14.  In the abounding and creative metropolis, he met other young music fans.  Like him, they were hardcore punk rockers and like him, they were young Blacks who loved the Clash and the Sex Pistols.  His racial identity quest would send Spooner to the four corners of the country.  The result was a documentary, Afropunk: A rock n roll n***r experience, that was about far more than music and in the purest DIY punk rocker fashion, became a cult reference at film festivals and the point of departure for the AFRO-PUNK  movement.

The documentary’s objective was to show young Blacks, who like the director had lived in an environment where they felt isolated, that they were not alone – that Punk Rock was not a musical genre reserved for a single ethnic group.

Furthermore, referring to Black music as a genre, tends to put Black artists is a monolithic bloc as if their music was all the same.  Afro-Punk was born to showcase an artistic diversity that mainstream media did not adequately recognize. And to remind us that the roots of rock are in the music that Blacks created.  This reappropriation is a small revolution, in the true sense of the word:  a return to the original inspirations of the music that has been “whitened” by history.

Today, twelve years after the first festival in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the movement has become huge and international.  Afro-Punk is an unprecedented creative alternative platform where musicians, dancers, painters, filmmakers, designers, photographers and other Black punk rock artists can freely express themselves.  And, like other big music festivals such as Coachella or the iconic Woodstock, Afro-Punk is an explosion of styles and trends both on stage and among the audience.

More than a just music festival, Afro-Punk has become a real movement whose actions are both  sociocultural and political in scope.  It was conceived as a safe space where even the most outlandish individual expressions can feel secure. The rules are:  No Sexism, No Racism, No Ageism and No Discrimination based on Handicaps.  A veritable manifesto!

The safe space notion continues on the web with about 450,000 Facebook followers.  The articles deal with current subjects such as the recent spread of police violence in the US.  Visitors have even been able to contribute to Color of Change to help finance an independent investigation into the death of Sandra Bland while in police custody in Texas.  The Afro-Punk page also softly influences the collective imagination through its Daily Afro photos, featuring natural hairstyles.

Punk is not dead! Quite the contrary! But if as far as the music is concerned – Jimi Hendrix of course,  and protest ideology – breaking down traditional codes, the links are well established but what about punk rock fashion influences from the seventies?

Let’s be real:  the trashy mohawks and the London black and white looks were not fashion high points.  And we can have a sigh of relief that Afro-Punk artists and followers seem more inspired by Vivienne Westwood, icon of London 70/80s style than by Sid Vicious, founding member of the Sex Pistols.

As we can see in the photography of Phill Knott and with the collective, ArtComesFirst, or the very hip inspired by the style of Basquiat, black and white is still alive.

Leather and the hardcore esthetic show up in rocker jackets and accessories as well as in tattoos.

But color is often more important and brings with it a joyful wave of creativity that sweeps away any possible confusion with an aggressive or exclusive punk rock.  As a stylist, I am thrilled to note this creative and diverse generosity.   It is a total freedom of expression that causes unusual and sometime improbable style mixtures.

We find numerous traditional African influences in the jewelry, fabrics and hairstyles. These are looks that translate our generations’ willingness to show the most beautiful and the most majestic infuse with an individual  flamboyance. “Come as you are,” is one of the festival’s slogans.

Because of this, each look has its own imprint.  It is difficult to define an “Afro-Punk style.”  It’s free, emancipated from any past or present dictates yet full of personal history.

However, don’t be fooled, this does nt mean that in a society dominated by a marketing where alternative is a style, that Afro-Punk is not a style.  So it is not surprising to find the wacky and colorful pairings of Afro-Punk kids on the pages of Vogue or Tatler or in ready-to-wear ads.

How can we be mad at the major brands for their infatuation with Afro-Punk?  Woodstock shook the mentalities of Nixon’s America in the 70s and left an indelible mark on the style esthetic of the following decades,  Let’s wish long life to Afro-Punk!  Punk is not dead!!!!!

Gayanée PIERRE with Rokhaya DIALLO

Many thanks to SainaSix for her beautiful illustrations

Translated by Alberta Wilson

A year later, Sunday August 9, activists from around the country came together to remind the world of the banal cruelty of the loss of hundreds of Black lives, snatched with impunity in a most brutal and inhuman manner.  Between emotion and reverence, in a heavily spiritual  atmosphere, grave faces surrounded the families of victims of police crimes.

Several hundred people, some young, some not so young, Americans of diverse origins, all observed four and  a half minutes of silence (a painful echo of the four and a half hours that Michael Brown’s body laid on the ground when no help was allowed near him) before going to the Greater St. Mark’s Church.

That same evening, the Police shot another 18 year-old boy.

The next morning, during a peaceful demonstration by church representatives, there was a massive and incredible arrest of 57 people including Dr. Cornel West and my friend, the activist Rahiel Tesfamariam.

I’ll keep you posted on the latest this week-end in my latest article for REGARDS.  I’ll also tell you about women activist who are making a difference – the Rosa Parkses of today – in an upcoming issue of the French ELLE.

Translated by Alberta Wilson