8 - Indie Music, Film and Race 2: Sorry to Bother You

Summary

The previous chapter largely focused on modes of indie-rock music within African American filmmaking, highlighting how this unusual practice could delineate offbeat or eccentric black identities. Pariah also featured several other modes of black independent music, including soul, R&B and hip-hop, and therefore points towards how indie music might be considered differently, to be more inclusive of black modes of music. There have been some developments – such as the increased use of terms like alternative R&B and indie hip-hop – which indicate increased attention paid towards non-rock and non-white forms of indie and alternative music.

The annual music Afropunk Festival is representative of a broader acknowledgement of the idea of alternative black music. Initially the festival was mainly concerned with booking punk artists (it was founded by James Spooner and Matthew Morgan). The festival has, however, changed direction since its inception in 2005; in 2008 Spooner left, to be replaced by Jocelyn Cooper, who has steered it in a more commercial direction through forging many partnerships and expanding its musical palette. Originally free, Afropunk Festival started charging admission fees for the first time in 2015 and has grown significantly since its beginnings; while still held in Brooklyn, it has also held several other international Afropunk events in cities including Atlanta, Johannesburg, London and Paris. Rachel Lifter (2020: 109) has argued that whereas Afropunk Festival was originally based around a specific subculture – black punks – it is now more broadly addressing ‘the other black experience’. The event now includes a range of different music, which still includes punk but also features hip-hop, R&B and many other types of music. If the commercial imperatives of the organisers have nudged the festival into slightly more mainstream territory, the roster of artists does nevertheless indicate that the festival is now more interested in alternative and indie modes of various black music than in punk per se. As such, the festival can be considered a very visible, and increasingly international, event at which new, though still marginal, conceptions of indie music are being constructed. Lifter, who focuses primarily on indie fashions, has also argued that Afropunk Festival and its attendant coverage have led to ‘Afro-diasporic blackness’ being ‘inserted into the visual imaginary of twentyfirst century indie’ (Lifter 2020: 105).